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. 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, and additionally 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, use a special card (in French Tarot's case, the 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. It is also possible that the specific deal has "no trump". In that case, any card other than the leading suit played has no value, in most trick-taking games. In some games such as Oh, hell, where the player may need to not get more tricks to win, playing cards other than the leading suit can be useful. For example, consider the following Whist hand: Trump diamonds North: East: South: West: North leads the deal with . Now, all the other players must follow suit,