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New definition, page 18 (May 21, 2006): 
“Arkansas loner”: A call
“alone” that puts you at unjustified risk of being euchred when you are tied
or ahead (“Oink”).
Additions, pages 8-9 and 72 (February 25, 2006; thanks to J.
T. Martin and David Parlett): Printed
instructions for euchre were found in a book published in 1845, Hoyle’s Games
(Henry F. Anners, Philadelphia).
That’s a year earlier than the earliest published reference found by the Oxford English
Dictionary, an 1846 reported Mississippi court case (in which the name of the game was spelled
“uker”). And Hoyle’s Games
called euchre “a German game.”
That further discredits the notion that the French brought euchre to America, up the
Mississippi River; and it further confirms the theory that the game originated in America
with the Pennsylvania Dutch (who were not Dutch, but southwest Germanic peoples, including
Alsatians, who played the game of Jucker in the Old World).
And a year earlier than that, in 1844, according to David Parlett in The Oxford Guide
to Card Games, was published Thirty Years Passed Among the Players in England and
America, a memoir by the English actor Joe Cowell, in which he spoke of seeing both
“Uker” and poker played on a steamboat journey from Louisville to New Orleans
in 1829.
Also, Parlett has discovered that the euchre term “march” is not to be equated with
marching like a soldier but comes from the German Marsch, a playing card term that
means losing all the tricks.
Parlett told me in an e-mail that he thought the odd spelling “euchre” might
have been coined by someone hearing the German word “Jucker” – the
name of the Alsatian game from which euchre derived – and comparing it to the
sound and spelling of the Eucharist.
Two old books solely about euchre, not previously reported in The Columbus Book of
Euchre or in Catherine Perry Hargrave’s History of Playing Cards and Bibliography,
surfaced on the internet: The Law and Practice
of the Game of Euchre by “A Professor” (134 pp., T. B.
Peterson & Bros., Philadelphia, 1862 – an 1877 edition with 10 additional pages was
titled The Law and Practice of the Game of Euchre to Which Is Added the Rules for Playing
Draw Poker), and Euchre – How to Play It (123 pp., ca. 1890,
Griffith, Farran, Okeden & Welsh, London and Canberra).
And the Oxford English Dictionary lists a book published in 1850 titled The Game of Euchre,
with its Laws (with name of neither author nor publisher disclosed).
That would then be the first book published solely on euchre; the “Professor’s”
would be the second, and John W. Keller’s The Game of Euchre (1887) would be
the third.
And the “Professor” turns out to be Charles Henry Wharton Meehan, law librarian of
the Library of Congress.
Reviews of two new books on euchre also have been added:
The Complete Win at Euchre, by Joseph D.
Andrews, at page 79, on January 15, 2005, and Euchre
Strategies, by Fred Benjamin, at page 80, on April 19, 2007.
Correctional addition (October 8, 2005) to the maxim on page
40, “Never order a bower to your partner (unless you’re going alone), and never
turn down a bower”:
Well, never say never. There are exceptions,
mainly at scores of 8 and 9 points.
You don’t need a loner at 8 or 9, and it may be OK to turn down a bower when the
opponents have 8 (you don’t want to get euchred).
Correction (June 11, 2005; thanks to J. T. Martin):
On page 39 (in later printings; it’s on page 40 in earlier printings), under
“Don’t go alone with 8 points,” the money game we play (resulting in a
$4.25 payoff at 13 to 0) is for a quarter a point (not a quarter a trick) and a dollar
a game.
(Don’t lead the suit turned down) (new, September 17,
2004 – add at end of essay on
“What to lead”; page 59, first edition; page 61, early printings
of second edition; page 63, later printings of second edition):
(Whatever you lead to open a hand, don’t lead the suit turned down.
There’s a reason the dealer turned it down.
He doesn’t have any. He will
trump it if you lead it. This is so
elementary that this whole paragraph is in parentheses.
I added it only because there was some space left on this page and I got an e-mail from an
expert who mentioned that he had never seen this admonition in any euchre book.
So, here it is. Like all rules, this one
has exceptions, of course. Don’t
ask.)
“Safety” (new, June 20, 2004):
I have never been comfortable with the term “donation” for ordering up an
opponent with the intention, or at least with the likelihood, of getting euchred –
in order to hold the opponents to a score of two points on the hand.
Not infrequently the order will result in a score for the player ordering.
Where I grew up – in Southern Indiana – this ploy was called the “Columbus
coup.” But there are a growing number
of euchre players who do not know where Columbus Ohio is, let alone Columbus
Indiana. So, obviously, we need
a better term for this ploy.
The better term is "safety." It is
not wholly unlike a "safety" in football (and not only because the opponents are
likely to score two points on the play in euchre, as they are guaranteed in
football). In fact, the two games
should trade terms: "Donation"
would be a better term for the football play (since, although it is usually
unintentional, it always gives the opponents two points); and "safety"
would be a better term for the euchre play (which is always intentional, and is
intended to limit the opponents to two points, but sometimes gives them nothing,
and scores instead). The issue arose in one of my columns.
Accordingly the item "Columbus coup" in the PLOYS & AXIOMS section of The Columbus
Book of Euchre has been rewritten this date, as follows: | |
