Reverse next in Euchre, or crossing the suit

By Marya · Updated by Holger in September 2026

In Euchre, you're usually better off when you call trump. The problem is that you don't always know whether calling is a good idea. So it pays to have as many strategies as you can that help you call. "Reverse next" is one of them (see the note on the name below). The reverse next strategy tells the dealer's partner to call trump in the second round of choosing, in one particular situation. In about 73% of hands, trump is chosen before the dealer's partner's turn in the second round, so this strategy won't come up very often. Its other conditions make it rarer still. But if it wins, it's good to know about.

Ohio Euchre and Vegas Euchre have both explained "reverse next". Here's a summary. The setup for reverse next looks like this:

• You're the dealer's partner.
• The up card is a high card, say an Ace or a Jack.
• All players turn down the up card, including your partner, the dealer.
• If your partner turns down a high card, it very likely means they don't have any cards in that suit.
• The dealer's left-hand opponent doesn't call in the second round. It seems that player must have a pretty weak hand.
• Now you can call or pass. Suppose you don't have an obviously strong suit. What should you do?

In this situation, here's when to call reverse next:

• You have at least a King and a 9 in a suit of the opposite color from the up card. For example, if the up card was the Jack of Hearts (red), you have the King and 9 of Clubs (black).
• Vegas Euchre also recommends that you hold an Ace and be void in at least one suit, but Ohio Euchre didn't mention this. In fact, Ohio Euchre gave an example where the dealer's partner held all four suits.
• If those conditions hold, call trump in the suit of the opposite color. If both suits of that color qualify, pick the stronger one. If you hold the King and 9 of Clubs but the Jack and 9 of Spades, choose spades.

The logic is that since the dealer didn't take the up card, their hand is probably stronger in a suit of the opposite color. And since the dealer's left-hand opponent didn't call "next", they probably don't have a good hand in any suit.

I admit that when I first read about this strategy, it sounded pretty crazy to me! I thought about all the exceptions. Suppose an opponent held both bowers in the opposite suit but was afraid to call because the rest of their cards were non-trump 9s? In that case they "should" call and count on their partner to take one trick. But some players are more timid and won't call. Or suppose third seat (the dealer's right-hand opponent) holds a great set of cards in the opposite suit, like the Ace and both bowers?

Experimenting with the bots

So I was skeptical. I have the code for the Euchre bots, so I decided to run a large number of simulated hands. I wanted to see if bots that used a "reverse next" strategy won more hands than bots that didn't.

I built the bot strategy as I've described it above. The bot's partner had to be the dealer. The up card had to be an Ace or Jack that everyone turned down. The bot checked its regular strategy first. For example, did it have a strong hand in another suit? Only if its usual strategy was to pass did it check for "reverse next". Then it needed at least a 9 and a King in a suit of the opposite color from the up card. If it had them, it made a "reverse next" call. These requirements were looser than the ones Vegas Euchre suggests. The bot didn't need an Ace or a void.

I ran 26,754 simulations with bots playing a single hand of Euchre with a randomly shuffled deck. I recorded the deck and the dealer for each one. I also recorded whether "reverse next" was used in each hand and which team won it. The bots didn't play an entire game, just a single hand, because I wanted to home in on how "reverse next" affects one hand.

Next, I took only the hands where "reverse next" was called and ran them through the bot code again. This time the bots never used "reverse next". Again, I recorded which team won each hand.

If the "reverse next" strategy works, you'd expect the bots that use it to win more often in the hands where it applies. And that's what happened. Here's a summary of the stats.

"Reverse next" applied in only 884 of the 26,754 hands. So it's rare that you'll even get to use this strategy. It comes up about once in every 30 hands.

So I had 884 hands where "reverse next" was used in the first set of simulations. When the bots used it, the dealer's team won at least 1 point in 613 (69%) of those hands. The opponents won 271 (31%) of them.

In comparison, when the bots didn't use "reverse next", the dealer's team won 490 (55%) of those hands. The opponents won 394 (45%) of them.

I also checked whether using "reverse next" changed the outcome of each hand. Did it really matter? It did, although not by a lot. In 613 (69%) of the hands, the outcome was the same either way. In 74 (8%) of the hands, reverse next made the dealer's team lose a hand they would have won without it. But in 197 (22%) of the hands, it made them win a hand they would have lost without it.

My conclusion is that the reverse next strategy does work. It's worth using whenever the conditions for it are met. Some people only use it early in a game, when the scores are low and a mistake costs less. Personally, I'd use it even near the end of the game, since on average it works out in the dealer's favor.

Example with the King and 9

Here's a hand where the "reverse next" strategy worked for me. My partner, the dealer, turned down the Jack of Diamonds. I had just two clubs, the King and the 9. But I called clubs as trump, even though it looked pretty sketchy, because I had faith in "reverse next". I did have an off-suit Ace, which helped. My team won the hand, even though my partner didn't take a trick.

Example of reverse next preventing a loner

To play devil's advocate, here's a hand where the "reverse next" strategy failed me. My partner, the dealer, turned down the Ace of Spades. I had the King and 9 of Hearts and decided to call hearts, even though my hand looked very weak. It turned out that my hand really was weak next to the cards in third seat. This is the case I worried about when I first heard about the reverse next strategy. What if I call trump in a weak suit and my left-hand opponent is strong in that suit?

Well, think about it this way. Look closely at my left-hand opponent's cards. The bot might very well have gone alone with those cards. The loner would have worked. So you could say that we prevented a loner by calling. We only gave up 2 points for the euchre, when we might have been behind by 4 points if I hadn't called hearts. This example shows how reverse next can work in your favor, even when it looks like it failed at first glance.

Resources

Phil Neill, a Euchre historian, wrote to tell me that the term "reverse next" was probably introduced by Harvey Lapp at the Vegas Euchre site. He says it should more properly be called "crossing the suit", because you are "crossing the 'color' of suit that was turned down".

Read more about the reverse next strategy at Vegas Euchre.