Bid Euchre Help

Help is organized in the following sections.

Bid Euchre Rules

There are many variations of Bid Euchre played. The default NeuralPlay Bid Euchre rules described in this section use a 32 card double deck. Single deck and triple deck variations are also supported. You may adjust the rules to your liking with the rule options provided.

Bid Euchre is a four player partnership game played with a deck of 32 playing cards. There are four suits and four cards in each suit. The ranks are J, Q, K and A. There are two cards of each rank in the deck for a total of 32 cards. The play is broken down into hands. Hands are played until the game is over. You form a team with the player across from you and accumulate points from each hand played. The game ends when a team reaches 52 points and the team with the highest score wins.

There are five stages to a hand: dealing, bidding, passing, playing, and scoring.

Dealing

At the start of the game the dealer is chosen randomly. From then on, the deal rotates clockwise until the game ends. Eight cards are dealt to each of the four players.

Bidding

The bidding begins with the player to the left of the dealer. The bidding rotates clockwise. Each player is given only one chance to bid and may choose to bid or pass.

A basic bid consists of a level from 1 to 8 and an indication of the trump suit or notrump (notrump is indicated by "NT", meaning high cards win). The level determines the number of tricks the bidder's team will take during play.

There are three special bids: Call 2, Call 1, and Moon (Moon means "Shoot the Moon"). Instead of indicating the level the player will declarer the special bid and the trump suit or notrump (for example, "Call 2 spades"). When making these bids, the player is contracting to take all tricks and play alone (without a partner). The Call 2 and Call 1 bids are special in that before play starts the bidder will exchange 2 (Call 2) or 1 (Call 1) cards with partner. Exchanging cards makes these bids easier to make than the Moon bid.

A bid must be higher than any previous bid. A bid's ranking is determined by the level or special bid. The ranking is as follows: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Call 2, Call 1, and Moon. If the first three players pass the dealer cannot pass and must make a bid.

The highest bidder is the declarer. If the bid was a Call 2 or Call 1, the declarer will exchange cards with partner. The declarer makes the initial lead during the play of the hand.

Passing

If the winning bid was a call bid, the declarer and partner exchange cards. Two cards are exchanged for a Call 2 bid and one card is exchanged for a Call 1 bid.

Play

The play consists of 8 tricks. Each trick consists of four cards, one card from each player. For each trick, there is a leader, a suit led, and a winner. The leader is the player who played the first card. The suit led is the suit of the card played by the leader. The winner of the trick is determined by the highest ranking card played of the suit led, however, if a trump was played on the trick, then the winner is determined by the highest ranking trump card played.

For notrump contracts the ranking of the cards in all suits is: J, Q, K, A; with the ace being the highest.

For suit contracts, the trump suit is special. The jack of the trump suit (called the "right bower") becomes the highest trump rank. The jack of the same color suit as the trump suit (called the "left bower") becomes the second highest trump rank. The left bowers become part of the trump suit and are no longer part of their original suit. For example, if diamonds are trump the ranks from low to high in the diamond suit are: Q♦, K♦, A♦, J♥, J♦.

If two cards of the same rank are played on the trick, the winner is the first one played.

The declarer makes the first lead and may lead any card. Play continues clockwise to the left with each player playing a card in turn. Players must play the suit led if they have it. If a player does not have the suit led, any card may be played.

After each player has played a card on the trick, the winning player takes the trick and places it aside until the scoring stage. This player is the leader of the next trick. The play stage continues until players have no cards left in their hands.

Scoring

After the hand has been played out, the number of tricks taken by each team is counted.

For the basic level bids (1 to 8), if the declaring team made the contract, they receive the number of tricks taken. If they failed to make the bid (are set), they receive minus the bid level. The defending team always receives points equal to the number of tricks captured. For example, a 5 diamond bid with the declarers capturing 6 tricks will net the declarers 6 points and the defenders 2 points. However, a 5 diamond bid with the declarers capturing only 4 tricks will result in the declarers receiving -5 points and the defenders will receive 4 points.

