Games - Hearts

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	Games - Hearts

Hearts is a trick-taking game, usually played with a standard deck of 52 cards, in which the object is to avoid taking certain cards in tricks. Hearts is usually played with four players, but can be modified for other numbers of players—this is discussed under Variants.

How to play

Getting started

Hearts requires only:

four players,
a deck of standard playing cards, and
a pen and paper for scorekeeping.

Variants for other numbers of players exist, and are described in the "Variants" section.

The deck

Hearts is played with one standard deck of playing cards. As in Bridge, the rank-order is (from high to low) ace, king, queen, jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. There is no trump suit.

The object

The object of Hearts is to avoid scoring points; when one person scores a pre-specified amount (usually 100) the game is over, and the winner is the person with the lowest score.

Play overview

Hearts is played in rounds, each of which includes a deal, a player-to-player pass, the play of tricks, and a scoring phase. Players continue at rounds indefinitely, until the game's end.

The deal

Which player deals has no effect on play, but dealership is normally rotated left with each new hand. The deck is dealt to exhaustion.

Passing cards

In most rounds, each player passes any three cards from his or her hand to another player, and receives 3 to replace them. Players must select which cards they will pass before viewing the cards passed to them.

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... : Holding hand; no passing occur

Trick-play

Play is standard no-trump trick-taking. The 2♣ is a round's initial lead: the person holding this card, after the pass, leads it to the first trick. Players, if able, are required to follow suit.

All hearts and the Q♠ are penalty cards which players desire to avoid winning in tricks.

"Gentleman's Rules"

There are some rules of Hearts, known as "Gentleman's Rules", that are sometimes included in hearts regarding the play of penalty cards. Four more notable gentleman's rules are:

# No player may lead a trick in the heart suit until a penalty card has been played (or until forced by having nothing else). This is called the "breaking of hearts" or "breaking the ice", and usually occurs either when the Q♠ is played to a spade trick, or a heart is ruffed out-of-suit. # No player may play a penalty card ("blood") on the first trick, unless the player has nothing else (an extremely unlikely situation). # A player holding the Q♠ must play it at the first legal opportunity where it cannot win the trick (for example, if the A♠ were led, or if this player were afforded a ruffing opportunity.) # On rare occasions you will encounter groups who forbid certain cards to be passed (most commonly the 2♣ or the Q♠).

The second rule listed is a relatively modern addition, and the third is rarely used today. All of these rules are controversial within the hearts community, and it is a good idea, before play, to verify with the other players which rules are to be used.

Scoring

At the end of a round, penalty points are assessed according to the cards taken in tricks. Each heart gives 1 point to the person taking it, and the Q♠ carries a penalty of 13 points. Therefore, 26 points are assessed each round. However, if a player takes all the penalty cards (known as shooting the moon, going for control, or simply running hearts) he or she takes no penalty points, and the other players take 26. Alternatively, some players allow this individual to subtract 26 points from his or her score. This has no effect on relative totals but slows the pace of the game.

Finally, the scores are checked against the game-ending condition, and the game ends or a new round begins.

Variants

Having existed for centuries, and widely played in North America, Hearts is one of the most varied card games, second perhaps only to Poker in the number and diversity of variants. Hundreds, if not thousands, exist on the Internet.

We present some of the more notable variants. Play variants are variations where the game itself is different. Scoring variants are variations where the game's rules are no different, but objectives and scoring are altered: this may only slightly alter the game, or (via emergent effects) make it utterly different.

Open lead

::Some players prefer to have the first lead determined according to dealership instead of the 2♣, because having the 2♣ denies its holder one trick's worth of strategic liberty; otherwise, they could lead something more appropriate to their strategy. Instead, the first trick is led at dealer's left, and this player may lead any card not in the heart suit. In this variant, players are required to keep track of dealership.

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