Overview
Learning Mode is an option in the lobby for solo games. It is meant for two kinds of players. The first is the player who has never played euchre and wants to learn the rules in context, rather than read them and try to remember at the table. The second is the player who learned euchre once long ago, has not played for years, and wants a refresher without slowing down a live game with three other people.
The mode does not change the rules of euchre. The deck, the bidding, the scoring, and the goal are exactly the same as a normal game. What changes is what you see on screen. In Learning Mode the game surfaces the engine's reasoning for every decision: which suit to call, which card to lead, which trick to trump, when to go alone. The reasoning is the same logic that drives the bots in a normal game, exposed so you can read along with it.
How to Turn It On
Learning Mode is a toggle in the lobby, available only when you choose a single-player game. Open the lobby, choose "Play solo," and the Learning Mode toggle appears in the game settings. Turn it on, then start the game. The setting is not remembered between games. The toggle starts off every time you return to the lobby, so you opt in deliberately for each solo game you want it on. The mode slows play down enough that we do not want it carrying forward without you asking for it.
The mode is not available in multiplayer. Hints that take the bot's place visible on screen would be distracting to other players and would change the social character of the game. The solo restriction keeps Learning Mode a personal learning tool rather than a competitive feature.
The First Hand: Fully Guided
The first hand of a Learning Mode game is the fullest version of the guidance. Every time it is your turn to act, the game shows a recommended choice and a short explanation of why that choice is the strongest one available. The recommendation appears as a highlight on the card or bidding button the engine would choose, accompanied by a one-sentence note about the reasoning.
You are not required to follow the recommendation. The game accepts any legal bid or card. If you play a different card from the one suggested, the hand continues normally and the next decision gets its own fresh recommendation. There is no penalty for ignoring hints. The goal is for you to see the reasoning, understand it, and start to anticipate it on your own.
The first-hand recommendations cover every decision point: ordering up the face-up card in the first bidding round, calling a different suit in the second round, going alone, leading the first trick, following suit, trumping in, and dumping a high card to set up a partner's trick. Each comes with a short note that names the specific reason, such as "you have both bowers and the ace of trump" or "this is the only suit you can win a trick in."
Hand Two and Beyond: Show Me
At the start of the second hand, a one-time message appears explaining that automatic hints are turning off. From hand two onward, you play without on-screen recommendations by default. When you want a hint on a specific decision, you tap a button labeled "Show Me" and the engine highlights its recommendation with the same explanation it would have shown during hand one.
This change is intentional. The point of Learning Mode is to give you enough exposure to the reasoning that you can start to apply it yourself, and constant on-screen prompts work against that goal. By hand two most new players have seen the major decision patterns at least once, and the "Show Me" button is there for the moments when something genuinely unfamiliar comes up.
"Show Me" is per-decision. You can ask for a hint on a tricky bid and then play the rest of the tricks without further prompting. The game does not penalize you for using it and does not track how often you do. The one-time notice at the start of hand two is the only modal the mode shows; after that, the screen stays clean unless you ask for help.
Where the Hints Come From
The recommendations in Learning Mode are produced by the same engine that drives the bots in any other game on the site. The engine considers the cards in your hand, the cards that have already been played, the bidding history, the current score, and the position relative to the dealer, and produces a ranked list of legal actions with the reasoning behind the top choice.
This matters for two reasons. The first is that the recommendations are consistent. The bot you play against in your solo game is making decisions using the same logic that is being shown to you on your side of the table. You can compare the bot's plays to the recommendations you saw and learn to predict what the bot will do.
The second is that the recommendations are not always optimal. Euchre is a game of incomplete information, and the engine works from probabilities, not certainties. A recommendation that looks strong at the time can still lose to an unusual distribution of cards. When this happens, the explanation often makes clear why the recommendation was reasonable even though it did not win the trick. Reading these post-mortems is one of the most useful parts of the mode for an intermediate player.
What Learning Mode Does Not Do
The mode does not slow down the turn timer. The 90-second clock that applies in every game also applies in Learning Mode. If you read a long explanation carefully and run out of time, the same auto-play and bot-substitution rules apply. In practice this is rarely an issue, because the explanations are short and 90 seconds is enough time to read and decide.
The mode does not affect the scoring or the deck. Every hand is dealt from the same 24-card deck, scored under the same rules, and won at the same target of ten points. House rules such as Stick the Dealer, Ace No Face, and Farmer's Hand can all be combined with Learning Mode and behave normally.
The mode does not change the bots' behavior. The bots play the same way they would in a non-learning game. The only thing that is different in Learning Mode is what is visible on your side of the table.
The mode ends when the game ends. If you choose "play again" after a Learning Mode game, the next game starts as a normal solo game, and you can choose to turn Learning Mode on again from the lobby if you want it for the next session as well.
Who Learning Mode Is For
The clearest use case is a player who has never played euchre at all and wants to play their first hands without holding up other people. The mode lets you read the rules in the rules page, then play a solo game where every decision gets a one-sentence explanation. After a few games most new players are ready for an unguided solo game, and after a few of those they are ready to join a multiplayer table.
The mode also fits a player who learned euchre as a child or in a regional league, stopped playing for a long stretch, and is returning. The bidding conventions and trick management instincts take a few hands to come back. Learning Mode covers the gap without requiring three friends to wait while you re-orient.
The mode is less useful for an experienced player who wants competitive practice. The recommendations are based on a single bot's reasoning and not a survey of expert play. An experienced player who wants to sharpen their game is usually better served by a normal solo or multiplayer game.