Bid Euchre General Rules
Players
Most often there are four players in fixed partnerships, partners sitting opposite each other.
- Deal
The game is played with 2 stripped decks using the J Q K A only, that is 32 cards in all, so that each player is dealt 8 cards.
- Bidding
Each player has just one opportunity to bid, starting with the player to the left of the dealer, going around the table clockwise, and ending with the dealer. A bid is a number of tricks (one or more), which the bidding side contracts to win if they are allowed to choose trumps, and a proposed trump suit or ‘no trump’ – for example ‘4 spades’ or ‘5 no trump high’.
At your turn you must either pass or bid a larger number of tricks than the previous bid if any. There is no rank among the suits, so it is not possible to outbid a bid in one suit with an equal number of tricks in another suit .
There are 3 additional bids to play alone: Call 2, Call 1, and Moonshot. The bidder discards the relevant number of cards face down and the bidder’s partner passes an equal number of cards face down to the bidder to replace them. In order to make their bid the dealer must win all the tricks.
- Play
The high bidder leads to the first trick. The rules of play are as in Euchre – you must follow suit. If you are void in the suit that was led you may trump or discard at will. Left bowers count for all purposes as the second highest cards in the trump suit. The first card played of two equal cards beats the second.
- Scoring
If the bidding side wins at least as many tricks as they bid, the side scores a point for each trick won.
If the bidding side fails to make as many tricks as they bid, the side loses a number of points equal to the number of tricks they bid. (It’s therefore possible for a team’s final score to be negative.) The other side still scores one point for each trick they won. Other cases: Call 2 = 12 points / Call 1 = 18 points / Moonshot = 24 points