Euchre Dealing & Bidding Rules

Pick the first dealer at random; cutting for it is fine. After that nobody chooses: the deal passes one seat to the left (clockwise) after every hand, so everyone deals in turn. Partners sit across from each other, so the dealer always has an opponent on the left, their partner opposite, and an opponent on the right. Those three seats bid, in that order, before the dealer.

The dealer shuffles and deals clockwise, starting with the player on their left. Everyone gets five cards in two packets, a 2 and a 3, so the deal goes around the table twice. Some dealers give 3 first and then 2; others give 2 and then 3. Bicycle’s rules have the dealer stick to whichever pattern they start with.

Four hands of five use 20 of the 24 cards. The four left over are the kitty.

The dealer turns the top card of the kitty face up. That’s the up-card (some call it the turn card), and its suit is the one on offer in the first round of bidding. The other three kitty cards stay face down. The up-card can end up in only one place: the dealer’s hand, if somebody orders it up.

Starting with the player on the dealer’s left and going clockwise, each player gets one turn to order it up (make the up-card’s suit trump) or pass. Once someone orders it up, bidding is over and that player is the maker.

• When the dealer’s partner orders it up, it’s traditionally called “I assist.”
• When the dealer takes it, that’s picking it up.
• Whoever orders it up, the dealer adds the up-card to their hand and discards one card face down, keeping five.

That last rule shapes the whole first round. Order it up from the dealer’s left or right and you’ve handed an opponent a trump; order it up as the dealer’s partner and it goes to your own side. How to weigh that is in when to order up.

If all four pass, the dealer turns the up-card face down, and its suit is out for the hand. Starting again on the dealer’s left, each player may name any suit except the turned-down one, or pass. The first player to name a suit makes it trump, and bidding ends.

Nobody picks anything up in round two: the turned-down card stays in the kitty, and everyone plays the five cards they were dealt. Naming the other suit of the same color as the turned-down card is known as calling next.

If all four pass in round two as well, tables handle it one of two ways:

• Throw it in. The hand isn’t played, nobody scores, and the deal passes to the left.
• Stick the dealer (also “screw the dealer”). The dealer can’t pass in round two and must name a suit, any suit except the turned-down one.

Stick the dealer is the common modern rule, and it speeds the game up. Our tables play it by default; a table setting turns it off, and then a double pass is thrown in and the deal moves left. What a stuck dealer should call is on the stick the dealer page.

A player who wants to play the hand alone says so at the moment they make trump: as they order it up, pick it up, or name a suit in round two. Bicycle’s rules say to declare “alone” distinctly as you make trump, so there’s no deciding later, once you’ve seen how the first trick went.

The loner’s partner lays their cards face down and sits out the hand. What a loner scores is on the scoring page, and which hands are worth it is in when to go alone.

The player on the dealer’s left leads the first trick, and after that whoever wins a trick leads the next. The only wrinkle is a loner:

• Under Bicycle’s rules, if the player on the dealer’s left is sitting out because their partner went alone, the lead passes to the next player, the dealer’s partner.
• Some tables, and British Euchre, have the player on the lone player’s left lead instead.

The two rules can give different answers. Say the player on the dealer’s right goes alone: their partner, on the dealer’s left, sits out. By Bicycle’s rule the dealer’s partner leads; by the lone-player’s-left rule the dealer does. Settle it before the first deal. Our tables use the first rule: the player on the dealer’s left leads, skipping anyone who is sitting out.