Euchre: Never Pass

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Common questions

How does Grandma choose trump?

As dealer, Grandma picks up the turned-up card whenever the bidding rules allow it. In the second round, she names a suit whenever she has a legal call. In other first-round seats, she bids like the regular computer players.

Where do I go to learn the game, or look a rule up again?

Tap ? at the top left of the table. Walk me through it is at the top and shows the basics; the rules below it have the details. The walkthrough is also under How to play on the opening card.

Neither one touches a game you have going, so you can open either mid-hand and come straight back to your cards.

When does a settings change take effect?

Keeping score and Buzz when he scrapes changes take effect right away. Changes to the house rules (Stick the dealer), the deck (Twenty-one cards), Grandma, and Pap take effect in your next game; Start a new game at the bottom of Settings begins one now. Open Settings with the sliders button at the top right of the table.

You can’t accuse your own partner. Choosing Grandma as your partner turns accusations against her off; choosing her as an opponent turns them on.

Sometimes is decided once per game.

Why can’t I call a suit I don’t hold?

This is a house rule in this app: you need a card of the printed suit to call it. The other jack doesn’t count for that bidding requirement. A stuck dealer with no eligible suit must still choose one.

Why can't the dealer pass in the second round?

That's stick the dealer, and it's intentional. When everyone else has passed twice, the dealer must name a suit, so every hand gets played instead of being thrown in. It's enforced by the game itself, not just by the computer players.

It is on by default, but plenty of tables don't play it. Turn it off in Settings and a hand nobody will bid on is thrown in, with the deal moving on to the next player.

What is the twenty-one card deck?

The ordinary deck is twenty-four cards — nine through ace in every suit. Five each leaves four in the middle, one of them turned up.

Turn on Twenty-one cards in Settings to remove the nines of clubs, diamonds, and spades. The nine of hearts stays. Five cards go to each player, leaving only the turned-up card.

It is one family's way of playing rather than the game most people expect, so it is off by default and the walkthrough teaches the twenty-four card deck.

The left bower — is that a bug?

The jack of the same color as trump becomes the left bower. It counts as trump, not as its printed suit. If spades are trump, the jack of clubs is a spade for that hand and beats every trump except the jack of spades. You can play it on a club lead only when you have no cards that still count as clubs.

Can I play against friends?

Not in this version. Your partner and both opponents are computer players. We’re working on a way to play with people you invite.

Does it need an internet connection?

No connection is needed to play the single-player game; it works in airplane mode. Device backups, optional store diagnostics, and any service you use to share a game summary are separate from gameplay. See the privacy policy for those details.

Why is the score two playing cards?

Because that is how the score gets kept at home. Each side has the two and the three of one suit — hearts for you, spades for the other team — laid over each other. Pips you can see are worth their number, and crossing the pair is worth five on its own, so a crossed pair showing three pips is eight. At 0–0, the pair is face down and squared up.

If your table keeps score with the four and the six instead — the horse and the rider — that is in Settings. The six lies face up and the four covers it, and the score is however much of the six is not covered; at four the rider turns face up and brings its own four with it, and nine is both cards face down side by side. Either way the numbers are printed right beside the cards, so you never have to read them if you would rather not.

Somebody played off-suit when they could have followed. Is that a bug?

Only Grandma is allowed to renege: play another suit when she could have followed the one led. The app shows which cards you can legally play, so you can’t do it by accident.

When Grandma is an opponent, you can use Call a renege during the hand or before the next deal. The button does not tell you whether she cheated: a correct accusation gives your team the points, and an incorrect one gives them to hers. You cannot accuse your own partner.

My phone buzzed while I was thinking. What was that?

That is Pap. If you take a while on your turn, he scrapes his cards on the table, with a matching buzz on supported phones. He does it up to three times and starts again on the next trick. He doesn’t hurry his own partner.

The buzz can be switched off on its own in Settings, under Pap. His cards still move, so he is still there; the phone just stays quiet. He can also be left out of the game entirely.

Can I play on iPad?

Yes. The table is laid out for iPad rather than stretched from the phone. Requires iOS 18 or iPadOS 18 or later.

Reporting a bug

Helpful things to include: which device, which operating-system and app versions, and what the table looked like when it went wrong. A screenshot of the hand is especially helpful for a rules question.