Childhood in Chagrin Falls Ohio (Cleveland 'burbs): no euchre.
High school in rural Kentucky: no euchre.
College at Indiana University: constant euchre.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, OH where we were raised on goetta and eggs. Attended college at the Univ. of Cincinnati, where I majored in Political Science and minored in Euchre.
Ace no face is for sissies. Screw the dealer is a must. If you get euchred, you have to buy (or get up and retrieve) the next round. In order to Steal the Deal you must have dealt ALL the cards. Minor table talk is tolerated.
You don’t want to sit to the left of a “Bush.” There’s no way in hell you’ll get to call a suit next to a Bush because he won’t EVER pass on calling a suit. He could have a ten and a queen of spades in his hand and be four suited, and he’ll say, “Oh, let’s try spades.” You have a minor heart attack because you’re looking at a loner in hearts. We used to deem these players "GW"s for the Great Wall (of China), but since G.W. Bush came into the public arena, they are now called “Bushes.”
You don’t want to be partners with a “Bernie” (my dad’s name) aka a “TwoFer.” This is the guy who will call up a suit without either jack or with JUST a jack. When you’re busy ponying up to the Euchre pot, you’ll ask him why in the world he called up spades, and he’ll 'splain that he was counting on his partner for two. 
Eucre was second only to Asshole in my high school. (In Ontario.)
It’s easier to find people to play Eucre with since getting out, though.
Ooh, Rucksinator, I suspected we would meet this way after your post in the other thread !
I guess I see the cheating / non-cheating versions as two different games of Euchre, with different skills involved and different goals.
In high school we played Euchre constantly (like Tengu, when we weren’t playing Asshole - and the various house rules of that game are enough to fill up a whole nother thread! … FTR, the proper way to play is one two beats everything, continuous, no suit order). I played with the same people all the time, constantly swapping partners according to who was present. So today’s opponents were last week’s partners, etc, and you always know exactly what your opponents are up to. Are you allowed to call the other team’s cheating in your version? If so, how does anything get accomplished?
If I did play in a tournament, I would most likely cheat. Thanks for the suggestions !
PunditLisa: I agree - Screw the dealer: always. No ace no face: never. I like your Euchre characters as well - I definitely know a guy who’s both a Bush and a Bernie. Being his partner is very infuriating - partly because half the time you have only three trump cards between you, and partly because he often wins anyway ! He is a math whiz so he must calculate probabilities quite quickly in his head, he doesn’t mind taking the loss because he knows it was a good gamble - and there’s always another hand to play, in case this one doesn’t work out.
Joker trump, suits, two to the Pres., one to the Vice, continuous or non based on who was playing. You’re right about the single 2, though. (Although some groups used a ‘One less’ variant - a single 2 beats a single or a pair, a pair beats 3 of a kind, and 3 beats 4. 4 beats anything short of a Joker, but who wants to waste that last 2 unless you’re going out that play!)
Michigander (troll, not yooper) here. My wife’s family all play Euchre, but nobody on my side did. Sometimes my wife’s clan will have Euchre tournaments where there will be 16 people playing and you trade tables and partners all night. After 15 games (one with each possible partner), whoever scored the highest total for all games wins the pot. I play, but I think it’s a boring game unless there’s a pot to be won. What drives me nuts is the tendency of Euchre players to replay each hand as the next is being dealt.
I do. I learned from my dad, who was raised in Indiana.
Mmmmm…goetta. Oops, sorry for the off-topic moment. I grew up right across the river in Covington.
PunditLisa, love the character names. And I recognize the player types - they’re all so familar. Just to add one to the list, my online name at various euchre websites is some variant of “sandbagger”, “sandbagger01”, “sandbagger2000”, etc. - kind of the opposite of a Great Wall. (For those who haven’t heard the term, a sandbagger is somone who sometimes passes on a biddable hand hoping to sucker the opponents into ordering it up instead. If it works, the sandbagger has a good chance of settng the opponents for two points, on a hand that would probably have made only one point if bid normally.)
Euchre was the game in our family. In fact, it was the rite-of-passage to adulthood.
[ul]
[li] As a little kid, you hung around while the grownups played. You’d wind up fetching beers and sodas for the players (and Grandpa always slipped you a quarter for the service).[/li][li] A little older, you got to be a “pee player”. You could sit in and play one of the adults’ hands while they visited the restroom.[/li][li] Older still. you got your own seat at the table, but the Grandparents would put up the money for your ante.[/li][li] You knew you were a real adult when they finally let you risk your own allowance money at the table.[/li][/ul]
anyone in Calgary that plays euchre and/or knows of regular games/tournaments?