Euchre
Overview
Euchre or eucre, is a trick-taking
Trick-taking game
A trick-taking game is a card game or tile-based game in which play centers on a series of finite rounds or units of play, called tricks. The object of such games then may be closely tied to the number of tricks taken, as in plain-trick games such as Whist, Contract Bridge, Napoleon, Rowboat, and...

 card game
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...

 most commonly played with four people in two partnerships with a deck of 24 standard playing card
Playing card
A playing card is a piece of specially prepared heavy paper, thin cardboard, plastic-coated paper, cotton-paper blend, or thin plastic, marked with distinguishing motifs and used as one of a set for playing card games...

s. It is the game responsible for introducing the joker
Joker (playing card)
Joker is a special type of playing card found in most modern decks, or else a type of tile in some Mahjong game sets.-Name:It is believed that the term "Joker" comes from a mispronunciation of Jucker, the German/Alsatian name for the game Euchre. The card was originally introduced in about 1860 for...

 into modern packs; this was invented around 1860 to act as a top trump or best bower (from the German word Bauer, "farmer", denoting also the jack
Jack (playing card)
A Jack, also Knave, is a playing card with a picture of a man on it. The usual rank of a jack, within its suit, is as if it were an 11 ....

). It is believed to be closely related to the French game Écarté
Écarté
Écarté is a two-player card game originating from France, the word literally meaning "discarded". It is a trick-taking game, similar to whist, but with a special and eponymous discarding phase. It is closely related to Euchre, a card game played mainly in the United States...

 that was popularized in the United States by the Cornish
Cornish people
The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall, a county and Duchy in the south-west of the United Kingdom that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales, as well as with other Celtic nations in Europe...

 and Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries...

, and to the seventeenth-century game of bad repute Loo
Lanterloo
Lanterloo, also known as Loo, is a 17th-century trick taking game of the Trump family of which many varieties are recorded. It belongs to a line of card games whose members include Nap, Euchre, Rams, Mao, Hombre, and Spoil Five...

.
 
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