You pick up your hand and one card is damp at the corner, nicked on the edge, or carries a faint pen mark from an old game. The moment lasts two seconds, but what you decide next sets the tone for the whole hand.
This is not really about one card. It is about keeping the session fair without a midnight argument.
Any card with a mark carries extra information. A damp card bends. A nick shows from the back. A pen line invisible under one lamp lights up under another. The holder may be doing nothing wrong, but the gap is real.
In Kout that gap becomes a read: one player knows the card in his hand is the one he spotted two tricks ago. Fairness depends on the deck being clean for all four players, not on intent.
Do not keep playing and promise to sort it out later. The moment someone notices, stop the deal and leave the cards on the table. A hand that continues with a doubtful card produces a discussion half an hour later, when separating a mistake from a misunderstanding is much harder.
The pause is collective: one player raises it, another confirms it, then the table talks. Nobody decides alone that the card is fine.
This is the core question. If the mark is clear to anyone who picks the card up, it is a known card and has to leave the hand. If it only shows under close inspection in strong light, the problem is smaller, but your group's agreement still decides.
If the card is out, the cleanest fix is a full spare deck, if your kit has one, because it removes the problem at the source. The alternative is a substitute of the same rank and suit, marked in a way everyone agreed on beforehand.
Then ask one question: did anyone see the card before the problem came up? If not, and the declaration has barely been made, most groups continue. If the card already passed between players or was played in a trick, a redeal is fairer, because the information is out.
At the end of the session, write one line: what happened, what the table decided, and whether points were counted for that hand. That line protects the next session from the same debate.
For the score itself, Kout Score helps you calculate and track points across your Kout sessions — free on Google Play. Paper works too, but the line nobody wrote down is the one that costs you a week later.
Prevention is cheaper than the argument: drinks on a side table away from the cards, a spare deck in the kit from the first hand, and a marked substitute ready before you need it.
If you want scoring to be the easy part of the night, let Kout Score handle the calculating and tracking of your session points — free on Google Play. Download it free from Google Play and try it in your next session.