90. The penalty for each revoke shall be—
(a) When the declarer revokes, his adversaries add 150 points to their score above the line,[[64]] in addition to any liability which the revoking player may have incurred for failure to fulfil his contract.
(b) When either of the adversaries revoke
, the declarer may add 150 points to his score above the line,[[64]] or may take three tricks from his opponents and add them to his own. Such tricks, taken as penalty, may assist the declarer to fulfil his contract, but they shall not entitle him to score any bonus above the line, in the case of the declaration having been doubled or re-doubled.
Under no circumstances can a side score anything, either above or below the line, except for Honours or Chicane, on a hand in which one of them has revoked.
91 to 108. As in Bridge.
Hints to Players.
The "One-Spade" Convention.
In certain club circles where the game has been somewhat extensively played, a fixed idea has arisen that to be the first to make an effectual declaration is a positive disadvantage. Hence the "convention"
has been established that (except in certain cases defined below) the dealer must begin with a nominal or fictitious call of One Spade, in order to obtain information from the opponents' calls as to the contents of their hands, or to induce them to undertake a contract which they are unable to carry out.
As it would never do for the dealer, under such a convention, to be left to play the hand at One Spade—which may be the very last thing that he desires—it is a further understanding that the dealer's partner must never fail to overcall. If he has nothing better to say, he must call "Two Spades," thus re-opening the bidding for the dealer to make a fresh start, in case the opponents also "lie low."
The effect of this convention, plainly, is as follows:—