Discard to go void in Euchre

By Marya · Updated by Holger in September 2026

When playing Euchre, there are a couple of cases where you get to choose which card to discard. The most obvious case is when you're the dealer and someone orders the "up card" into your hand. Then you can discard any other card in your hand. The second case happens during play. If the player leading the trick plays a suit you don't have, you're "void" in that suit. Then the rules say you can play any card in your hand.

So when you have the choice, how do you decide which card to discard? Should you just throw away your lowest card? Sometimes that makes sense. But there's a better strategy. In general, you should try to discard a card that leaves you void in a suit, if you can.

Here's a video with a replay of a Euchre hand that gives an example of how going void works.

In this example, I'm the dealer's partner. The up card is the King of Hearts. The player to the right of the dealer (third seat, sometimes called "third chair") orders it up! If you watch the video, you'll see that their hand is fairly strong. They hold 2 high trumps, the Ace and the left bower. I can see why it's tempting to order up.

Since my partner is the dealer, they get the up card and must discard a card. Wisely, they throw away their low card, the 10 of Spades. It's an obvious card to discard because it's very low and unlikely to take a trick! But more importantly, tossing this spade makes them void in spades. That means they can trump a trick that's led with a spade.

If you follow along with the video, you'll see that the opponent to my right has a pretty bad hand. They're first to play a card and decide to lead a spade. I'm lucky to have the Ace of Spades. My left-hand opponent can't trump my card because they happen to have a spade as well. Now my partner is last to play. They don't have to follow suit because they have no spades. Their 2 trumps are the 9 and King of Hearts. They also have the King of Diamonds and 2 clubs. What should they discard? It would make the most sense to discard the King of Diamonds. That would make them void in diamonds, so they might get to trump a diamond trick.

As you can see, the dealer unwisely chose to discard their low club, a Queen. So they're not void in diamonds and they won't be able to trump a diamond trick if the chance comes up.

And indeed, it turns out that every player has a diamond. So when a diamond is played, the Ace of Diamonds in our opponent's hand takes that trick.

If you keep following along with the video, you'll see that we euchred our opponents despite this mistake by my partner! We had some luck. We both had 2 trumps and I had the strongest one, the right bower (the Jack of Hearts). Also, one of our opponents had a pretty bad hand, with no Aces and no trumps.

It definitely takes some luck to win at Euchre consistently! But sometimes you can "make your own luck" by using a good strategy. Remember to "go for the void" when you get the chance to discard a card.