How to Play Hearts

Learning how to play the Hearts card game online is easy, but developing your own successful gameplay style is in your hands. Here, we’ll go through the game’s makeup, setup, rules, and some popular trick-taking strategies to help you along.

The Objective

The objective of Hearts is to be the player with the lowest score of all players by the end of the game. This can be accomplished through educated guesses, strategy, and crafty gameplay with a dash of luck.

Game Components

There aren’t any special sections on a board or anything like that, as you’d find in other card games. Simply put, there are four players, one 52-card deck, and a surface to place cards upon to reveal tricks.

Game Setup

Generally, the game consists of four players situated in such a way as to avoid being able to see other players’ cards (The online game is pictured as sitting around a square table, with one player along each edge.)

Player Arrangement

The four players around the square table face each other, with gameplay turns happening clockwise. There are no teams in Hearts, so players’ scores are tallied individually.

Dealing the Cards

The deck is shuffled, and whoever is chosen to deal distributes 13 cards to each player face down. The first dealt card goes to the player to the dealer’s left, continuing clockwise, one card at a time.

Passing Cards

After the dealing is done, it’s time for players to check out their hands and select three cards they’d like to pass face down to another player. Nobody can pick up these cards until everyone has passed three.

Though you can only work with the hand you’re dealt, a bit of strategy (or wisdom) is involved when determining which three cards to get rid of. However, the same is true for your opponents. When all is decided, you’ll have discarded three undesirable cards, but you’ll have received three that the player to your right deemed undesirable. See “Strategies for Success” below for tips about what three cards you might want to remove from your hand.

Basic Rules

The game of Hearts consists of making tricks, taking tricks, and getting familiar with special cards that can either make or break your hand.

Starting the Round

After everyone has passed and looked at their hands, the player with the 2 of Clubs goes first and uses it to begin the first trick. The player to their left follows suit if possible.

Though all three remaining players will likely have at least one Club card, there is a chance that one might not. In this case, anyone unable to play a Club can play Spades or Diamonds, but not any Hearts or the Queen of Spades.

Hearts and the Queen of Spades

The first trick of a hand is only meant to get the game going, not scoring. Since the Queen of Spades and Hearts are point cards, they can not be played. The only exception is if a player winds up with

Each Heart card is valued at 1 point, and the Queen of Spades (also known as Black Maria) is valued at 13 points. You strive to get rid of these cards to shed these points among your competition.

Trick-Taking Mechanics

Trick-taking mechanics are simple. Whatever suit starts the trick, players have to place cards of the same suit into the trick, one card each. Whoever has the highest valued card of that suit wins the trick and collects the cards.

If a player doesn’t have any cards of the same suit, they play a card of a different suit. Often, this is how someone inevitably winds up “breaking Hearts” into the game. After Hearts has been broken, any player can start a trick using Hearts from that point forward.

How to Score in Hearts

Ending each round of tricks with the lowest score possible isn’t always an easy feat. But the good news is that even though you may have a couple of hands that score more than you’d like, you have several tries to correct your course as the game continues until someone breaches 100 points.

Point Accumulation

Players accumulate points by winning tricks and collecting point cards nestled in the trick. Because the goal is to be the player with the fewest points by the end of the game, winning tricks should be avoided at all costs once the Hearts break into the game.

Winning a trick is fine if no point cards were used (i.e., winning a trick of 4 Diamond cards). Since no point cards reside in the trick, winning won’t count against you.

Shooting the Moon

“Shooting the Moon” is the game’s riskiest yet most devastating move. If a player collects every Heart card in the suit and the Queen of Spades, they score 0 points but deal 26 points to every other player.

The risk in this move is the chance that a player wins a trick with any heart card in it late in the hand.

Winning the Game

The game is played hand after hand until someone reaches a score of 100. The player with the lowest score wins the game.

Strategies for Success

Not dissimilar to other games requiring strategy, the more you play, the better you’ll get. Remaining mindful of the following three strategies will help you along.

Avoiding Points

• Removing as many cards of high value early in the hand is a good way to avoid collecting points later.
• Playing lower-valued cards (2’s, 3’s, etc.) should be reserved for trying to trap other players to win hands. When point cards are at play, this can help you avoid being the one to collect.

Passing Wisely

Passing high-valued cards (Jacks, Queens, Kings, etc.) to other players will counter the high-valued cards heading your way from them. If you’ve gotten rid of cards higher valued than the three you receive from your opponents, you’re better off.

Tracking Played Cards

One of the best (and most difficult for some) elements to include in your strategy would be keeping track of what cards have already been played. For example, if you know a 2 of Spades has been played, and you have a 3 of Spades, you already know you have the lowest card of that suit still in play. If you have to start a trick, you can use that 3 to ensure that you won’t win the next trick because nobody will have a lower card than you of that suit. 

Also, tracking played cards can help you figure out what the other players have in their hands. In this case, it would be knowing what hasn’t been played by remembering what has.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Along with experience are things you learn to avoid. Here are three tips to be wary of.

Underestimating the Queen of Spades

Unless you’re trying to strategize your hand to break the moon, it’s best to try to get rid of the Queen of Spades in a manner that won’t cost you. It’s a high card and will certainly become an issue if you try to play it in a trick populated with Spades. The best way to get rid of it is when you have no cards at play in a trick. Under that condition, you can play it without winning the trick, sticking it to someone else.

If you have the King or Ace of Spades, you’ll want to try to get rid of these as soon as possible. These cards beat the Queen and can force you to win a trick that contains the Queen! Both cards would be good candidates to pass to someone else at the beginning of the hand, making it their problem.

Poor Card Passing

Try to set your strategy before passing at the onset of the hand. You could ruin your chances of shooting the moon if you give away cards that would aid you in that or might help to set up someone else to achieve it. If you give away lower-level cards, you might find yourself stuck with a handful of face cards, leading you to win tricks you want nothing to do with.

Overcommitting to “Shooting the Moon”

Successfully creating a scenario in which you win a hand by shooting the moon requires knowing when it will or won’t work. Unless you are dealt a hand that greatly favors that effort, it’s best not to commit to this strategy. Yes, when done right, there is a high reward, but the risk is just as great.

Variations of Hearts

Hearts has been a prominent game for decades and has enjoyed its share of evolution. Here are a few variants of the game.

Omnibus Hearts

This iteration of Hearts utilizes the 10 of Diamonds, which deduces 10 points when won in a trick.

Spot Hearts

In Spot Hearts, Every Heart card is worth its face value rather than only being worth one point. For example, a 3 of Hearts is worth three points, the King of Hearts is worth 13, an Ace is one, etc...

Partnership Hearts

As the name denotes, Partnership Hearts is played with players split into two teams. Each player’s score per team is combined, making the trek to 100 much faster (if the teams haven’t agreed to a higher target).