Euchre

Euchre is a partnership trick-taking game played with 24 cards (9 through Ace). You sit South with North as your partner against West and East. After the deal, one card is turned up, and players bid to make its suit trump or pass. The team that names trump (the makers) must win at least three of the five tricks.

• The right bower (Jack of the trump suit) is the highest card; the left bower (Jack of the same colour) also counts as trump.
• Order up the turned card or, in round two, name a different suit as trump.
• Follow the suit that was led if you can, otherwise play anything.
• Makers who take 3 or 4 tricks score 1; all 5 (a march) scores 2; failing to reach 3 is being euchred and hands 2 points to the defenders.
• Go alone to play without your partner for a 4-point reward on a sweep. First team to 10 points wins.

• Solo: you and an AI partner versus two AI opponents.
• Online: real-time 4-player matches against other people, with your partner seated across from you. Create an invite code, join one, or quick-match.

• Desktop: click the bidding buttons to order up, name a suit, pass, or go alone, then click a highlighted card to play it.
• Phone & tablet: tap the same buttons and tap a legal card; only valid plays are tappable, so you cannot misplay.

• Count the bowers and Aces of trump before ordering up; with three solid trump and an off-suit Ace you can usually make it.
• Lead trump early when you are strong to strip it from opponents, but lead a side Ace first if you need to cash a sure trick.
• Going alone is worth the risk when you hold both bowers plus the Ace of trump.
• Watch which suit your partner is voiding to set up later ruffs.

Euchre turns up in 1810 being played in a gaming house alongside all fours, loo, cribbage and whist, and again in 1829 — as "uker", already with bowers — on a steamboat in the American Midwest. The earliest written rules did not follow until 1844.

Where it came from is contested, with Écarté, Spanish Trionfo, Triomphe and the Alsatian game Jucker all proposed as parents. The popular American account gave the credit to German settlers in Pennsylvania.

The 1864 edition of The American Hoyle disputed that outright, placing the game's origin in Pennsylvania itself in the 1820s — and offering instead the wonderfully specific theory that a rich German farmer's daughter had visited Philadelphia and carried home a confused memory of Écarté, which then grew into euchre.

Euchre is a traditional 19th-century partnership card game and one of the great trick-taking pastimes. This is an original, free browser version with solo and online play, no download or sign-up required.

A free, original browser game on PlayPendium. No download, no install.