LearnHearts

The Basics

Hearts is a 4-player trick-taking game with no partners — every player for themselves. The goal is to take as few points as possible. Lowest score wins.

The Deck

A standard 52-card deck. Each player is dealt 13 cards. There is no trump suit.

Passing Cards

Before play begins, everyone chooses 3 cards to pass to another player. The direction rotates each hand:

1. Hand 1 — pass left
2. Hand 2 — pass right
3. Hand 3 — pass across
4. Hand 4 — hold (no passing)

You must choose your pass before seeing the cards you receive.

Trick Play

The player holding the 2 of Clubs leads the first trick. Each player must follow the led suit if they can; if not, they may play any card. The highest card of the led suit wins the trick, and the winner leads the next.

First-trick restriction — on trick 1 you must play a non-penalty card if you have one, making it practically impossible to take points on the opening trick. In the rare case a player holds nothing but penalty cards, they must play a heart (never the Queen of Spades), and that point counts against whoever takes the trick.

Hearts cannot be led until they are "broken" (a heart has been discarded on another suit's trick) — unless you hold nothing but hearts.

Points

You do not want to win tricks that contain these cards.

Shooting the Moon

If one player takes all 26 points (every heart plus the Queen of Spades), they score 0 and each other player takes 26. Dangerous — but devastating when it works.

Winning

When a player reaches 100 points, the game ends and the player with the lowest score wins.