Hearts (card game)

For the Scottish football club, see Heart of Midlothian F.C.

Hearts

Players	3-5
Setup time	1 min
Playing time	20-50 minutes
Chance	Medium
Age range	6 +
Skills	Card Counting Strategy

Hearts (also Black Lady, Chase the Lady and Black Maria ) is a trick-taking card game for three or more players; the version for four is perhaps the best known, since the game is often included with Microsoft Windows. A standard deck of 52 playing cards is used. What distinguishes Hearts from other trick-taking games is that points are negative, and so the objective is to have the lowest score when the game ends (either when one player exceeds a preset limit such as 100, or after a predetermined number of deals). Points are scored for winning a trick to which any hearts are played, and thus players attempt to avoid capturing them. In many variations there are additional penalty cards, most often the Queen of spades, sometimes also the Ace and King, or Ace and Ten.

Gameplay and mechanics

File:Gnome-hearts.png

A typical game of Gnome-hearts running on Linux.

Deal

The entire deck is dealt out; this means that four players receive 13 cards each. There are different ways to accommodate a different number of players. One variation is that some cards are removed to make the remainder go round evenly (one card, typically the Two of clubs, is removed with three players, the Twos of clubs and diamonds with five, all four Twos with six). Alternatively, all cards are retained but some remain undealt, and these are given to whoever takes the first penalty point.

Passing

In most variants, each player is able to pick three cards and pass them either to the player to the left, the right, or across from them, in the "passing" phase. They will likewise receive three cards from another player. Players must pick which cards to pass before they can see what other players give them.

The older rule is that cards are always passed to the player on the right; however, a common version is that the pass sequence rotates, with one of every four rounds a "hold round", where no cards are passed. The pass sequence, repeating every four rounds, is as follows:

• Rounds 1, 5, 9... : pass left.
• Rounds 2, 6, 10... : pass right.
• Rounds 3, 7, 11... : pass across.
• Rounds 4, 8, 12... : hold; no passing occurs.

For 3 player games the order is left, right, then hold. For 5 player games the order is: left, right, left next-but-one, right next-but-one, then hold. This allows, over the course of a game, for every player to pass/receive to and from every other.

Trick play

This phase plays like most other trick-taking games; however there is no trump suit. The player left of the dealer leads to the first trick. (A variant is that whoever has the Two of clubs must begin by leading this card.) The other players play in clockwise sequence, and each player must follow suit (play a card of the same suit as the leader) if they can. The player who plays the highest card of the led suit takes the cards and leads off for the next trick.

If a player does not have a card of the led suit, he or she may play any card from another suit; this is often used to play penalty cards so as to force them to be taken by another player. A common rule is that hearts♥ may only be led after the first time a heart has been discarded to the lead of another suit (this is called "bleeding" or "breaking" hearts).

Once all tricks have been played, the play round ends and the scoring phase begins.

Scoring

In traditional Hearts, there is a pool of chips to which all players contribute equally at the beginning. If a player has taken no hearts he gets the pool of chips. If two players take no hearts, the pool is divided. If all the players have taken hearts (called being "painted") or if one player has taken all the hearts, then the pool remains on the table. When this occurs the pool is called a "jack". If a player has won all the chips he has won the game, otherwise a new round begins.

And also if a player hits 50 points exactly he/she goes back to zero and if that player hits 100 points exactly he/she will go back to 50 points.

Most versions dispense with this in favour of a point-counting system, whereby each heart is a penalty score counting 1 point against the person taking it. Common embellishments include:

• The Queen of spades is a penalty card worth 13 points, and thus a very important card to avoid. In the versions named "Black Lady" or "Black Maria", this rule is always used, and the name of the game refers to the Queen.
• Three subvariants that each assume the Queen of spades rule is being followed:

  In the version called "Pink Lady", the Queen of hearts scores 13 points, instead of just 1 for being a heart.

  The Ace of spades is a penalty card worth 7 points, and the King (sometimes the Ten) is one worth 10.

  The Ten (sometimes the Jack) of diamonds is a good card to capture in a trick, subtracting 10 from one's penalty score.

• If a player takes all the penalty cards in one round, often called "shooting the moon", this is a good instead of a bad thing. There are several variant rules for what happens when a player shoots the moon: they may be able to subtract 26 from their score, or add 26 to the score of all opponents.
• Taking not only all the penalty cards but all the tricks is sometimes an even better thing to do; called "shooting the sun", it may allow a player to subtract 52 from their score or add 52 to everyone else's.

Strategy

Winning Hearts is dependent on several factors, in addition to sheer luck. An important element is choosing the right cards to pass on (when this rule is followed). The pass is often used to void a suit (begin play with no cards of the suit). However, this is not always the best strategy; for instance, a player may pass off all his spades just to get passed the Queen; this will force that player in all likelihood to "eat his own queen", that is, play the Queen on the first round spades are led and take it himself (also known as "taking it to the grave"). For this reason, low spades should always be kept in case one is passed the Queen, since the other players will often lead spades to try to force the player holding the Queen to take it (sometimes called "flushing", "smoking it out", or "hunting the bitch"). The Ace and King of spades are equally dangerous, since if a player is forced to play one or the other, the player with the Queen can get rid of it if it happens to be held by someone who has not yet played to the trick.

