Euchre
Euchre is a 4-player team card game that most think is complicated, but is easy once you start playing. For this game, you’ll need cards 9-Ace and all the 5’s. Also, your partner will be diagonal from you and there should be minimal table talk. The dealer constantly changes every round so everyone has to know some sort of shuffle. When you do deal, you’ll hand out cards in a certain order, 2 cards to one player, then 3, 2 again, then 3 to yourself. Then, you’ll give the opposite. 3 to the person who got 2, then 2, then 3, and finally 2 to yourself. Everyone should have 5 total cards and four left from the deck that was dealt. The dealer will set down the 4 extra cards in the center of your playing table and flip over the top card of the 4 revealing it.
The order of the most powerful card can change depending on if someone calls up that flipped over card. Generally in each suit (Clubs, Spades, Hearts, Diamonds), to goes from the normal 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace. But, if the card that was called up was a heart (or any suit), the new order will do 9, 10, Queen, King, Ace, Jack of Diamonds, then the highest is Jack of Hearts. Basically the jacks with the color called turn into the highest/most powerful cards in that round. Also important to note that the Jack of Diamonds is now considered a heart, not a diamond any more.
Now we can get into a basic start. After everything was dealt properly (if you mess up deal you’ll lose it and next person deals) and the card was flipped the next person to the left/clockwise from the dealer will say if they want the dealer to pick it up, or pass. Telling the dealer to pick up whatever card that’s shown will make it that suit. King of Spades makes spades trump/powerful. If you have a really good hand you can go alone which makes it so your partner is out for the round but you’ll get a lot of points if you win all five hands, I wouldn’t recommend a new player to go alone. If everyone passes then the card that was revealed will get flipped back over and we will go around again. Only this time any suit other than what was shown can be called up. If no one has a good hand then you’ll “screw the dealer” and force them to choose a suit. It’s called “screwing the dealer” because if anyone calls a suit and loses the round it’s 2 points to the other team, it’s also called a Euchre. So don’t just be willy-nilly with your calls because you can lose fast.
For playing out a round (after the suit was called) we again will start to the person left of the dealer as always. It’s imperative to follow suit always. So if someone plays a non-trump card, and you have that same suit, you have to play it even if you had a trump that would’ve beaten it.
The goal is to win at least 3 hands to get one point, if you win all 5 hands you’ll get two points. If you go alone and win all 5 you get 4 points, if you win 3/4 while alone it’s only 1 point. As said before, calling it and losing gives the other team 2 points no matter what happens after they get 3 hands. The 5’s I briefly mentioned at the start for the cards you need are just to keep score.
Poker
There are many different ways to play poker, we will focus on Texas hold’em. The goal is to either get the most cards with the same number on them (pair, two pair, three of a kind, four of a kind), get a straight (5 numbers in a row 5, 6, 7, 8, 9), or a flush (5 cards with the same suit).
First, your dealer will shuffle the cards so that it’s random and fair for everyone playing, the dealer will use all 52 cards in a normal deck. Then, the dealer will pass out cards to everyone in order once, then once more so that everyone has 2 cards in hand. Now the game can start. Now the dealer will burn (put the top card to the side) and then flip over 3 new cards. Then, if no one raises the bet, the dealer will burn another card and flip over one card. People will raise the bet or pass and then the dealer will burn then flip over the cards one last time. Now it’s the final bet before you show your card to see who has the higher hand.
On the basic side of things you only want to raise the bet if you have any pairs, or a high potential for a straight or flush. With more technical strategies you’ll look at the cards the dealer revealed to see if there is a hand that could beat yours. But it’s all a game of chance and things easily go wrong.
The order of how strong each hand is goes like this. High card is the lowest. Pair is next. Two-Pair’s higher than pair. Three of a kind beats two-pair. Flush is the fourth highest. Straight is higher than flush. Four of a kind is the second highest. And Finally a straight flush is the highest of all, only losing to a royal flush which is an Ace high royal flush with odds of 1/649,739. If there is a tie of hand, two people have a pair, then the higher number pair will win. If it’s still split then the two will split the pot.
Blackjack
In blackjack you’ll use the entire deck. Suit doesn’t matter in this, and neither does jack king queen because they are all worth 10. The goal is to get 21 points and not go over. It’s fine to go lower but you have to beat the dealer’s hand to win. Blackjack isn’t really a card game people play with friends, it’s more of a gambling game. Everyone playing will be dealt cards in order once, then once more. If you get really close to 21 (19 or 20), then you probably shouldn’t hit because there is a slim chance to get a 2 or ace compared to any other card. That’s basically it. The dealer shows his first card and the other isn’t shown, they also can’t hit on a 17 or high.
Schnots
Schnots uses cards 7 through ace, an object to track lives for everyone, and can be played with a lot of people. If you want fun games I would suggest 5-7 people, you could play with less but then it’s a little less fun. This game has some elements to trick the other players into losing lives which I’ll talk about later.
Once all the cards are shuffled you’ll deal a hand of three cards out just like the other games but deal two hands to yourself. It’s important to not touch your own cards till the dealer touches his own because you’ll lose a life (If caught). The dealer looks at only one of his two hands and decides if he wants that one or takes a chance on the unrevealed one. The one the dealer doesn’t choose goes to the middle of the table.
The way to win rounds is by either getting high cards of the same suit, or get a three of a kind. The max points you can get is 31 (10, King, Ace. Something like that.) and that’s called shnots. If at any point you have a hand that adds up to 31 the rounds ends right away with someone shouting “schnots” and then the lowest scoring player loses a life. If you have the worst hand ever and the middle three cards are looking nice, you can swap your three for the other three. When it is your turn you can either try to pick up a better card from the center of the table or knock. Knocking means that this is the last go around the table till we reveal our cards. During a knock other players can either try to get a better hand or also knock. Then once it gets back to the original person we reveal our cards, lowest losses. One special hand is when you have three of a kind. You basically can’t lose with that hand because it scores 30.5, only losing to schnots.
Lives are really simple, I would suggest 3 lives marked as a small object for big games because any more and it takes too long. After you lose three lives you are on charity (last chance) or just lose depending on how you like to play.
