Bid Euchre Basics

Bid Euchre incorporates Euchre’s special treatment of Jacks while letting players compete to see who’s willing to bid the most tricks.

Screenshot of Bid Euchre bidding with bid type “Level”

Variations of Bid Euchre go by the names Pepper, Hasenpfeffer, Hoss, or Pfeffer. Regardless of the name—it’s fun to play.

Bidding Tricks

Bid Euchre is typically played 2v2 and begins with each player bidding how many tricks they think their team can take, starting with the player to the left of the dealer and continuing clockwise. Each player must bid higher than the highest bid so far or pass if they find it too risky.

Bidding starts at a minimum level (based on the rule options). If everyone passes, the dealer is required to make a bid if “stick-the-deal” is on. If not, the dealer advances and new cards are dealt.

Playing Alone

Players can bid “Alone” to try to take all tricks without their partner for extra points (typically 12 or 24). They may also bid to “Call 1” or more cards from their partner for help first, albeit for fewer points.

Choosing Trump

Once everyone has had a chance to bid the high bidder gets to choose the trump suit or no trump (NT). Depending on the rules, they can also choose if no trump is played with Aces being high (NT↑) or reversed with Aces being low (NT↓).

Screenshot of choosing trump with bid type “Level”

Bid Euchre can also be played with level & suit bidding, where players bid both the level and suit together. When playing with this rule option, bidding looks like this:

Bidding box with bid type “Level & Suit”

By setting the “bidding style” option to “Auction,” players continue bidding until 3 players have passed after a non-Pass bid. See the full list of rule options in Euchre Basics.

Card Order

If a trump suit is chosen then just like classic Euchre, the Jack of the trump suit becomes the highest card and the Jack of the other suit of the same color (off-Jack) becomes the second highest in the trump suit.

For example, if trump is Diamonds the ranks from high to low in Diamonds go J♦, J♥, A♦, etc. All non-trump suits remain Ace-high.

Screenshot of sorted trump in Diamonds

Play of the Hand

The player to the left of the dealer leads first and once everyone has played a card, the highest card played from the led suit wins the trick (unless a card from the trump suit was played, then the highest trump card wins the trick).

The trick winner gets to lead the first card of the next trick and play continues until all cards have been played.

Scoring

At the end of each hand, players count how many tricks their team took. If the bidding team takes at least as many tricks as they bid, they get one point for each (even extras) except for alone bids which are worth more. Otherwise, they’re set and they subtract their bid from their score instead.

The defending team always gets one point for each trick they take.

End of Game

If playing to a specific score (for example, 30), the game ends when a team reaches this score while successfully making their bid. The game continues if a team goes past this score while on defense unless they set their opponents.

Bid Euchre House Rules Options

For a complete list of supported house rules, see Euchre Basics.