Another important aspect of Hearts is teamwork. As there is typically one leader and all the other players trailing, the most advanced strategy appears when the trailing players team up to give the leader points. Playing the queen and other point cards only when the player with the lowest score can take them, passing favorable cards to trailing players, and setting up the leader all require teamwork and unselfish play.

Knowing whether to try to take all the point cards ("shoot the moon") or not is also important, as a botched attempt could end up giving the player all but one heart. The term "covering" is used to describe the common practice of a player passing their second highest heart in order to prevent anyone else from shooting the moon. This player is responsible for playing the higher heart to stop a player if they attempt to shoot the moon. Passing the highest heart (thus making it possible one player has all the high hearts) or not playing the cover card is called "dodging" or "ducking" and is considered poor sportsmanship by many players.

When the rule of beginning with the 2^{[CS Ch.{{{ch}}}]} is played, some players opt to pass this card, since having the Two does not allow you to play a high club on the first trick. (Players with high cards generally want to play them as soon as possible, before players become void and can throw penalties on them.) With this rule, the A^{[CS Ch.{{{ch}}}]} is considered by many a great card, and is generally not passed, since having the A^{[CS Ch.{{{ch}}}]} enables a player to start the next trick with whatever suit they desire. This can be especially useful if the player only has one card in a suit left. Passing a high club is generally considered pointless, as it will just be played on the first trick.

When point cards are allowed on the first trick, however, many players adopt aggressive passing strategies to void themselves in clubs, or in other words engage in "club-dumping" so that they can play high hearts or the Q as soon as possible. (But club-dumping can backfire if you pass away your dangerous clubs only to receive worse ones back.)

Passing high diamonds generally indicates an attempt to short them. This is a common strategy, as there is very little risk in shorting diamonds. Hearts may also be shorted if a player starts with only a few high ones; as with spades, passing on low hearts is risky in case one receives back high ones.

Shooting the moon

Generally, the player attempting to shoot will keep high cards, and keep a long suit, so that they may keep playing that suit when others have run out. In order to make sure that a player does not save a card specifically to foil a moon shot, most players must deceive their opponents as to their intentions, for example playing lower cards until they are confident they can take and hold possession of the lead.

This is important, especially during pass rounds, as receiving a pass of low cards is a red flag that the other player is attempting to shoot the moon. Usually it is in a player's best interest to stop the other person from shooting, as they will take 26 points, but that must be weighed against the potential consequences of stopping the shooter, which may include taking many points. An advanced player holding the Q and other high cards, but aware that others will prevent them from shooting, may clear out their other suits by playing high cards and then pass the lead to someone else with a low card played late in the hand, hoping that they will then be able to discard the queen on a trick in the suit they have created a void in. Other players, fearing the moonshot, will keep high cards to prevent it, which may garner them the queen on the last few tricks if the Queen was not smoked out earlier. The player in second place may be wary of preventing a moon shot by a higher player, since if the higher player successfully shoots the second-place player may still be in second place (or nearly) since both their score and that of the leader increases by 26 points, whereas if the second-placed player stops the moonshot they may take many points for their pains, putting them further out of reach of first place.

Players with "long suits" (five or more of a single suit) have a high advantage to shoot the moon; similarly, those without hearts also have a higher chance of being successful in a moon shoot. A long suit allows the player to force others to play their highest of that suit, then switch to another suit before the leading player has run out of that suit; this means that even low cards, if other players do not have that suit, can be used to shoot the moon.

Successful shooting often requires players to count cards, seeing which cards have been played to see if a moon shot is possible or which player has which card. A player leading off with A either means he or she is shooting the moon, or has the Q and is not afraid to retain possession. Generally, if a player has a long suit including low cards, it is important to count cards in that suit as they are played, since their low cards may cease to be exits once the rest of the suit is exhausted. It is entirely possible to lead a Two in a long suit and receive the Q when no-one else has that suit anymore.

See also

• Barbu (game)
• Spades (card game)

External links

• Hearts game Shareware hearts game for Mac OS, Mac OS X, and Windows.
• TkHearts A quality hearts clone for Linux and all OSes supporting Tcl/Tk.
• Cardgame collection A collection of card games including Hearts for Unix (Linux)
• PyHearts Cross-Platform Black Lady Hearts Game (GPL License)
• Hardwood Hearts Windows/OSX/Xbox spot hearts game.
• HeartsWizard Windows XP/Vista Hearts game software.
• Online Hearts Free online Hearts game against computer opponents.
• Joe Andrews Hearts Articles Archived columns on the game of hearts.
• Cheat Hearts How to cheat Hearts (Windows XP)