How to play Hearts

What Hearts is

Hearts is a trick-taking card game for four players, each playing for themselves. A standard deck of 52 cards is dealt out, thirteen cards each. In every trick each player plays one card, and the highest card of the suit that was led wins it. The twist is that you do not want to win tricks that hold hearts or the Queen of spades, because they score points against you. When the game ends, the lowest score wins.

Playing Hearts on AllFun

In AllFun Hearts you sit at the bottom of the table, with three computer players around you. Choose their level, Easy, Medium or Hard, and play to 50 or 100 points. Two house rules are up to you: how shooting the moon scores (26 to each other player, or your pick of that or 26 off your own score), and whether the Jack of diamonds takes 10 points off the score of whoever wins it.

Tap a card to play it. Cards you cannot play shake and tell you why, so you learn the rules as you go. The bulb picks a good card when you are unsure, with three free hints each game. Play Online seats you at a table of four, and Play a friend lets you invite people with a room code; seats nobody takes are filled so the game can start. Online, you have 20 seconds for each card and 45 seconds to choose your pass.

The rules

The pass

Before each hand, every player picks three cards to pass: to the left in the first hand, to the right in the second, across the table in the third, and no pass in the fourth. Then the cycle starts again.

Playing the tricks

• The player holding the 2 of clubs leads it to start the first trick.
• Everyone must follow suit if they can. If you cannot, you may play any card.
• The highest card of the suit led wins the trick, and its winner leads the next one. Aces are high.
• No points can be played on the first trick, unless a player holds nothing else.
• Hearts cannot be led until a heart has been played on an earlier trick: hearts are then broken. A player with only hearts left may lead one anyway.

Scoring

At the end of each hand, every heart you took counts 1 point and the Queen of spades counts 13, so a hand holds 26 points in all. If one player takes all thirteen hearts and the Queen, they shoot the moon: instead of taking 26 points, every other player gets 26. The game ends when someone reaches the target score, and the player with the lowest score wins.

Six tips for Hearts

1. Pass the danger. High spades (Ace and King) attract the Queen. High hearts can force you to take tricks. Pass them unless you plan to shoot the moon.
2. Make a void. Passing away all your cards of one short suit lets you throw points on other players' tricks once that suit is led.
3. Lead low, duck often. Play a card just below the winning one so somebody else takes the trick.
4. Flush out the Queen. If you hold small spades and not the Queen, leading spades forces whoever has her to play her.
5. Count the hearts. Know how many have been played. It tells you when a low heart is safe and when someone is going for the moon.
6. Stop a moon shot early. If one player is taking every point, take one heart yourself. A single point costs you far less than 26.

A short history

Hearts took shape in the nineteenth century from older card games in which the aim was to avoid taking tricks or certain cards. The Queen of spades as a 13-point card, often called the Black Lady, was added later and quickly became part of the standard game.

Hearts FAQ