For the Call 2, Call 1, and Moon bids; the declarer must take all the tricks. The bids are valued at 12, 18, and 24 respectively. For making the bid, the bid value is added to the declarer's score. For failing to make the bid, the bid value is subtracted from the declarer's score. For example, a Call 1 notrump bid is worth 18 points. If the declarer takes all 8 tricks, the declarer receives 18 points. If the declarer takes only 7 tricks, the contract is set and 18 points are subtracted from the declarer's score. In addition, the defenders will receive 1 point for the trick captured.

The scores for the hand are added to the total game scores. The game ends when a team reaches 52 points. The team with the highest score wins.

Links

There are many sites on the internet discussing Bid Euchre. Here are a few that we found helpful.

There is also a book on Indiana Double Deck Bid Euchre: THE THINK SYSTEM 2nd Edition: A Light-Hearted Guide to Serious

Basic Bidding Strategy

Since each player gets only one chance to bid, a basic bidding strategy is for the first two players to bid the number of tricks that they expect to take if playing alone. The third and forth players will then know the suit that partner prefers for trump and the approximate number of tricks that partner can take. As a rough estimate of how high to bid, players three and four may count the tricks in their hands, add those tricks to partner's and bid accordingly.

For example, consider if the bidding goes: 3 notrump Pass. The next player (3rd to bid) now knows that partner can make 3 notrump alone. Partner may have 3 aces. With 4 aces in hand, player three can bid 6 high notrump, counting on taking 3-4 tricks in hand with 2-3 from partner. Similar logic can be used for suit contracts.

The computer AI players use this basic bidding strategy.

Learning Features

NeuralPlay Bid Euchre offers many features to help you learn and improve your play. These features may be enabled, disabled, and/or adjusted in settings. The features include the following.

Rule Options

Bid Euchre is played with may different options. The following rule options are offered to customize NeuralPlay's Bid Euchre to your liking.

Dealing

Bidding

Playing

Scoring

Game over

Preset Rule Options

In addition to the NeuralPlay default rules described above, preset rules are provided for other variations including: Indiana Double Deck, The Bid Euchre Project, and Single Deck. There are lots of variations of Single Deck Bid Euchre. Details are available here and here.

Computer Players

NeuralPlay computer players offer 6 levels of play. Play at level 1 is reasonably easy and good for beginners. Play at level 3 should be fun for most players. Play at level 6 will be the most challenging.

The AI bots employ different AI methods depending on the level. Levels 1 and 2 use simple methods to provide an introduction to beginners. We will not describe them in detail here.

Level 3 uses a rule-based AI. The AI consists of rules such as: "In 3rd seat, do not trump partner's high card" and "In 4th seat, play just high enough to take it when an opponent is winning", etc. We find the rules work quite well and can provide good play.

Levels 4+ use Monte Carlo Simulation to determine the best play. Basically, the AI will deal out the unknown cards randomly. The AI will then try each legal play and play the deal to the end to get a result. This is repeated for many deals of the unknown cards. The average result for each legal play is computed and the legal play with the best average result is chosen.

Levels 4+ differ in how many times the unknown cards are dealt out. In general, the more deals the more accurate the simulation. This results in better quality plays. The trade-off is that more deals take more time, play may be slower on level 6 than level 4 depending on the device.

Since levels 4+ do not use rules, you may observe either surprisingly good plays or odd mistakes that may seem not to follow any logical rules. Overall, our tests show that the levels are better than the rule-based level 3. We also find the randomness makes the computer feel a bit more human-like and fun.

If you prefer a more consistent, logical, and predictable partner AI and/or opponent AI, then level 3 may be best.

We are continuing to research improvements and new computer AI algorithms. We continue to update the bots as we develop improved algorithms.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I change the hand sorting?

See Settings -> Hand Sorting. You can change the rank order, suit order, and choose to alternate red and black suits.

How do I reset my game settings back to the original game settings?

Go to the Main Screen and choose Menu -> Reset.

What are North, South, East and West (and N, S, E, and W)?

These terms are used in bridge games. You are always South and your partner is always North. The terms You and South are used interchangeably.

What does claim mean?

Claim means you will take the remaining tricks. When your hand is clearly high, you may claim the remaining tricks to speed up play. If the claim is successful (the AI will check), you will receive the remaining tricks and the hand will end.

How do I contact NeuralPlay with suggestions and feedback?

Please contact us at support@neuralplay.com.