When the dealer should order up in Euchre

By Marya · Updated by Holger in September 2026

The Euchre bots at World of Card Games were first programmed to be pretty cautious. In Euchre, if you're very conservative and rarely call trump, you probably won't get euchred. But you also won't make as many points as you could. An opposing team that's willing to take more risks will gain more points on you over time and end up winning more games. It can be hard to know the right amount of risk to take.

Until 2020, the dealer bot wouldn't order up unless its hand was strong in that suit. For example, suppose the up card was the 9 of Clubs, the dealer had the 10 and King of Clubs, and the other players had all passed. The bot wouldn't order up, even though it would have ended up with 3 trumps. Its cautious programming said these trumps were too weak and it might get euchred.

I asked the experts at Ohio Euchre about this and got some great comments on when the dealer should order up. I've reprogrammed the bots so that they always order up if it gives them 3 trumps.

Here's an example of how it works. In the screenshot, I'm the dealer. I have two low spades, the 9 and the Queen. The up card is the King of Spades. Should I order up?

Will it work to order up? I ordered up and our team took 3 tricks. We didn't get euchred, even though my opponent in first seat had both the left and right bowers. I set up the same deck again and played the hand a little differently. My team still won a point. It's just one example, but it shows how well the tactic works.

Statistics for the dealer calling the up card

Besides asking the experts, I also ran an experiment. I had the bots play 10,000 Euchre hands with the old programming and 10,000 hands with the new programming. The decks were shuffled randomly for the first run. The same decks were used again for the second. So the bots should (and did) play exactly the same way, except when the new programming made the dealer more willing to order up.

The scores differed in 1,178 of the 10,000 hands. So the new strategy made a difference in about 12% of the hands played. I collected the points each team scored in those 1,178 hands, before and after the change. Here's what the dealer's team scored.

And here's what the opponents scored.

The results are clear. Before the change, the opponents won most (76%) of these hands, with 1, 2, or 4 points. The dealer's team usually did poorly and got 0 points (but at least they were rarely euchred). After the change, the dealer's team won 82% of the hands. They were euchred in the other 18%.

Discussion

Of course, people aren't bots. You may not see quite the same results when you use this tactic yourself. If your opponents have 3 trumps, including both bowers, but don't order up in this situation, you may get euchred if you order up. Still, I'd argue that opponents who don't order up with a hand like that will lose more often than not.

Does it matter?

Does this new tactic matter? Absolutely! A tactic that wins you about 7 more hands in every 100 you deal will win you more games on average. I hope this page convinces you to order up as the dealer whenever it gives you 3 trumps, if you don't already. In rare cases, turning down the up card might give you an edge. But this tactic is a good one for the casual player (and for bots!).

Resources

See the Euchre glossary for the jargon on this page.