The goal
In Euchre you and the seat across from you are partners. The first side to ten points wins. Each hand has five tricks. One side names trump and must take at least three of them.
The deal
Only twenty-four cards are used: nine up to ace in each suit. Each player gets five. The four left over are set aside, and the top one is turned face up. A cut decides the first dealer: the high card deals. After every hand the deal moves one seat left, and the cards go out in packets of two and three.
The turned card offers its suit as trump. Starting left of the dealer, each player may order it up or pass. If someone orders it up, the dealer takes the turned card into hand and buries any one card face down, even the one just picked up.
If everyone passes, a second round lets each player name any suit except the one turned down. Stick the dealer is a table option. When it is on, the dealer cannot pass in that round, so trump is always settled. When it is off and all four pass again, the hand is thrown in with no score and the same dealer deals a new one. At either point the player naming trump may go alone: their partner sits out, and a march is worth four. Defenders always play as a pair.
Alone, every trick has three cards. The seat left of the dealer still leads first, or the next seat along if that one is sitting out. Order up your partner, the dealer, and go alone, and the dealer sits out: the turned card goes straight into the kitty and nobody buries.
The play
When hearts are trump, the jack of hearts is the right bower and beats everything. The jack of diamonds, the same colour, is the left bower. It counts as a heart, not a diamond.
The seat left of the dealer leads the first trick, and each player adds one card. Follow the suit led if you can, remembering the left bower is trump. With no trump played, the highest card of the suit led wins. The winner leads the next trick.
If you cannot follow suit, play anything. Trumping is never required. When trump is played, the highest trump takes the trick, however small it is.
Scoring
Name trump and take three or four tricks: one point. Take all five: two points. Take all five alone and it is four; alone with three or four is still one. Three hands like these come to seven.
Name trump and take fewer than three tricks and you are euchred. You score nothing, and the other side scores two. It is two even when the player who named trump went alone.
Winning
Play hands until a side reaches ten points, or the target the table chose. Only one side scores in a hand, so there is never a tie. That side wins the game.
