Euchre vs 500: Similarities, Differences & Which to Learn First

Of all the games you can compare to euchre, 500 is the one that shares the most DNA. It uses the same bower hierarchy, the same trump-follows-trump logic, and the same partnership trick-taking structure. If euchre is a river, 500 is the same river upstream — deeper, wider, and requiring more navigation, but clearly the same body of water.

At a Glance

The Bower System: Identical

This is the most important similarity. Both games use exactly the same trump hierarchy:

1. Right Bower — Jack of trump suit (highest trump card)
2. Left Bower — Jack of same color as trump (second-highest trump)
3. Ace of trump
4. King of trump
5. Queen of trump
6. 10 of trump
7. 9 of trump (euchre stops here; 500 continues downward with 8s, 7s)

The Left Bower rule — where the off-color Jack becomes part of the trump suit — is identical in both games. This is the single most important concept to transfer from euchre to 500.

Bidding: The Key Difference

This is where the games diverge most substantially.

Euchre Bidding

In euchre, trump selection works in two rounds:

1. A card is turned face-up; players decide whether to make it trump (or decline)
2. If all pass, players name any other suit or pass again

The bidder simply decides yes or no. There’s no number attached. The threshold is always “3 of 5 tricks.” Getting euchred costs opponents 2 points.

500 Bidding

In 500, there is no turned card. Instead:

• Players bid competitively: each bid names a number of tricks (6–10) AND a trump suit simultaneously
• Example bids: “6 hearts,” “7 spades,” “8 no-trump,” “9 clubs”
• Higher bids outrank lower bids; within the same trick count, suit ranking determines priority (no-trump > hearts > diamonds > clubs > spades, traditionally)
• The highest bidder wins the contract, takes the 3-card kitty, and must win at least the bid number of tricks

Bid point values:

If you make your bid, you score the bid value. If you fail, you lose that many points — your score can go negative (this is called “going out the back door”).

The defending partnership scores 10 points for each trick they win, regardless of whether the bidder makes their contract.

The Kitty: Different Roles

In euchre: The top kitty card is turned face-up for all to see and is the focal point of round 1 bidding. If the dealer takes it up, they must discard one card.

In 500: The kitty is 3 cards dealt face-down in the center before the deal. The winning bidder picks up all 3 cards, adds them to their hand (now 9 cards), then discards 3 cards face-down to get back to 6. The kitty is never seen by other players. This creates a “hand improvement” element that is bigger than euchre’s single card exchange.

The kitty in 500 is a significant strategic tool — you might bid speculatively knowing the kitty could complete your hand, or avoid a bid knowing the kitty can’t help you.

Scoring Compared

Euchre: Simple, additive, first to 10 wins. Scores only go up. Maximum per hand: 4 points.

500: Points are bid-dependent and bidirectional. You can go negative. The first team to reach 500 points wins; the first team to reach -500 points loses (even if the other team hasn’t reached 500). This creates a completely different risk profile — conservative bidding accumulates slowly, while bold bidding can win or destroy you.

Defenders score 10 points per trick they take, regardless of the contract result. This means even when the bidding team makes their contract, the defenders may have scored 30–40 points from the tricks they took.

Hand Length and Deck

In euchre you play 5 tricks from a 24-card deck. In 500, you play 10 tricks from a 32-card deck (standard North American version adds 7s and 8s to the euchre deck). This doubles the hand length, requiring:

• More sustained attention per hand
• More trump counting (up to 11 trump cards with bowers vs. 7 in euchre)
• More careful trick sequencing (when to take tricks vs. when to let them go)

The larger deck also means more unknowns. In euchre you see 5 cards and know 1 more from the turn-up = 6 of 24 known. In 500 you see 6 cards and the bidder sees 3 more from the kitty (temporarily) = 6 of 32 known for non-bidders, more for the bidder.

No-Trump in 500

No-trump bids are a standard feature of 500 — not a house rule. In a no-trump hand:

• There is no trump suit
• No card outranks the led suit
• Bowers revert to regular Jacks in their printed suit
• No-trump bids score higher than same-trick-count suit bids (see the bid table above)

No-trump requires a hand dominated by Aces and Kings across multiple suits — it’s the highest-risk, highest-reward bid in the game.

Path from Euchre to 500

If you know euchre and want to learn 500:

1. Learn the new deck. 500 uses 7s and 8s which euchre removes. These cards are now low trump and low off-suit cards — they matter at the bottom of trick sequences.

2. Learn the bid table. The point values seem complex at first but follow a simple pattern: multiply by 100 and adjust by suit. After 2–3 hands it becomes intuitive.

3. Adapt your hand evaluation. You have 6 cards instead of 5, and you’re evaluating “how many tricks will I take?” not just “can I make 3?” Count your probable winners across all suits.

4. Get comfortable with negative scores. The first time your score goes negative it feels strange. It’s part of the game — the risk of ambitious bidding.

5. Play Bid Euchre first. Bid Euchre is a transitional game that uses the euchre deck with a simplified bidding system. It’s closer to standard euchre but teaches the bidding mindset you need for 500.

Which Should You Play?

More Comparisons

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• Euchre vs Spades — Euchre vs the nationally popular fixed-trump partnership game
• Euchre vs Bridge — Euchre vs the most complex trick-taking game
• Games Like Euchre — All 10 similar games compared