What Is Hearts?
Hearts is a classic four-player card game where you’re trying to AVOID taking certain cards. Every heart is worth 1 penalty point, and the Queen of Spades is worth a whopping 13 points. The player with the lowest score when someone hits 100 points wins. But here’s the twist — if you’re brave enough to collect ALL the hearts AND the Queen of Spades in one round, you ‘Shoot the Moon’ and everyone ELSE gets 26 points instead.
What You Need
- A standard 52-card deck
- Exactly 4 players
- Paper and pen for scoring
Setup
- Deal all 52 cards, 13 to each player.
- Before playing, everyone picks 3 cards from their hand and passes them face-down to the next player. In round 1 you pass left, round 2 you pass right, round 3 you pass across, round 4 you keep your cards (no pass). This pattern repeats.
- Look at the cards you received from your neighbor before you start.
How to Play — Step by Step
- The player holding the 2 of Clubs goes first and must play it.
- Going clockwise, each player must play a card of the same suit as the first card played. If you don’t have that suit, you can play any card.
- The player who played the highest card of the suit that was led wins all four cards and takes them into their ‘pile.’
- The player who won the trick leads the next one — they pick any card to start (with one restriction: see below).
- Play continues until all 13 tricks are played.
The Heart Rule
You cannot lead (start a trick) with a heart until someone has already played a heart on a previous trick. This is called ‘breaking hearts.’ The Queen of Spades can be played at any time — even on the very first trick.
Shooting the Moon
If you manage to win ALL 13 hearts AND the Queen of Spades in a single round, instead of getting 26 penalty points, every other player gets 26 points and you get 0. This is called ‘Shooting the Moon’ and it completely flips the game. It’s risky but powerful.
Scoring
- Each heart in your pile = 1 penalty point
- Queen of Spades in your pile = 13 penalty points
- All other cards = 0 points
- Shoot the Moon = you score 0, everyone else scores 26
Add up penalty points after each round. Keep a running total.
Winning
When any player hits 100 points, the game is over. The player with the LOWEST total score wins.
Strategy Tips
- Get rid of the Queen of Spades fast. If you have it, pass it to another player or dump it early when you can’t follow suit.
- Pass high spades like Ace and King — they might force you to win the Queen later.
- Void a suit on purpose. If you have no clubs, you can dump hearts or the Queen of Spades whenever clubs are led.
- Watch for Moon attempts. If one player is winning every trick with high cards, play your highest card to stop them.