After playing in a Euchre tournament with people from all over the midwest, I discovered that there are a lot of regional and house rules for the game.  I've heard of some of these, but others have kinda blown me away and I definitely want to give them a try.

If your Euchre game is getting a little stale and you want to spice it up, try one, or several of these cool rules!

  • No Trump - After the first round of bidding ends and the card is turned down, in addition to players declaring trump, they can also declare 'no trump'.  In which case, all of the cards are just played as the suit they are, with normal card order (Ace through 9).
  • Stick The Dealer - Many people assume that this is the actual rule, but it actually isn't.  The dealer must call trump at the end of the second round and is unable to declare a misdeal.
  • Farmer's Hand - A player only having 9's and 10's can swap 3 of his cards for the unknown cards in the kitty.  Another variation of this rule is a player having only 9's and 10's can call for a redeal.
  • Robson Rules - These are a few rules made famous by a semi-famous Michigan player named James Robson.
    • Subtracting Points - When a team wins all 5 tricks, instead of adding to your teams score you can instead subtract from your opponents score.
    • Blind Loner - The dealer, without looking at his cards, can pick up a turned over jack and go alone by declaring a blind loner.  If the player takes all 5 tricks, they receive 5 points instead of 4, but if the player loses any tricks, the opposing team gets a point.
  • No Face, No Ace, No Trump - If you have no face cards, no aces, and no trump, you can declare a misdeal after trump is called but before any cards are played.  The dealer remains the same, but he has to re-deal the cards to the players.
  • Three-Handed Euchre - If you only have three players instead of four, don't worry, you can still play!  The rules are a bit long so, you can read them here.
  • Ace No Face - After the cards are dealt but before trump is called you can call for a re-deal if you any number of aces and no face cards.
  • Defending or Challenging Alone - After an opponent declares that they are going alone, you can declare that you want to defend against the loner player solo.  The hand is then decided by whichever team takes 3 tricks.  If the loner player wins 3 tricks, they get 4 points and if the loner defending player wins 3 tricks, his or her team gets 4 points.
  • Larger Deck - Some people will play with additional cards added into the deck.  You can play with 8's or 7's and 8's.  The rest of the game plays the same except you deal out more cards (6 if you use 8's and 7 if you use both 7's and 8's)

Those are just the most common of the Euchre house rules, if you searched around you can find dozen more, including using the jokers or playing to 11 instead of 10.

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