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This is an adaption of the card game Euchre to domino tiles and does not have much to recommend it over the original card game. These rules were taken from THE EVERYTHING GAMES BOOK by Tracy Fitzsimmons and Pamela Liflander (Adams Media Corporation, Holbrook, MA; ISBN 1-55850-643-8) and other books on card games, since their description was incomplete.

Equipment

The game uses a double six domino set. The game can be played by two, three or four people, but it is best for four.

The Deal

One player is designated as the first dealer and the deal will pass to the left after each round.

Each player receives a hand of five tiles either from the dealer or by drawing their own from the boneyard, as is their custom. Once everyone has their hands, the dealer draws one tile, called the "turn-up", from the boneyard and exposes it face up to determine trump for the round. Trump is the highest end of this tile and the tile is left exposed for the rest of the round.

The Play

The tiles in non-trump suits are ranked by their suit number from blank (low) thru 6 (high). The trump suit is ordered differently, however.

The double of trump is called the "Right Bower" and it is the highest tile in the trump suit. In the original card game, this was the Jack of trumps.

The double of the suit one less than trump is called the "Left Bower" and it is the second highest tile in the trump suit. If blanks are trump, then the count "goes around the corner" to borrow a phrase from Poker, and the [6-6] is the Left Bower. In the original card game, the Left Bower was the Jack of the suit of the same color as trumps.

This means that the trump suit has eight tiles and the suit one less than trump has only six tiles.

The Bid

The auction begins with the player to the dealer's left and continues clockwise round to the dealer. It ends as soon as a player accepts the turned up trump suit. Until then, each player has two options which he can call:

1. Accept the trump. In traditional Euchre terminology this is known as "Ordering Up" if an opponent of the dealer does it, "Assisting" if the dealer's partner does it, and "Taking Up" if the dealer does it. A player who accepts the trump may also add "Alone" to this bid. Playing alone means that he feels he can take enough tricks without any help from his partner (and will thereby win a bigger score for their partnership if he takes every trick). Accepting the trump ends the bidding phase and the tricking taking part of the game can now begin.
2. Pass. This means the player does not like the trump and the bid goes to the next player.

If the first three players pass, and the dealer also does not wish to accept the trump, he discards the turned trump out of the game and turns up a new tile from the boneyard. If this is the same suit as the first tile he discards it and continues turning tiles until a new suit appears. There is then a second round of bidding, beginning at dealer's left. If no one will accept the second trump suit, the dealer turns tiles from the boneyard until a third trump suit appears.

If no one will accept a trump suit in three rounds of bidding, then the entire hand is over, nobody scores any points and a new round is dealt by the next dealer.

When the trump suit is accepted (whether it is ordered up, assisted or taken up), the dealer takes the turned up domino into his hand and discards one tile face down.

Tricks

As in most of these card game adapted to dominoes, the trump suit tiles must be played as trumps and not as tiles in their other suit.

The player to the left of the dealer plays the first tile and announces to what suit it belongs. The other players must follow suit if able. If they are not able then they may play a trump or any other tile they wish. The trick is won by the highest tile in the suit, unless a trump is played on the trick. In that case, the trick is won by the highest trump played. The winner of the trick leads the next trick.

If the bidder chose to play alone, then his partner lays his hand face down on the table before the first trick and takes no part in the play. The first lead is made by the player to the left of the bidder.

Scoring

The game is five points. The convention is to issue one player of each team with five chips, which are returned to their storage container as each point is scored. The winners are the first partnership to have no chips left.

If the partnership that made trumps takes all five tricks, they "make a match" and score two points. If they take three or four tricks, they "make point" and score one point. If they fail to take at least three tricks, they are "euchred" and the other partnership gets the two points.

When a player plays alone and takes all five tricks, his partnership scores four points. If he plays alone and takes three or four tricks, his partnership scores one point. When a player plays alone and fails to take three tricks, he is euchred and the other partnership scores two points.

Note

The description of the bidding in the sources is very confused. We have postulated the system whereby the dealer turns new tiles for trumps after each round, on the model of All Fours or Zwikken, as the best explanation of the given rule that the players have three opportunities to accept a trump suit. However, it is quite possible that the bidding is in fact intended to proceed as in card Euchre, where after the dealer has turned down the first proposed trump suit, each player has a free choice of trump suit. But in that case the hand would be thrown in after only two rounds of passes. We would be grateful if anyone who actually knows this game or can find a more authoritative source for the rules of it could let us know how the bidding is really intended to work.

Other web sites

Howard Fosdick has published another reconstruction of Domino Euchre and also a description of Domino Call-Ace Euchre.