Hearts

About this game

Hearts is the classic four-player trick-taking game, and the whole point of it is to lose. Every heart you win in a trick costs you a point and the queen of spades costs you thirteen, so the cards you want are the small ones — the game is thirteen tricks of trying to hand the damage to somebody else. You sit south against three computer opponents; play rotates clockwise, you must follow the suit that was led if you hold it, and the highest card of that suit takes the trick and everything painful in it. Before a card is played you pass three cards to another player, and the direction rotates every hand: left, then right, then across, then a hand where nobody passes at all. That single rule is most of the strategy. Passing the queen away is safe but predictable; keeping her means holding enough low spades to duck under her when somebody leads the suit. The two of clubs always leads the very first trick, no hearts or queen can be dropped on it, and nobody may lead a heart at all until hearts have been broken by one being played on a trick somebody else led. Then there is the moon. Take every single heart and the queen of spades in one hand and the scoring inverts: you score nothing and all three opponents take twenty-six. It is the biggest swing in the game and it turns a hand that looks catastrophic into the one you meant to play — but miss by one heart and you simply keep the twenty-five points you collected trying. The computer opponents are not following a script. Nobody at a Hearts table can see the other hands, so an opponent that searched the position would be searching nothing; instead each one guesses the unseen cards dozens of times over, plays every guess out to the end of the hand, and picks whichever card costs least on average. It also remembers what you have shown it: the moment you fail to follow a suit, that void is recorded and every future guess respects it. Easy, Normal and Hard change how many worlds it considers and how often it settles for a merely decent card. The game ends the moment anybody reaches a hundred, and the lowest score wins.

Controls

Tap a highlighted card to play it; only legal cards are enabled.

• During the pass, tap three cards to raise them and press Pass.
• Arrow keys walk your hand, Enter plays.

How to play

Four players are dealt thirteen cards each from a standard deck, and points are bad.

The pass and the first trick

• Before play, everyone chooses three cards to pass; the direction rotates each hand — left, right, across, then a hold hand with no passing at all.
• The player holding the two of clubs must lead it to the first trick, and no hearts or the queen of spades may be played on that first trick.

Following suit

• After that you must follow the suit that was led if you hold it; if you are void you may play anything, and that is your chance to throw away a heart or the queen.
• The highest card of the led suit takes the trick and the cards in it.
• Hearts cannot be LED until hearts are broken — that happens the first time a heart is played on a trick — unless the player on lead holds nothing but hearts.

Scoring

• Each heart taken is one point and the queen of spades is thirteen.
• The exception is shooting the moon: take all thirteen hearts AND the queen in the same hand and you score nothing while every other player takes twenty-six.
• As soon as any player reaches one hundred the game ends and the lowest score wins.

Read the full Hearts rules and strategy →