Editing Trick-taking game (section)

==Follow suit==
In many games, ''following suit'' is the action of playing a card of the same suit as that of the leading suit. A player must follow suit if that player has cards of the leading suit in his hands. There is a large variation of strictness in following suit among games.<ref>McLeod, John. [https://www.pagat.com/mech.html#followsuit Mechanics of Card Games] at [[pagat.com]]. Retrieved 18 February 2017.</ref>

In most modern games with trump suits, the rules for following suit do not distinguish between the trump suit and the ''plain suits''. If a trick begins with a plain suit card and a later player cannot follow suit, the player may choose freely to either ''slough'' (discard a card of another plain suit), or ''ruff'' (''trump'' the trick by playing a trump card). Subsequent players to the trick must still follow the original suit, and may only discard or trump if they do not hold a card of the suit led. 

Certain games are "play to beat" or "must-trump". If a player cannot follow suit but can play trump, they must play trump. If they are able, they must beat any trump card already played to the trick. [[Pinochle]] and several of the [[Tarot card games]] have this rule.

Some games, notably [[French tarot]] and a variation of [[Rook (card game)|Rook]], use a special card (in French Tarot's case, the [[The Fool (Tarot card)|Excuse]]) that can be played at any time. If not, he has the choice of playing a trump to possibly win the trick, or rough (waste) a different suit.

If unable to follow suit or trump, any card can be played. Each trick must contain one card per player, and hence a player unable to satisfy any other instruction is at liberty to play any card. Usually a low-ranking card or one from a short suit is sacrificed. The former is used to protect a higher ranking card while the latter is to help void a suit so as to allow trumping a future trick.

For example, consider the following [[Whist]] hand, in a game where diamonds {{cards|d}} are the trump:
* North holds: {{cards|As|Ks|4h|9d}}
* East holds: {{cards|7s|5d|Qc|10c}}
* South holds: {{cards|3h|2d|Jd|Ac}}
* West holds: {{cards|5s|2s|6h|5c}}

North leads the deal with {{spades|K}}. Now, all the other players must follow suit, i.e. play a spade card. East has a spade card, and thus must follow suit by playing {{spades|7}}. South, however, does not have any spade card, and thus is allowed to play any card he wants. If he desires to win the trick, he can override North's {{spades|K}} by playing a diamond card (diamond being the trump), for example {{diamonds|J}}. If he does not want to win the trick, he can slough any other suit, such as {{hearts|3}}. Let us assume that he plays {{diamonds|J}}, overriding North's card. Now, West still has to follow suit, since he has a spade card, and plays {{spades|2}}. South's trump card, gives him an opportunity to escape following suit, and he wins the trick.

If a player who can follow suit does not do so, or in games with additional restrictions on card play, not following these restrictions is known as a [[revoke]], or 'renege'. A revoke typically cannot be discovered at the time when it is committed, but when a player plays off-suit to a trick, competent opponents will make a mental note that the player does not hold the suit led, and will notice later if the player later plays a card of the suit they were thought to be void in. The situation is similar for other types of revoke. 

Most game rules prescribe a severe penalty for a revoke and may also result in the hand being voided, a "misdeal". Decks of cards have been marketed for trick-taking games with the traditional French suit symbols, but in four colors. These are often called [[Four-color deck|"no-revoke" decks]], as the color contrast between each suit makes a potential revoking play easier to spot and harder to do accidentally.

In some trick games—typically ones in which players are not penalized for winning tricks, and there is no requirement for trumping or following suit when possible—players may ''slough'', or play a card face down.  A card so played is incapable of winning the trick; but sloughing has the advantage that the other players cannot see what card is played. As this form of sloughing has the potential to be used to cheat in most games (i.e. playing a winning card face-down to avoid taking an "overtrick" or a trick containing penalty points) and is thus not allowed. ''Sloughing'' in the vernacular more often refers to simply discarding an off-suit card on a trick, particularly one that could be dangerous to that player if kept. 

This form of sloughing is important in evasion games and in some contract games where "overtricks" are penalized. In [[oh hell]], for instance, a player who cannot follow suit may elect to discard a card that would win if played to follow suit later, thus reducing the chance that the player will "bag", or take more tricks than needed. This is common in [[Hearts (card game)|Hearts]], where high-value cards are dangerous, especially Spades and Hearts, as they increase the chance of winning a trick with penalty points.

Some games such as [[Pinochle]] use several decks shuffled together. In these games, there may be several equal winning cards in a trick; such games then use other rules to break ties. Common rules include:
* the first-played of the tying cards wins
* the last-played of the tying cards wins
* The tying cards cancel each other out, and the trick is taken by the next-highest card that was played.
* The tying cards cancel each other out, but the trick is spoiled (ignored).

A common additional rule to reduce these occurrences is that a player cannot play a card tying the current high card unless they would renege or fail to overtrump by making any other play.