Play Hearts

How to play Hearts

Hearts is a game of avoidance. Four players each take thirteen cards, and over thirteen tricks you try to win as few of the scoring cards as possible. Every Heart you take costs one point; the Queen of Spades costs thirteen. Twenty-six points are on the table every round, and the lowest score wins.

That is the whole tension: taking tricks is usually how card games are won, and here it is mostly how they are lost.

Passing

Before most rounds, everyone picks three cards to pass — and the direction rotates: left, right, across, then a hold round where nobody passes at all. Everyone chooses at the same time, so you never see what is coming before you commit what is going.

This is where a round is often decided. High Spades are dangerous if the Queen is still out; a suit you can empty becomes a suit you can discard into later.

Playing the tricks

The Two of Clubs starts

Whoever holds it leads it — not the dealer, not the winner of anything. On that first trick nobody may discard a Heart or the Queen of Spades, unless their hand leaves them no other legal card at all.

Follow suit

You must play the suit that was led if you hold it. If you cannot, you may play anything — and that is your chance to be rid of something expensive.

Highest card of the led suit wins

There is no trump suit. An Ace of another suit wins nothing — including the Queen of Spades, who is simply an expensive Spade. The winner takes all four cards and leads next.

Hearts must be broken

Nobody may lead a Heart until one has been played on some earlier trick — unless their hand is nothing but Hearts. Until then, Hearts can only arrive as a discard.

Shooting the moon

Take all thirteen Hearts and the Queen of Spades — every point in the round — and the scoring inverts: you score nothing and each of the other three takes twenty-six.

It is all twenty-six or none of it. Twelve Hearts and the Queen is not the moon; thirteen Hearts without her is not either. Which is why a player quietly collecting everything is worth watching, and why taking one point off them on purpose is sometimes the best move on the table.

The rules at this table

Hearts genuinely varies from table to table. These are the choices PlayCards made — common ones, but not the only ones you will meet.

Players: Four, each for themselves
Game ends at: 100 points — lowest total wins
Passing: Left, right, across, then hold
Hearts are broken by: A Heart being played — not the Queen of Spades
First trick: No Hearts and no Queen, unless you hold nothing else
Shooting the moon: The shooter scores 0; everyone else takes 26
Tied lowest score: Another round is played until one player is lowest

The one worth knowing about: many digital versions let the Queen of Spades break Hearts too. PlayCards follows the printed rule, where “hearts are broken” means exactly what it says. Some tables also let a moon shooter subtract twenty-six from their own total instead, or play to a different target.

If you are just starting

Get rid of high Spades early if you do not hold the Queen. The Ace and King catch her, and you rarely get to choose when.
Empty a suit if you can. A void is permission to throw away your worst card at the moment it hurts someone else most.
Keep your low cards. A two or a three is not a weak card in Hearts — it is a card that cannot win a trick, which is exactly what you want.
Watch who cannot follow. The moment someone discards off-suit, you know something about their hand for the rest of the round.
Notice a moon before it lands. If one player has taken every point so far, taking a single Heart yourself costs one point instead of twenty-six.

Hearts is the first game at the PlayCards table with opponents. If you would rather play alone, there is Klondike Solitaire, FreeCell and Spider, or Blackjack against the house — all free, all in the browser, none needing an account.