Hearts

How to play Hearts

Hearts is played by four people, each for themselves. There are no partners. A standard 52 card deck is dealt out completely, so every player starts a hand with thirteen cards. Cards rank from Ace (high) down to 2, and there is no trump suit, so the only way to win a trick is to play the highest card of the suit that was led.

A hand goes like this:

• Before play, each player passes three cards to an opponent (the direction changes every hand, see below).
• Whoever holds the 2 of clubs leads it to the first trick.
• Play moves clockwise, to the left. Everyone must follow the suit that was led if they can.
• If you have no card of the led suit, you may play any card. This is your chance to dump a heart or the Queen of spades on someone else.
• The highest card of the led suit wins the trick, and the winner leads the next one.
• After all thirteen tricks, everyone counts the penalty cards they collected and adds them to their score.

Hearts rules: passing cards left, right and across

Passing is what makes Hearts more than a game of luck. Before each hand you choose three cards from your hand and give them away, and you receive three cards from another player. The direction rotates on a four hand cycle: the first hand you pass to the left, the second to the right, the third across the table, and on the fourth hand nobody passes (a hold hand). Then the cycle starts again.

You pick your three cards and confirm, and the passed cards arrive before anyone plays. If you prefer the simpler game some families play, switch on the No passing option and every hand is played with the cards you were dealt.

Breaking hearts and the first trick

Two rules stop players from simply throwing points around from the start. First, on the opening trick, the one led with the 2 of clubs, you may not play a heart or the Queen of spades, even if you have no clubs. The only exception is a hand that holds nothing else. This is the same first trick rule used in the Hearts game that came with Windows.

Second, hearts cannot be led until hearts are broken. Hearts are broken once someone has discarded a heart on an earlier trick because they could not follow suit. Until that happens you must lead another suit, unless your hand contains only hearts. Playing the Queen of spades does not break hearts.

Hearts scoring and the Queen of spades

Scoring is simple. At the end of each hand, every heart you took counts 1 point and the Queen of spades, often called the Black Lady, counts 13 points. That makes 26 penalty points in every hand. All other cards are worth nothing on their own, although they decide who wins the tricks.

You choose the match length before starting: play to 50 points for a short game or to 100 points, the classic length. The match ends after the hand in which someone reaches or passes the target, and the player with the lowest total wins. If two or more players are tied for the lowest score, another hand is played to break the tie. A score table after every hand shows how each player got their points.

Shooting the moon explained

There is one way to turn a terrible hand into a great one. If you take every heart and the Queen of spades in the same hand, you have shot the moon. Instead of taking 26 points yourself, you get to punish everyone else.

House rules differ on how that reward works, so the game lets you choose. The default adds 26 points to each of the other three players and leaves your score unchanged. The alternative subtracts 26 from your own score instead. Either way, a successful moon can swing a whole match, which is why experienced players keep one eye on anyone who seems to be collecting every heart.

Jack of diamonds variant (Omnibus Hearts)

Many players know a version called Omnibus Hearts, where the Jack of diamonds is a bonus card. Switch on the Jack of diamonds option and whoever takes that card scores minus 10, which lowers their total. It is off by default.

The jack changes the play in interesting ways: high diamonds suddenly have a job, and you may chase a diamond trick you would normally avoid. It does not change shooting the moon, which still means taking all thirteen hearts and the Queen of spades. If the moon shooter also took the jack, the minus 10 still counts for them.

Hearts strategy and tips for beginners

Good Hearts players think about the whole hand from the moment they look at their cards. These habits help most:

• Use the pass to create a void. Passing away all your cards in a short suit means you can discard hearts and high cards when that suit is led.
• Get rid of the Ace and King of spades if you hold few spades. They are the cards most likely to catch the Queen.
• Keep low spades if you hold the Queen. With four or five spades backing her up, the Queen is often safer in your hand than passed away.
• Remember what you passed. If you passed the Queen of spades to the left, you know exactly who holds her.
• Lead low cards in suits where others are still following, and save your 2s and 3s to escape the lead later.
• Count the spades. Once the Queen is out, leading spades is safe, and high spades lose their danger.
• Watch for a moon attempt. If one player has taken every heart so far, take a single heart yourself to stop them.
• Don't panic about one heart. A trick with one point is often better than giving up control of the hand.

Playing against the computer: Easy, Normal and Hard

When you play alone, the other three seats are computer players, and you pick how strong they are. Easy is gentle and forgiving, so it suits learning the rules. Normal plays solid, sensible Hearts and will punish obvious mistakes.

Hard is a real test. It counts every card played, tracks which suits each player is void in, remembers the cards it passed, and before choosing a card it looks ahead by simulating many possible deals of the cards it cannot see. That makes it much harder to fool with the Queen of spades or a sneaky moon attempt.You can also set the speed to relaxed, normal or fast.

Play Hearts online with friends

To play with people you know, open a room and share it. Friends can join with the room code or through the share link, which you can send on WhatsApp, copy, or pass on with your phone's share menu. Any seat nobody takes is filled by a computer player, so two, three or four people can play together. In online rooms you can send quick emojis and short messages, and switch on voice chat if you want to talk while you play.

If you just want a game with anyone, use Quick match to sit down with other players online. If a table is not full after about twenty seconds, computer players top it up so you are never left waiting.

It works with mouse, touch or keyboard, on phones and desktop. Legal cards are highlighted, and a button shows you the last trick again.

Hearts vs Spades: what is the difference?

Both are four player trick-taking games with a 52 card deck, but they pull in opposite directions. In Spades you play with a partner, spades are always trump, and you bid how many tricks you will win, then try to make that number exactly. In Hearts there are no partners, no trumps and no bidding, and most of the time you are trying to lose tricks that carry points.

Hearts is quicker to learn because there is nothing to bid. Spades rewards partnership signals and careful counting of tricks. If you like both, try our Spades game too, it is played on the same kind of table.

Where Hearts comes from: Reversis, Black Lady and Windows Hearts

Hearts belongs to an old family of avoidance games. Its best known ancestor is Reversis, a game played in Spain and France from around the 1600s in which the aim was to take as few tricks and points as possible. Hearts itself took shape in America in the late 1800s, at first with hearts as the only penalty cards.

The Queen of spades penalty came later, in a version known as Black Lady, and it became so popular that it is simply what most people now mean by Hearts. Passing cards and shooting the moon were added along the way. Black Maria is a related British game, often played by three people, which also gives penalties for the King and Ace of spades.

Millions of people met Hearts on a computer. Microsoft Hearts Network shipped with Windows for Workgroups 3.1 in the early 1990s, so office colleagues could play across a network, and a version of Hearts stayed in Windows up to Windows 7.

Hearts for kids and adults

Hearts is a good family card game because the rules fit on one page and there is no bidding to explain. Children who can follow suit and count to 26 can play, and the Easy computers give them a friendly table to practise at. The only cards to watch are the hearts and one queen.

For adults the depth comes from the pass, counting cards and deciding when to risk a moon. A short match to 50 is a quick game, and a full match to 100 makes a relaxed evening with friends online.