Hearts – everyone should know how to play this classic card game
LEARN how to play the classic card game “Hearts”. You can play Hearts online or with a regular 52-card deck. Hearts is ideally a four-person game.
Sun Vegas have put together an ultimate guide on how to play Hearts.
Hearts is a trick-taking game where the overall winner has the lowest score. In this card game, ace is high.
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There’s no need to over complicate the game or add fancy extra rules.
This is a guide to the most commonly played version of Hearts.
The rules have been kept simple so that you can start playing as soon as possible, without losing the attention of any players while you’re try to explain the rules (there’s always one!).
Get ready to shuffle your suits and deal the deck.
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How to play Hearts
Shuffle a full deck, minus the jokers.
The dealer deals the entire deck, face down, among the players, so each player has 13 cards.
Players look at their own cards and pick three to pass to the player on their left.
Players often try to get rid of high-value cards by swapping them out.
Once the cards are swapped, the game begins.
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The game is played in rounds, or, “tricks”. One trick occurs when each of the four players has had the chance to put down a card.
When all of the 52 cards have been played, that’s the end of the “hand”.
One game will have multiple hands.
The game ends when a player reaches 100 points.
First trick
The person who has the two of clubs starts the game. They place this card, face up, in the middle.
The first card placed in a trick is called “the lead”. The player to the left goes next.
They must put down a card, of any value, but in the same suit as the lead.
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In the first trick, if a player does not have a club card, they can put down any card from a different suit – apart from hearts card or the queen of spades.
Traditionally, hearts cards and the queen of spades are not played in the first trick.
If you have a card in the same suit as the lead, you must play it.
Once all four players have placed down a card, the trick is over.
The player who placed the highest value card in the same suit as the lead loses and collects the four played cards (confusingly, this means they “win the trick” as they gain cards).
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Subsequent tricks
Players must pick another three cards to swap out of their hand. This time, the cards are swapped to the right.
In the next trick, the cards are swapped with the player opposite.
There are no card swaps in the fourth trick.
The pattern of left, right, opposite and no swap, continues until the end of the hand.
The second trick begins with the loser of the previous trick going first.
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They can choose which card to place – it can be any suit or rank. The queen of spades can now be played.
However, most games play the rule that a heart card cannot be the lead until the hearts have been “broken”.
A heart is broken when a player places down a heart card because they have no cards in the lead suit.
Once the hearts are broken, they can be used as the lead.
Scoring
The hand continues in tricks until all of the cards are played.
That means that one hand should consist of 13 tricks, as one card is used per trick and players start with 13 cards each.
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After each hand, players examine how many tricks they won and count how many of those gained cards are hearts.
Each heart card is worth one point. The queen of spades is worth 13 points.
Shooting the Moon
You may think that a player who has collected all of the hearts cards AND the queen of spades is very unlucky.
However, they’ve actually shot the moon.
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That means, rather than gain 26 points themselves, all of the other players get 26 points.
Think of it as a card collection that is SO unlucky, it actually becomes lucky.
Subsequent hands
In the next hand, the player holding the two of clubs starts the first trick.
This rule continues for each new hand.
The order of card swaps starts again with each new hand: left, right, opposite and no swap.
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End of the game
The reason that you want to get rid of high-ranking cards when you can swap cards is to try and avoid winning tricks.
You are more likely to win a trick when you play a high-ranking card.
The game ends when a player reaches an overall score of 100.
Players may want to choose a different ending score for their game. For instance, you could play to 50, 75 or 150.
The winner is the player with the lowest overall score.
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