[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"c\u002Fspades\u002Freneging-in-spades":3,"x\u002Fspades\u002Freneging-in-spades":59},{"key":4,"path":5,"canonicalPath":5,"category":6,"kicker":7,"title":8,"seoTitle":9,"description":10,"intro":11,"practice":12,"practiceTo":-1,"practiceLabel":-1,"sections":13,"faq":46},"spades--reneging-in-spades","\u002Fspades\u002Freneging-in-spades","Rules Details","Rules","Renege in Spades: Meaning and the Common 3-Book Penalty","What Does Renege Mean in Spades? Penalty + Example","Renege (renig) means not following suit when you could. Learn the 3-book penalty most tables use, the other house rule, and a fully scored example.","A renege, also spelled renig, means failing to follow suit when you could. The common house penalty is 3 books (tricks) moved from the offending team to the opponents; some tables score the offending team’s bid as failed instead. Published rules such as Pagat and Bicycle set no standard penalty, so agree yours before the deal.","You can’t renege at our tables: the server refuses any card that breaks the follow-suit rule. Play a hand against bots and see it enforced.",[14,20,25,31,36,42],{"heading":15,"paragraphs":16},"What does renege mean in Spades?",[17,18,19],"To renege is to play a card of another suit while you still hold a card of the suit that was led. Suppose hearts are led and you hold ♥ 4 and ♠ A. You must play the heart; playing the spade is a renege even though it would win the trick, and it is still a renege if it was an accident.","The word is also spelled renig, and the same offence is called a revoke in bridge and whist. If you have no hearts, the spade is legal, and so is a discard from another suit: standard Spades never forces you to trump. Playing low when you could win is legal too.","Two other mistakes are often confused with it. Leading spades before they are broken and playing out of turn both break the rules, but neither is a renege.",{"heading":21,"paragraphs":22},"What is the penalty for reneging in Spades?",[23,24],"The most common house penalty is 3 books (tricks) moved from the team that reneged to the opponents, applied when the renege is caught before the hand is scored. The other common version scores the offending team’s bid as failed: they lose 10 points for every trick they bid, whatever they took.","Neither is official. Pagat’s and Bicycle’s published Spades rules require you to follow suit but give no renege penalty, so there is no rulebook to settle a dispute. Agree before the first deal which penalty you use, how long a renege can be claimed, and what happens when the offending team has fewer than 3 books to give.",{"heading":26,"paragraphs":27},"How does the 3-book penalty change the score?",[28,29,30],"Apply the transfer before scoring the bids. Team A bids 8 and wins 8 tricks; team B bids 4 and wins 5. A renege by team A moves 3 books, so A ends the hand with 5 tricks and B with 8.","A misses its contract: −80. B makes its 4 with 4 overtricks: 40 + 4 = +44, and those 4 tricks also count as bags toward the 10-bag penalty. Without the renege the same hand scores +80 for A and +41 for B, so the penalty costs team A 160 points.","The penalty says nothing about nil on its own. Decide in advance whether transferred books can break a nil bid.",{"heading":32,"paragraphs":33},"Can you renege on Tricklora?",[34,35],"No. The game server checks every card against the suit led. While you hold that suit, only those cards are playable; any other card is refused before it reaches the table, and if your time runs out the server plays a legal card for you. Leading spades before they are broken is blocked the same way, unless your hand is all spades.","So a card you cannot select is not a bug: it usually means you still hold the suit that was led. The same check runs in Spades Duel, the one-on-one game, so no table here ever needs a renege penalty.",{"heading":37,"paragraphs":38},"How do you prove someone reneged?",[39,40,41],"Stop play and name the trick, the suit led and the card played. Keep finished tricks in order so they can be checked. If a player failed to follow hearts and later plays a heart in an ordinary 13-card hand, they held a heart all along: that is the proof.","That reasoning assumes no card enters a hand once the first trick is led. It holds in the two-player game as well, including the Spades Duel played here, because both hands are built from the stock before the bidding; it fails only in a variant that draws or exchanges cards during play.","Agree the claim window in advance. “Before the next trick” and “until the hand is scored” are both common house rules; choosing one after a dispute starts rarely ends well.",{"heading":43,"paragraphs":44},"How do you avoid reneging by accident?",[45],"Sort your hand by suit and look at the first card of the trick, not the last one played. Clubs and spades are both black, so check the symbol rather than the colour, and recheck your remaining cards as the hand gets shorter.",[47,50,53,56],{"q":48,"a":49},"Is reneging the same as revoking?","Yes. Renege (or renig) and revoke both mean failing to follow the led suit while holding a card of that suit.",{"q":51,"a":52},"Do you always lose three books for reneging?","No. Three books to the opponents is the most common house rule, not a published standard. Some tables score the offending team’s bid as failed instead; use the penalty your table agreed before the deal.",{"q":54,"a":55},"Must I play a spade if I cannot follow suit?","No. In standard Spades you may discard another suit instead. You must follow the led suit whenever you have it.",{"q":57,"a":58},"Does reneging automatically fail nil?","Only if your table’s penalty says so. Agree in advance whether transferred books can count against a nil bidder.",{"example":60,"sources":63,"related":74},{"heading":61,"text":62},"A trump is not legal when you can follow suit","Clubs are led, and your remaining hand includes 7♣ and 2♠. You must play a club. Playing the spade would be a renege even if it wins the trick, saves your partner or seems necessary to make your bid. Having a low club is not an exception to following suit. If you have no clubs, the spade becomes a legal option instead. Before accusing another player, remember that you normally cannot see their hand: a trump alone does not prove a renege. Establish whether they held the led suit at that moment and apply the rules agreed for that table.",[64,70],{"url":65,"title":66,"publisher":67,"note":68,"language":69},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FSpades_(card_game)","Spades (card game)","Wikipedia","A renege as failing to follow suit when you could, whether or not it was on purpose, and penalties that vary between tables, such as losing the bid.","en",{"url":71,"title":72,"publisher":67,"note":73,"language":69},"https:\u002F\u002Fen.wikipedia.org\u002Fwiki\u002FRevoke","Revoke","Renege as another word for revoke: breaking the rules of play, such as the duty to follow suit, in a trick-taking game.",[75,79,82],{"path":76,"title":77,"english":78},"\u002Fspades\u002Frules","Spades: Rules",false,{"path":80,"title":81,"english":78},"\u002Fspades\u002Fcan-you-break-spades","When Can You Break Spades?",{"path":83,"title":84,"english":78},"\u002Fspades\u002Fcommon-mistakes","Common Spades Mistakes"]