In trick-taking card games, a revoke (sometimes renege, or ) is a violation of the rules regarding the play of tricks that is sufficient to render the round invalid. A revoke is a violation ranked in seriousness somewhat below overt cheating, and is considered a minor offense when unintentional, though there are usually severe penalties for revokes. A revoke is usually a violation of one or more honor rules, and often comes to light after its commission, as trick-taking games play with hands concealed.

Honor rules

Trick-taking games normally have several rules regarding which cards may and may not be played to a trick. For example, most games require a player to follow suit - that is, to play in the suit led - if possible. Rules of this sort are sometimes called honor rules, because there is no way to detect a violation at the moment of its commission, although it will almost certainly be discovered later. For example, if a player does not play a spade to a trick where spades were led, other players will simply assume that player has no spades and note the fact in future play decisions. However, attentive players will soon notice the violation when a spade is played to a subsequent trick. Some honor rules in different trick-taking games include the following:

Penalties

A common penalty for a revoke is to give the player a penalty equal to the most severely negative outcome of the round possible. For example, in a game of Hearts, the worst possible score achievable in a round is 25 points, so the offending player would receive 25 points in penalty for a revoke. Therefore, a revoke rarely has a strategic advantage, except in kingmaker scenarios. Some penalties in different trick-taking games include the following: