If you live in the American Midwest, Ontario, or parts of Pennsylvania, stop reading. You already know how to play Euchre. Unless you, like me, are a poor excuse for a Midwesterner, you likely learned it in the womb, or at least in a high school cafeteria while ignoring your algebra homework.

For everyone else: Welcome to Euchre. If Bridge is “Chess with cards,” and Cribbage is Fencing, then Euchre is “Checkers played in a bar while shouting at your friends.” It is fast, aggressive, and requires a specific type of logic that makes zero sense to outsiders. Today on Deckmatiq, we are stripping the deck down to the studs and exploring the game that literally changed the standard deck of playing cards forever.

Much like a hipster in a coffee shop, Euchre has European roots but was perfected in America. It traces its lineage back to an Alsatian game called Juckerspiel. German immigrants brought the game to the United States in the early 19th century, specifically settling in Pennsylvania and the Midwest (hence the “Euchre Belt”).

The name Juckerspiel was anglicized to “Euchre,” because apparently, Americans refuse to pronounce consonants correctly.

The first thing a player will notice about Euchre is that half the deck is missing. Euchre is played with a 24-card deck (utilizing only the 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace).

Why throw out the small cards? Speed. Euchre is designed to be played quickly. There is no slow build-up; every hand is a knife fight in a phone booth. By removing the “trash” cards (sorry, 2 through 8), the average value of a hand skyrockets, meaning almost every trick is contested.

Euchre is a trick-taking game with a Trump suit, similar to Whist. However, it introduces a mechanic that confuses beginners and infuriates logical thinkers: The Bowers.

In Euchre, the Jack of the Trump suit is the highest card in the game. It is called the Right Bower (from the German Bauer, meaning “farmer” or “peasant”).

Here is the twist: The Jack of the same color as the Trump suit is the second-highest card. This is the Left Bower.

On the one hand, the Jack of Diamonds is considered a Heart. If you lead a Heart, someone can play the Jack of Diamonds to follow suit. If you lead a Diamond, the Jack of Diamonds is not a Diamond. If this sounds confusing, just drink a cheap domestic beer; it starts to make sense eventually.

Here is your “Deckmatiq” cocktail party fact of the day: Euchre is the reason you have Jokers in your card deck.

In the 1860s, American Euchre players decided the two Bowers weren’t enough power. They invented a card that would rank even higher than the Right Bower—the “Imperial Bower” or “Best Bower.” Card manufacturers saw the demand and started including a blank or specially designed card in their decks. Over time, this evolved into the Joker.

So, every time you see a Joker in a Batman comic or a standard bicycle deck, you have a bunch of 19th-century Euchre players to thank.

The game is played 2v2. Five cards are dealt to each player, and one card is turned face-up on the “Kitty” (the remaining four cards). Players then go around the circle, deciding if that face-up card should be the Trump suit.

If everyone passes twice, the Dealer is often forced to call a suit (a variation known as “Stick the Dealer” or “Screw the Dealer,” depending on how polite your company is).

This is the “Leroy Jenkins” moment of Euchre. If you look at your hand and think, “I don’t need my partner; they are dead weight,” you can declare you are Going Alone.

Your partner places their cards face down and watches as you try to take all five tricks by yourself.

Because Euchre is casual, “Table Talk” is rampant. This is the art of hesitating, sighing, or slamming a card down with excessive force to signal your partner what you have. Strictly speaking, this is cheating. Culturally speaking, it’s part of the charm.

The worst sin in Euchre, however, is Reneging. This is when you fail to follow suit when you actually have the card in your hand (usually because you forgot the Left Bower is a different suit). In the Midwest, Reneging is punishable by a 2-point penalty and social ostracization.

You don’t need a pen and paper to score Euchre. You use the cards you threw out. Most tables use the 5s and 6s from the unused deck as scorecards.

Euchre is the perfect bridge (pun intended) between casual party games and serious strategy games. It’s fast—a full game takes 15 minutes. It’s social. And it teaches you the valuable life lesson that sometimes, your partner will let you down, and you just have to carry the team yourself.

Your Mission: Find a friend from Ohio. Buy them a drink. Ask them to teach you. But be warned: once you learn the power of the Left Bower, you’ll never look at a Jack of Spades the same way again.