My name is Leroy Foster. I have been an hourly man at an assembly plant outside of Flint for thirty years this past June, all of it on second shift, which means I go in at three-thirty in the afternoon and I eat my lunch at seven-thirty at night. I have eaten that lunch at the same folding table, across from the same partner and against the same two men, since 1978. Danny is my partner. Leo and Keith are the enemy. We have played more than four thousand lunches of euchre. We quit keeping the running score in 1985 when it got to be a source of tension at home.

My daughter set this page up for me because I kept getting asked the same questions at the Legion, mostly by younger folks who grew up on Nintendo and never learned a real game. So here it is. The rules first, then how we play it, then the tournament results and some stories. If you're from Ohio or Indiana you may play it a little different. That's all right. You're wrong, but that's all right.

The deck. Twenty-four cards: the nines, tens, jacks, queens, kings and aces of all four suits. Take the rest of the deck out. Keep a black four and six and a red four and six out of the leftovers for keeping score. More on that below.

The players. Four, in two partnerships. You sit across from your partner.

The deal. Dealer gives everybody five cards, in a three and a two or a two and a three, his choice, as long as he's the same all the way around. That leaves four cards. He turns the top one face up. That's the up-card. The deal passes to the left after every hand.

Making trump, first time around. Starting to the dealer's left, each player either passes or tells the dealer to "pick it up." That's called ordering it up, and it makes the up-card's suit trump. The dealer gets the last say and can pick it up himself. Whoever orders it, the dealer takes the up-card into his hand and throws one card away face down.

Second time around. If all four pass, the dealer turns the up-card face down. Now, starting at his left again, each player can name any other suit as trump, or pass. You can't name the suit that just got turned down.

The bowers. This is the part that makes euchre euchre. The jack of the trump suit is the highest card in the deck. That's the right bower. The other jack of the same color is the second highest card, and for that hand it counts as a trump and nothing else. That's the left bower. Then the ace, king, queen, ten and nine of trump. So if hearts are trump, the order is:

And for that hand, diamonds only has five cards in it, because its jack has gone over to the other side. Every beginner forgets this. Every beginner has played the jack of diamonds on a diamond lead thinking he was following suit.

The play. The player to the dealer's left leads. You have to follow suit if you can. If you can't, you can trump it or throw off anything. Highest trump wins the trick, or if there's no trump in it, the highest card of the suit that was led. Whoever wins the trick leads the next one.

Scoring. The team that named trump are the makers.

First team to 10 wins the game.

Going alone. When you make trump and your hand is strong enough, you can say "alone." Your partner lays his cards face down and sits out the hand, and you play against both of them. Take all five and it's four points. A well-timed loner wins games. A badly timed one is talked about at lunch for years. See the famous hands.

Keeping score with a 4 and a 6. Each team takes a four and a six from the cards you set aside, one team red and one team black. Lay one face down over the other and slide it to show the pips. For one point, the four is face down over the six with one pip of the six showing. Five points, the four sits face up with one pip of the six showing beside it, and so on up. Every euchre player in Michigan learned this from somebody's grandmother. I can't explain it any better than that. Sit down at a table and somebody will show you in ten seconds.

These are the rules at our lunch table and at the Legion tournament. If you sit down with us, these are the rules you're playing.

Stick the dealer. If it goes around twice and nobody names trump, the dealer has to name it. He can't pass. No throwing in the hand and dealing again. This keeps the game moving, and lunch is thirty minutes. Some folks around here call it something else. On this page we call it stick the dealer.

No farmer's hand. Some tables let a player with a hand full of nines and tens trade it for the cards in the kitty. Not here. You get what you get. A man who can't play a bad hand can't play.

No table talk. Not a word about your hand, not a sigh, not a look, not "well, partner." You can say pass, pick it up, a suit, alone, and whose deal it is. That's it. Leo says this rule was made for him. It was.

Renege costs two. If you don't follow suit when you could have, and you get caught, the other side gets two points, same as a euchre. Catch it before the hand is over or it stands.

No loners from the dealer's partner on the first round. If you order up your own partner's card, you can't go alone on it. You want to go alone, you wait for the second round like everybody else.

The horn ends the hand. Lunch is over when the horn goes. If a game's not finished, Keith writes the score on the inside of his lunch pail lid and we pick it up tomorrow. Some games have gone three days.

1. Shuffle every hand. The player on the dealer's right cuts.

2. Don't pick up your cards until the deal is done. It's a small thing. It bothers people.

3. Lead, then wait. Don't throw your card in before it's your turn, even if you know it doesn't matter.

4. Don't slap the right bower down on the table. Everybody knows it's the right bower. Let the card speak.

5. Don't explain to your partner what he should have done. He knows. If he doesn't, he'll figure it out in the parking lot.

6. Win quiet, lose quiet. There's a lot of lunches.

7. At the Legion, the pop and the coffee are a quarter, and the quarter goes in the can. The can is on the honor system. Don't make it not be.

Call "next." If you're to the dealer's left, the dealer turned down a card, and nobody's called anything, think about naming the other suit of the same color. Euchre players call it "next." The dealer didn't want that color, so there's a fair chance the bowers for the other suit of that color aren't in his hand. It's not a sure thing. Nothing in this game is. But it's right more than it's wrong.

Lead trump when your partner made it. If your partner named trump, and you get the lead, and you've got a trump, lead it. He wants them pulled. If the other side made it, don't lead trump into them unless you've got a good reason, and "I wanted to see what would happen" is not a good reason.