Who calls trump in Euchre, from 129,164 hands

By Marya · Updated by Holger in September 2026

I've gathered some Euchre statistics about the "consider" phase from a large number of hands played at World of Card Games. Before I show them, let's review how the "consider" phase works in a hand of Euchre. You can scroll down to the next section if you don't need a reminder.

At the start of each hand, each player is dealt 5 cards. Then the top card of the deck is turned up for everyone to see, and the first round of choosing begins. The player to the left of the dealer gets the first chance to declare trump by "ordering" the up card. If they "order up", the suit of the up card becomes trump. The up card goes to the dealer, who then discards another card from their hand.

The player to the dealer's left can also pass. Then the choice to "order up" goes clockwise around the table. If no one orders up, the choice of trump comes back to the player left of the dealer. The second round of choosing begins. This time, they can choose any suit except the suit of the up card. If they pass, the choice goes clockwise around the table again.

Euchre consider phase statistics

You might think that every player is equally likely to choose trump, but it turns out they're not. Below are statistics from 129,164 Euchre hands played at World of Card Games. They show the percent of hands where the player in each seat chose trump, first for the up card and then after the up card was turned face down. The first row shows the percent of hands where the player left of the dealer ordered up. The second row shows the percent where the dealer's partner ordered up, and so on.

The "Bots only" column looks at statistics from "solo" tables. Only one human is ever allowed at a solo table, the player who started it. So the results at these tables lean towards the way the bots are programmed.

The "Humans allowed" column looks at statistics from all other tables, where several humans can play and bots may or may not be allowed. I didn't break the stats down to see who actually made each decision, a human or a bot. But the stats are clearly a bit different, because humans play a little differently from bots.

In case the seat names in the table are new to you, "first seat" is the player to the left of the dealer. This player is called first seat because they get the first choice of trump and play the first card. "Second seat" is the dealer's partner and gets the second choice of trump. "Third seat" is to the left of second seat. The dealer is just the dealer (not usually called "fourth seat"). The picture below shows this. The dealer is West, first seat is left of the dealer (North), and so on. The picture calls the seats "chairs", as some players do.

Euchre consider phase analysis

So, what do the numbers show? Let's just look at the middle column, where humans are allowed. By far the most likely player to call trump is the dealer, who ordered up in 30% of the hands. And second seat (the dealer's partner) called trump in 17% of the hands in the first round of choosing. Both of these stats make sense. Ordering up in the first round gives the dealer's team an extra trump, because the up card goes into the dealer's hand. Who wouldn't want that? Clearly, it's usually an advantage for the dealer's team to "order up".

In the second round of choosing, after the up card has been turned face down, first seat called trump in almost 20% of the hands. I'm not sure why that happens, but I wonder if it has something to do with the "next strategy". A discussion thread at Ohio Euchre called "Almost Always Calling Seat 1 (Round 2)" went into some other possible reasons for this.

Notice that it's unusual for first and third seat to order the up card into the dealer's hand. This makes sense to me. The dealer is their opponent, and ordering up gives aid and comfort (and trump) to the enemy! You'd need a very strong hand of trump for this to make sense.

Also notice that it's fairly unusual for third seat or the dealer to call trump in the second round of choosing. I think the explanation is simple. In most hands, someone else calls trump before the choice even gets to these players. Adding up the percents in the middle column above "Third seat, 3 suits" gives 5% + 17% + 5% + 30% + 18% + 11% = 86%. So in 86% of the hands, trump has been called before the choice gets to those players in round two. If you're third seat or the dealer and have a fairly strong hand in a suit other than the up card's, you'll likely never get the chance to call it. In Euchre you often don't get a chance to call with a strong hand, because someone else beats you to it. That's why I call Euchre a game of frustration!

If you enjoyed this page, you may want to go on to part II, which looks at the "consider" stats in more detail.