Revokes

You can correct it!

First and foremost, if you realise it in time, you are allowed to correct a revoke and, indeed, you should do so. By correcting the revoke you avoid having to give away any penalty tricks.

For the first eleven tricks, you can correct a revoke provided neither you, nor your partner, have played to the next trick (or made a claim). A revoke occurring on trick 12 can be corrected any time, even after play of the hand is completed.

Bridge buzz word: If you revoke in any of the first 11 tricks and then you or your partner play to the next trick, the revoke is "Established".
To correct a revoke, you simply substitute a legal card for the illegal one. If you are a defender, your illegally played card must stay down as a Major Penalty card but otherwise there's no penalty. You don't have to give away any tricks.

If you do rectify a revoke other players (including your partner) are allowed to change any cards they played after your revoke card without penalty.

The penalty isn't always 2 tricks.

It's only if a revoke is discovered too late to correct it, ie. after it is established, that a penalty is incurred. You should play the hand to completion and apply the penalty at the end. The rules for determining the penalty are considerably more complicated than many players (me included before I checked!) believe.

First and foremost, you never have to give up tricks made before the offence occurred. It's only the revoke trick and the subsequent ones which are up for grabs. Here are the rules:

  1. If the offending side lost the revoke trick and all subsequent ones, there's no penalty.
  2. Starting with the trick on which the revoke occurred, if the offenders only won one of those tricks, then they must give that one trick to the opposition.
  3. If the offenders won two or more of those tricks, it's a little more complicated. If the illegally played card actually won the trick, or if the offender subsequently won a trick with a card which he could, legally, have played when he revoked, then the offending side must give two of their tricks to the opposition. In all other cases, the offenders only have to give away one trick.
Back Copyright © Keith Sheppard, 2001