Hearts

Pass three cards, dodge the hearts and the queen of spades, and keep your score low.

Logic

How to play

  1. Pick three cards to pass — usually your highest hearts and any of the ace, king or queen of spades. The direction rotates: left, right, across, then a hand with no passing.
  2. Whoever holds the 2 of clubs leads it to open the hand. No hearts and no queen of spades may be played on this first trick.
  3. Follow the suit that was led if you hold it. The highest card of that suit takes the trick — there are no trumps.
  4. Every heart in a trick you take scores one point against you; the queen of spades scores thirteen. Points are bad.
  5. Hearts cannot be led until one has been discarded on another suit. Once hearts are “broken”, any lead goes.
  6. Take all thirteen hearts and the queen in one hand and you have shot the moon: you score nothing and everyone else gets 26.

What it trains

  • Risk management in card form: every trick is a small decision about what you can afford to win
  • Trains card memory and inference — the discards tell you who is void and where the queen sits
  • Calm by design: no ads, no account, no clock, and the opponents are the computer

Full rules

The table

You sit south; West, North and East are the computer, each playing for themselves. All 52 cards are dealt out, thirteen to each seat, and the hand lasts thirteen tricks. There are no teams and no trumps — Hearts is every player against the scorepad, and the winner is simply whoever has collected the fewest points when the game ends.

Passing three cards

Before the first hand is played, every seat chooses three cards and passes them on — to the left the first hand, to the right the second, straight across the third, and the fourth hand is played as dealt. High hearts and the top spades are the usual exports, but passing to create a void — emptying a whole suit so you can discard whatever you like when it is led — is often stronger than passing your three biggest cards.

The first trick

Whoever holds the 2 of clubs must lead it, so the opening trick is decided before a single choice is made. Nobody may drop a heart or the queen of spades on this trick, which makes it the one safe moment of the hand — the standard play is to get rid of your highest club while it costs nothing.

Following suit

Everyone must play the suit that was led if they hold it; only a player with none of that suit may throw something else. That discard is where the damage happens — a void suit is a licence to drop the queen of spades or a fat heart on whoever wins the trick. This is the rule newcomers most often miss, so cards you cannot legally play simply cannot be picked up, and the line above your hand says why.

Breaking hearts

A heart cannot be LED until one has already been discarded on some other suit — “breaking” hearts. Until then the suit sits locked in every hand, and the first heart always arrives as a discard from someone who ran out of the suit led. Once broken, hearts may be led freely, and the endgame usually turns on exactly when that happens.

The queen of spades

One card is worth thirteen points on her own: the queen of spades. Holding her is not the danger — being forced to WIN her is. Low spades are the shield that ducks under spade leads, which is why passing away your small spades is usually a mistake, and why a string of spade leads from an opponent generally means someone is being hunted.

Winning a trick

When all four cards are down, the highest card of the suit that was led takes the trick — discards of other suits never win, however high. The winner leads next. Every trick tells you who took it and what it cost, so the scoring lands while you play rather than before you start.

Shooting the moon

Take every heart and the queen of spades in a single hand and the score flips: you get nothing and each opponent gets 26. It is the most dramatic play in the game and the reason a player who is “losing” every trick late in a hand may suddenly be winning them all on purpose — if someone is sweeping up points, taking a single heart off them is enough to stop it.

Scoring and how long a game lasts

Each heart taken is one point and the queen of spades is thirteen, so a hand distributes 26. One hand runs a few minutes and is the default here. The traditional game plays repeated hands until someone reaches 100 — the winner is the LOWEST score at that moment, so the game is about surviving longest, not scoring fastest. Your game is saved if you close the tab.

Play classic Hearts online free — full screen, no download, no ads and no sign-up. You sit south against three computer opponents: pass three cards, follow suit, and steer clear of points, because every heart you take costs one and the queen of spades costs thirteen. Lowest score wins. Take all twenty-six in one hand and you have shot the moon, handing 26 to everyone else instead. A single hand runs a few minutes, or play the traditional game to 100. Every trick tells you who took it and what it cost, so the rules land while you play, and your game is saved if you close the tab.

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