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Play­ers:
Four peo­ple in teams of two. Your part­ner should sit across from you.

Mate­ri­als:
A pinochle deck or the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, Ten and Nine in all four suits from two reg­u­lar decks of cards. This means each card will have a dupli­cate of itself. If you are already con­fused per­haps you should play Mem­o­ry with them instead. You also need a pen and paper for score­keep­ing pur­pos­es.

Help­ful Terms:
Bid: Amount of tricks that must be tak­en. A bid is a num­ber in a par­tic­u­lar suit or no-trump [high or low].

Trick: Four cards, one from each play­er’s hand.

Trump: The most pow­er­ful suit for a par­tic­u­lar hand. Trump is deter­mined by bid­ding before each hand is played.

No-trump: A bid of High or Low means that the high­est card that fol­lows suit in a trick takes the trick.

Bow­ers [right, left]: In a Trump bid, bow­ers are the jacks of col­or. the Right Bow­er is the Jack of the suit bid, the Left Bow­er is the jack of the oth­er suit in the same col­or. Ex: If Spades are Trump, the Jack of Spades is the Right Bow­er and the Jack of Clubs is the Left Bow­er. There are two Right Bow­ers and Two Left Bow­ers in Dou­ble Bid Euchre.

Reneg: Fail­ure to fol­low suit.

Euchre: When the team with­out the bid pre­vents the team with the bid from get­ting the num­ber of tricks they bid upon. This is also called ‘going set.’

Object:
To score 52 tricks.

Rules:

  • A play­er must always fol­low suit. Fail­ure to do so results in a reneg and loss of the hand.
  • A team wins if and only if they score 52 tricks or more by win­ning their bid or by euchre­ing the oppo­nent.
  • The per­son who wins the bid has the lead.
  • The per­son who takes the trick has the lead.
  • The last trick may be looked at by any play­er; pro­vid­ed that no cards have been played since it was tak­en.
  • The first instance of any card takes prece­dence over the oth­er instance. Ex: If both Right Bow­ers are played in the same trick, the first one played takes prece­dence.
  • Play pro­ceeds clock­wise begin­ning with the per­son who has the lead.

Game­play:
The deal­er offers a cut to the per­son on their right and then deals card three at a time clock­wise around the table. When each play­er has twelve cards, the play­er to the left of the deal­er offers an ini­tial bid. Bid­ding also pro­ceeds clock­wise until it comes to the deal­er who has the last bid. The high­est bid is then marked down and the per­son who made the bid leads.

Trump rank is deter­mined in this way: If Trump is Spades the Jack of Spades [Right Bow­er] is the high­est card, the Jack of Clubs [Left Bow­er] is the sec­ond high­est and in descend­ing order of impor­tance Ace, King, Queen, Ten, Nine. Trump beats any card in a non-trump suit. Thus a nine of Spades beats any off-suit Ace. If no trump cards are played in the trick, the high­est card in the led suit takes the trick.

Scor­ing:
The num­ber of tricks each team has tak­en at the end of the hand is added to pre­vi­ous hands. If a team is euchred they lose points in the amount that they bid. The score can be neg­a­tive.

Tomor­row: How to Play Dou­ble Bid Euchre Part II: Strat­e­gy

How to Play Dou­ble Bid Euchre Part III: How to Real­ly Play Dou­ble Bid Euchre