The player who is dealt the Two of Clubs (or is passed it) starts each hand, rather than the player to the left of the dealer.Usually, in a 4-person game, players pass to the player to the left at the start of the first hand, then to the right on the second hand, then across on the third, then refrain from passing on the fourth, then repeat this cycle. After being dealt cards, each player passes three cards of his choosing to another player.Listed below are some of the most common rule variations. X Research source You may or may not want to incorporate these into your game. Though these rules are accurate and perfectly acceptable for play, in reality, many variations on these standard rules exist. The rules outlined above constitute the most 'basic' version of Hearts. If he or she can do it, he or she will have scored a major victory, but if one of his/her opponents gets just one of the point cards, he or she will be left with a bad score for the hand.īe aware of common rule variations. So, if a player is losing badly and has collected every point card in the hand so far, he or she may risk an even-worse score by trying to collect every Heart and the Queen of Spades. If, in a given hand, a player manages to collect ALL the points from that hand (this is called 'Shooting the Moon' or 'Running'), s/he receives a score of 0 and all other players receive 26 points. There is one important exception to the goal of avoiding points.Since it's difficult to tell whether another player will play a Heart or the Queen of Spades after you, usually, you want to avoid taking tricks altogether, even if no point cards have been played yet. All other cards are worth no points, so you may collect these without fear. The cards that are worth points are the Hearts and the Queen of Spades. In Hearts, like in golf, all players want to gain the lowest amount of points possible - whoever has the fewest points at the end wins. In most cases, since we usually don't want to win hands, we'll probably play the Five.Īvoid Hearts and the Queen of Spades.

The Ace will win the hand for us because it's the highest card of the same suit as the lead card, while the Five won't beat the Queen. So, for example, if the person who led the trick played a Queen of Diamonds and we have an Ace of Diamonds and a Five of Diamonds in our hand, we have to play one of these Diamonds.For example, the Ace of Clubs is the most powerful Club, followed by the King of Clubs, the Queen, and so on. In each suit, the cards are ranked from the Ace (the highest value) on down, with 2 being the lowest value.As we'll see below, usually, you don't want to win tricks. Whoever wins the trick leads the next trick - play proceeds in this way until all players have no more cards in their hands.

After all players have played a card, the highest-ranking card that matches the suit of the card that led the trick 'wins' and the person who played that card takes all the cards in the trick and keeps them face down in a pile in front of him or herself until the end of the hand. Once you're sure everyone has the same number of cards, remove the leftovers from the game without looking at them and shuffle them back into the deck before the next hand.Īvoid taking tricks by trying not to play the highest-ranking card during the trick.

Note that, if you're playing with a number of people other than 4, you may have leftover cards at the end of dealing.

The deal proceeds to the original dealer's left at the start of each hand.

The first dealer is either pre-determined or selected via some other method - for example, having players draw cards at random, the lowest being the first to deal.

Players are all dealt the same number of cards - usually by having one player deal in a circle until no cards remain. X Research source Other than your cards, all you'll need is some scratch paper (or something else to write on) and a pen to record your score. Hearts uses a normal 52 card deck (minus Jokers). Hearts is a versatile game - it can be played by 3-7 players, though 4 is the standard number. Grab a standard deck, a few friends, and some scratch paper.

Free spades and hearts card games