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Many clubs and other public organizations hold regular nights in which they set-up tables and play the ever-popular game of Euchre. You can join the fun and meet new friends by learning the basics of this game.
The first thing you will need to know is that this game is played with partners, and a Euchre deck consists of twenty-four playing cards; four nines, four tens, and so on, of each of the four suits-jacks, hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades. That is, it is a normal deck of cards minus the two's through the eight's. Each player is dealt five cards per h and, in sets of two or three.
If you call trump, either by picking a card up if you're the dealer, or ordering the dealer to pick up the card, then your team must take at least three tricks to get one point, or all five tricks to get two points for that hand. If you call trump but the other team takes at least three tricks, then you and your partner have been "euchred", and the opposing team gets two points. There is a way for a team to make four points in one hand, and that is for you or your partner to "play it alone." To play a hand alone, one of you must either order a card up or call trump, and then, of course, without your partner's help,you must win all five tricks of the hand. If you fail at this attempt, but do win at least three tricks, you earn one point for your team.
To further illustrate Euchre, let's look at a hand:
The dealer passes out five cards to all, then turns up the next card and places it on top of the remaining pile. The card turned up is the jack of hearts. The player to the dealer's left begins the hand. The player has no hearts in their hand, so they pass. The next player, is, of course, the dealer's partner. If they order the card up, they know their partner will have at least one trump, the card picked up. THey have two lower hearts, and no off suit aces to help, so they too pass. The next player has one heart and two off aces, but they decide to pass instead of making trump and risk getting euchred. Then comes the dealer's turn. They have enough hearts in their hand that they think they can take all five tricks, so they pick the card up and announce they are playing the hand alone. So they pick the card up, discard a card, and wait for the player to their left to begin the hand.
The trump suit ranks from highest to lowest in this order-jack of hearts, or right bower, jack of diamonds, or left bower, ace of hearts, and on down the line. Notice that, when made trump, the other red or black jack becomes trump also as the second-highest trump card.
After the lead, each player follows suit, with the highest card taking the trick. If a player doesn't have suit, then a trump card may be played. The game progresses hand after hand until one team reaches a total of ten points. They are then declared the winners.
Those are the basic plays in the game of Euchre. It is a game of chance as well as skill, but if you aren't dealt the cards, then you will need more skill than ever to win!
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