Each player keeps his score in three columns, one for plus points (headed "Won"), one for minus points (headed "Lost"), and the third for the net total.
Revokes.
The American rule is as follows:—
"Upon the revoke being claimed and proved, the hands shall be immediately abandoned. If it is an adversary of the bidder who has revoked, the bidder scores the full amount of his bid, while the side in error scores nothing."
Professor Hoffmann's rule is as follows:—
"If the bidder be the offender, he shall be set back the amount of his bid [i.e. the amount shall be scored in his minus column], each of the opponents scoring as usual for any trick or tricks he may have made, including any which, but for the revoke, would have fallen to him.
"If one of the opponents be the offender, the cards of the trick in which the revoke occurred, and of any subsequent trick, shall be taken back by their respective holders, and the hand played anew from that point. The bidder and the opponent not in fault shall each score according to the result of the play, but the offender can score nothing for that hand, and shall further be set back 100 points."
If a player finds that he holds the Joker, two knaves of the same colour, and any two other cards of the same suit as one of the knaves, he has four tricks certain, by declaring the three-suit trumps, unless all the other five trumps be in the same hand. Should he hold two more tricks in the side suits, he will be quite justified in bidding six.
The chances of getting another trump, by taking in the "widow," are an important element in arriving at sound decisions. The odds evidently vary with the number of trumps already held by the player.