Leading trump as an offensive tactic in Euchre

By Marya · Updated by Holger in September 2026

Some partners will get angry with you if you lead trump in a game of Euchre. Despite that, leading trump is a classic winning tactic. Here's a video with a replay of a Euchre hand that gives one example of how well it can work.

In this example, I'm left of the dealer, so I'm the first person to consider the up card, the 10 of Hearts. No one chooses the up card because no one has many hearts.

After the up card is turned down, everyone gets a turn to call trump from the other suits. My partner chooses clubs. Since I'm left of the dealer, I lead the first trick.

None of my cards look like obvious winners except for one, the Jack of Clubs (the "right bower"). It's the most powerful card and will win the trick if I play it.

Some people would be afraid to play the right bower here. They might think their partner will be upset with them for taking one of their trump cards by leading trump!

But my partner chose trump without being forced to. They could have passed. Good players won't call trump with a poor hand when they don't have to. That means I can safely assume my partner has a strong hand with several trump cards and maybe an Ace.

By leading the right bower, I'll pull trump from the opponents' hands. This weakens them and makes it less likely that they can trump any Ace my partner might play.

As you can see in this example, that's exactly what happened. My partner has the Ace of Spades. If I had led my 10 of Spades instead, my left-hand opponent could have trumped that trick. My partner's Ace, their only non-trump card that would be expected to take a trick, would have been useless.

Fortunately, I played wisely and led the right bower. This stripped the lone trump card from my left-hand opponent's hand. My partner was able to collect all the remaining tricks, giving us 2 points.

There are no guarantees in Euchre. But most good Euchre players will lead trump when their partner calls trump, for the reasons above.