Play Hearts - Card Game

Hearts Card Game game info

Hearts (also known as Black Lady) is a relatively easy and well liked card game. If you fancy a break from solitaire, this is a very interesting alternative.

Players

Hearts is played with four players who each play individually.

Cards

Hearts uses a regular French-suited deck of 52 cards. The cards are ranked as follows from highest to lowest: A - K - Q - J - 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 - 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2. There is no trump suit.

Goal

The goal in Hearts is to score as few points (hearts or Queen of spades) as possible.

Deal

Each player is dealt 13 cards. The dealing direction is clockwise.

Passing

After looking at their hand, each player chooses three cards and passes them face down to another player. All players must pass their cards before they can look at the cards they have received.

The passing rotation is:

• First to the player on your left.
• Then to the player to the right.
• Then to the player across the table.
• Then no passing.

This rotation repeats until the game ends.

Gameplay

The player holding 2 of clubs has to play that card to start the first trick. Playing direction is clockwise.

Every player must follow suit if possible. If a player has no cards in the leading suit, a card of any other suit may be played.

In the first trick, it is not allowed to play hearts of the Queen of spades.

The highest card of the suit led wins a trick, as there are no trumps in Hearts. The winner of the trick gets all the cards and starts the next trick.

Hearts may not be led until a hearts has been played (this is called "breaking" hearts). It is allowed to lead with the Queen of spades at any time.

Scoring

At the end of each hand, the number of hearts a player has taken is counted. Each card of the hearts suit counts for 1 point. The Queen of spades adds 13 points.

Shooting the Moon

Winning all 13 Hearts and the Queen of Spades is called Shooting the Moon. In this case, the player who shoots the moon gets zero points and all other players get 26 points.

Shooting the Moon is highly rewarding but potentially risky. Ensure you have the right cards to do this before trying.

Game end

The game ends when one of the players reaches 100 points. The player with the lowest score wins.

Tips and tricks

Unless attempting to shoot the moon, players should generally speaking focus on discarding high cards, especially hearts and spades, to avoid collecting points. This can be achieved by creating a void in a suit or strategically playing a high card last in a trick without points.

• Creating voids: Having no cards of a certain suit, called a void, is an advantageous situation. It allows to discard hearts or other unwanted cards when another player leads with the voided suit. The best suits for voids are clubs and diamonds.
• Effective passing: Pass high-risk cards (A♠, K♠, Q♠, high hearts) and try to create voids.
• Discarding high cards: Discard high cards (especially hearts and spades) to minimize point collection (unless attempting to shoot the moon). Also prioritize eliminating high cards in suits where there are no lower-ranked cards for protection.
• Leading with spades: If you don’t have A♠, K♠, or Q♠, leading tricks with low spades can force an opponent to take Q♠.

Similar games

If you like Hearts, try out other trick-taking games such as Spades and Euchre.

System requirements

Hearts Card Game can be played in all modern browsers, on all device types (desktop, tablet, mobile), and on all operating systems (Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, ...).