I’m talking about the card game that’s played with cards 9 thru A, the jack of the trump suit is the highest, etc …
I have played it all my life, obsessively at times, with school friends and family and at camp and so on. But I have noticed that only people from my immediate geographical location (Southern Ontario) have ever heard of the game.
The question: do you play euchre? If yes, where are you/where did you learn?
Grew up in the Cincinnati area. My family played Euchre every week at my grandparents’ house. It was something of a right of passage to adulthood to into the game. First, they let you sit and watch. Then you got to be a “pee player” (taking over an adult’s seat while they went to the bathroom or out to the kitchen to fetch a new drink). Then you could play your own hand, but Grandpa always provided your money (10 cents a game, a nickle a set). When you were allowed to risk your own allowance, you knew you were one of the grownups.
My experience since then has been that Euchre seems to thrive in areas of the US with a history of German immigration.
Still love the game, though I have to play online. And my facorite site, the Hoyle Euchre at flipside.com, has been down “temporarily” for a couple months now.
I learned to play in Viet Nam. We were bored out of our minds at night and began playing hearts and spades. That got old after about a month, so this guy from Indiana taught us how to play euchre. That stayed with us for quite awhile until somebody showed up that knew how to play canasta.
Ah, the joys of the “laydown loner”. I learned to play when I first moved to Cincinnati, but have not had much interaction with true Cincinnatians lately. I don’t think I’ve played in 5-10 years, at least. It’s a simple enough game, provided you’re not playing against people from Miami, who seem to cheat prodigiously.
Yes, I’ve played since age 19.
I live in southwestern Indiana, and it seems to me that most people in the southern half of the state know how to play.
I learned it at parties.
Interesting ! Seems there’s something to the German ancestry (from whuckfistle’s link), although it’s funny that half my family is of German ancestry but it’s the other half that plays.
Sheepshead seems a bit different but the same basic idea. Euchre generally requires 4 people (two sets of partners), I’ve seen two-player variations but I think an essential part of the game is lost without the partnerships. Although sheepshead seems to offer a lot more flexibility ! (Where is ‘Around here,’ by the way?)
tremorviolet: “Yoo-ker”
Cheating: wrong, wrong, wrong ! The only way to play is to call “No cheating” beforehand, because it’s so easy to cheat that there’s really no point playing otherwise. It does not make you ‘cool’ to be able to cheat in euchre. It’s just bad karma.
(I note with pride that once my friend and I were challenged by these two blokes who thought they were the Euchre Kings; they were cheating prodigiously (as you say) and we still kicked their asses. Heh, heh.)
I’m from NW Indiana, and I had never heard of it until I went to college at Ball State. I fell in love with the game, and now I wish that I had some friends to play with on a regular basis.
From the responses you’ve gotten, it looks like Euchre is primarily a Yankee game (I’m from the Deep South). I’d seen it mentioned in books but never heard anyone pronounce it…
I always thought Euchre was a Michigan thing. I’ve run into people whose default answer to ‘where are you from?’ is ‘Michigan. And I don’t know how to play euchre.’
I learned to play one summer in Ohio - from a Michigan person. Played it a few times since then - but I need to be with people that know how to play. I have the rules all lumped together under ‘trump games’ and can’t remember enough to teach it.
[QUOTE=cowgirl]
Sheepshead seems a bit different but the same basic idea. Euchre generally requires 4 people (two sets of partners), I’ve seen two-player variations but I think an essential part of the game is lost without the partnerships. Although sheepshead seems to offer a lot more flexibility ! (Where is ‘Around here,’ by the way?)
QUOTE]
I learned how to play Sheepshead a couple of years ago just so I could play at a department outing. Other than it having trump and being a trick-taking game it’s quite a bit different, although not as different as Bridge or Pinochle. It might be closer to Pinochle. For one thing, the game goes on and on and on and on and on. I never played it again after that night and I never will.
Everybody in Wisconsin plays Euchre and there are quite a few Sheepshead devotees.
I’m from South Georgia originally, been in South Carolina for 8 years now. As a diver growing up, always at those agonizingly long meets, we learned every card game we could from our friends around the country. Didn’t get much practice though until I came to college and had some team mates from Indiana, Iowa, Pennsylvania, etc. We played on the agonizingly long bus rides around the country.
Taught a couple of my friends to play, and we get some good mileage out of Yahoo Games these days.
I grew up in northeastern Ohio and everyone played Euchre obsessively in high school. Since I was smack in the middle of the largest Amish community in Ohio (now the world) this supports the Germanic origin of the game. The Amish may not play cards much themselves, but their assorted non-Amish descendents and relatives sure do.
I think it’s generally a Midwestern thing. My brother told me when he moved West that nobody west of the Mississippi seems to have heard of the game. I moved West later, and discovered he was right.
It’s always been my impression that Euchre is a mutated form of Pinochle. The rules seem similar enough, but after AllShookDown’s comments I’m not so sure.