the dealer's left leads to the first trick. Rules dictate what cards may be played on a trick. The first, or lead, card, may be any card in the leader's hand. The basic rules of play are as follows: Players must always play a card of the same suit as the lead card when possible. This is called "following suit". If unable to follow suit, a trump card must be played. This is known as "trumping in". If unable to follow suit or play trump, any other card may be played. This is called "throwing off (suit)". Any trump played must beat the highest trump already played to the trick when possible, even if the highest trump was played by the player's partner. This is known as "overtrumping". When a non-trump is led there is no obligation to beat the cards previously played to the trick when following suit. Each trick is won by the highest trump played to it, or, if it contains no trumps, by the highest card of the suit led. The team winning the trick collects the four cards and turns them over to be counted later. The player who won the previous trick then leads the first card of the next trick. This is repeated until all six tricks have been played. Declaring melds During the first trick, players announce melds, scoring combinations of cards that they hold. The team with the highest ranking meld scores all their melds, while the other team scores nothing for melds. The rank and point values for melds are listed above. No card may be used in more than one meld. Among sequences of equal length, the one with higher cards wins; if the rank of the cards is also equal, a trump sequence beats a non-trump sequence. If both teams have a sequence of equal rank and length in non-trump suits as their highest meld, neither team scores for meld on that deal. In order to score any meld, the player must announce it just before playing a card to the first trick. Immediately before playing, or leading a card to the second trick, he/she must show it. If the player does not announce the meld before playing the first trick, or show the meld before playing the second, the meld is not scored. Bella Bella (king and queen of trump) is treated differently from other melds. If