Euchre is a relatively popular card game that has been a tournament staple for years, and, thanks to the vast open playing field of the internet, it has become a very popular online game at various sites such as Yahoo, Pogo, and MSN Gaming Zone, often filling the gaming boards to capacity on any weeknight. Euchre is a partner card game that requires four people to play in teams of two. It requires skill, knowledge, and teamwork to be successful. The ability of the internet to pool four players together in a chat room from four corners of the globe has spurned the recent rise in popularity of the game that uses phrases like skunk (beating an opponent 10-0), The Dutchman (holding both jacks, and an ace of trump), bag (passing dirty or ruining a suit), and bagger (one who bags). In most cases you don’t even have to speak the same language if you understand the Euchre jargon and the rules of the game, along with the nuances that can turn a suit in your favor, hence its newfound popularity.

There are many variations of Euchre, but the two most popular versions of the game are British Euchre and North American Euchre. British Euchre is the oldest version of the game. The biggest difference between British Euchre and North American Euchre are the number of cards used. British Euchre utilizes twenty-five cards whereas North American Euchre only utilizes a deck of twenty-four cards. In cases, the nine, ten, jack, queen, king, and ace are used from each suit. In British Euchre the joker is used as an extra card, much like a wild card in modern poker games, or in some cases the two of spades is used. This card is called the Benny and is used as a trump card, or an extra right bower, which is always the jack of the trump suit. The left bower is the other jack from the same color as the trump suit. British Euchre is the most common form of the game, and is usually the excepted version in most tournaments. The popularity of both versions of Euchre has been on a rise for the past decade along with the saturation of the internet gaming universe. Availability of space online has spurned hundreds of game sites with millions of people playing the suit driven card game day after day, hour after hour, in most cases winning points to be entered for drawings in the hopes of winning small prizes. There are no major money pots to be won online as of yet.

With its recent surge in popularity, however, it is not far fetched to think that in the near future Euchre might even rival poker in popularity. A large money tournament, or several, could put this little odd card game front and center in the gaming universe. Again, the lack of quality programming on cable and the relative low cost of such a tournament could signal a big shift in the Euchre Universe, so perhaps it’s time to get both hooks together and get ready to skunk your mates in the name of good old fashioned competition. Polish up that Euchre jargon and try your hand at an online game and soon enough you’ll be passing dirty or pulling a Kamikaze. Who knows, one day it may bag a million dollar payday.