Euchre

The Ultimate Game Room will be the first online poker site to offer multiplayer Euchre for money. There are a few sites out there that offer Spades for money, but the difference between those sites and ours is that ours will allow you to play with a partner as opposed to the every man for themselves style that is currently being offered. We will start by offering side games and single elimination tournaments, and eventually expand to more tournaments such as, double elimination, round robin, and many more.

Objective and scoring

In Euchre, naming trump is sometimes referred to as "making," "calling," or "declaring trump". When naming a suit, a player asserts that his or her partnership intends to win at least three of the five tricks in the hand. A single point is scored when the bid succeeds, and two points are scored if the team that declared trump takes all five tricks. A failure of the calling partnership to win three tricks is referred to as being euchred (also called "getting set" or "getting bumped," again depending on geographical location) and is penalized by giving the opposing partnership two points. A caller with exceptionally good cards can go alone, or take a loner hand, in which case he or she seeks to win all five tricks without a partner. The partner of a caller in a 'go alone' hand does not play, if all five tricks are won by the caller, the winning team scores four points. If only three or four of the tricks are taken while going alone, then only one point is scored. If euchred while playing alone, the opposing team still only receives two points. (In some places, a euchred lone player is worth 3 points.)

The primary rule to remember when playing Euchre is that one is never required to trump, but one is required to follow suit if possible to do so: if diamonds are led, a player with diamonds is required to play a diamond.

Calling (naming trump)

Once the cards are dealt and the top card in the kitty is turned over, the upturned card's suit is offered as trump to the players in clockwise order, beginning with the player to the left of the dealer. If a player decides to "call" the up-turned card as trump (which indicates that the calling team claims they will win at least three tricks), the dealer picks up the top card in the kitty. This is termed picking up or ordering up the top card. In this event, the dealer picks up the top card from the kitty and then selects a card from the hand to discard, face down, so that the dealer only has five cards. There are several regional variations on this, see below. Once a call has been made, play begins.

If a player does not want the upturned card's suit to become trump, he or she says "pass" or signifies the desire to pass by knocking on the table. The next player to the left may then order up the card or may likewise pass.

If the upturned card comes around the table to the dealer without being ordered up by any of the players, the dealer may make a bid by picking up the top card and then discarding as described above. Generally, a player may not call a trump suit if that player does not have a natural card of that suit, although some regions will allow this. For example, if the top card in the kitty is a Jack of Spades, a player cannot call Spades if the only Spade they are holding is the Jack of Clubs, the left bower.

The dealer may also decline the upturned card's suit by turning it face down on the kitty. Once this suit has been passed by all four players, it may no longer be chosen as trump.

If the upturned card's suit is not chosen by any of the four players, the players are offered the opportunity to name any of the other three suits as trump, beginning with the player to the dealer's left, and proceeding clockwise. In this case, play begins as soon as a suit is named; no cards enter or leave the dealer's hand. A player may pass as previously described, and if the calling comes around the table to the dealer without the naming of a suit, the dealer may name a suit. If he or she also declines to name a suit, the cards are collected, no points are scored, and the deal is passed to the left.

The team that selects trump is sometimes known as the "makers" for the remainder of the hand. The opposing team is known as the "defenders" for the remainder of the hand.

Winning tricks

The player to the dealer's left begins play by leading a card. (In some variations, if any player is going alone, the player to that person's left will lead.)

Play continues in clockwise order; each player must follow suit if they have a card of the suit led. The left bower is considered a member of the trump suit and not a member of its native suit.

The player who played the highest trump wins the trick. If no trump were played, the highest card of the suit led wins the trick. The player that won the trick collects the played cards from the table and then leads the next trick.

After all five tricks have been played, the hand is scored. The player to the left of the previous dealer then deals the next hand, and the deal moves clockwise around the table until one partnership scores 10 points and wins the game.

Going alone/solo

If the player bidding (making trump) has an exceptionally good hand, or if his or her partnership is in danger of losing the game unless they are able to score points quickly, the player making trump has the option of playing without his or her partner. If the bidder playing alone wins all five tricks in the hand, the team scores four points.

"Going alone" or "Going Solo" is initiated at the time the bidder orders the upturned card on the kitty to the dealer (on the first round of bidding) or names a suit (during the second round of bidding). The bidder signifies his/her desire to play alone by stating "alone" or (for example) "clubs alone" or "clubs solo" after bidding. If the dealer selects the top card, she may also declare a loner hand by sliding her discard to her partner. The bidder must make this call before play begins.

During a loner, the bidder's partner discards his or her cards, and does not participate in play of the hand.

Depending on regional rules, the lead on the first trick will either remain with the player to the left of the dealer, or switch to the player to the left of the bidder.

The odds of success of a loner bid depend on the lay of the cards and the inactive cards held by the bidder's partner. Nine cards out of twenty-four do not participate in play, making the hand less predictable than otherwise. A hand consisting of the top five cards of the trump suit is mathematically unbeatable from any position; this is sometimes referred to as a lay-down, as a player with such a hand may often simply lay all five cards on the table at once.

The rules of an individual game may state that a player who "sweeps," or wins all 5 tricks while going alone/solo gets 4 points, 2 for sweeping and 2 for going alone.

One of the opponents of the lone bidder may say "I defend alone", and his partner must stay out. The lone defender will play alone. Scoring is similar in such a case to a loner hand. Any "set" or "euchre" by a single defender going alone is worth 4 points to the defending partnership, or 3 in some regions.

Scoring

The first team to score 10 (sometimes 5, 7, or 11) points wins the game (sometimes called a round). While score can be kept by using a tally sheet, most Euchre players traditionally use the unused 6 and 4 cards, or unused pairs of 5 cards for one member of each partnership to keep score. In western New York and parts of Ohio, it is traditional to use 2 and 3 cards, crossing them to show scores higher than 5. In all cases, one card is used to cover the other so as to expose the number of pips corresponding to the team's score. A lone defender winning 3, 4, or 5 tricks (known as a march) gets 4 points. A lone defender winning 1 or 2 tricks gets zero points.

The scoring is normally done with two fives, with the number of pips showing indicating the number of points to each team. It is also common to use a four and a six, with the six on the bottom. Scoring can also be tracked with two 5, 6, 7 or 8 cards (depending on how long the game is intended to last) where again, the number of pips showing is the total score. Two 5 cards is the most common method of score keeping as the game ends when one team has reached ten points.

Betting

Betting in Euchre can be done on a per trick basis. An additional bet may be based on a per "bump" basis. What constitutes a bump can be determined on a house rules. In general a bump occurs when the calling team fails to attain 3 tricks but for betting purposes a bump can also be assigned by: failure to sweep a lone hand, committing table talk, or by being caught reneging. Getting Euchred on a lone hand may constitute 2 bumps. Bumps can be tracked with chits such as pennies piled next to the score cards. In a Euchre game where bets are placed the table may agree on "a buck a trick and a buck a bump" for instance. Bets are settled at the end of each game.