Hearts - Rules, History & Strategy Guide

Hearts belongs to a family of trick-taking games in which the goal is to avoid points rather than collect them. Games of that type have been documented since the nineteenth century, and Hearts in its modern form spread widely in the twentieth.

Most players today meet it as a computer game, because it shipped with desktop operating systems for years. The rules below are the ones most tables recognise.

In Arcadia's version you play against three computer opponents and the match ends when somebody reaches 100 points. The lowest total wins.

1. All 52 cards are dealt to four players, thirteen each. Play runs clockwise.
2. Choose three cards to pass. The direction cycles left, right, across, and then a hand with no passing at all.
3. The player holding the two of clubs leads it. On that first trick you may not play hearts or the queen of spades unless you have nothing else.
4. Follow the led suit when you can. Hearts may only be led once a heart or the queen of spades has been played.
5. Every heart costs 1 point and the queen of spades costs 13.
6. Take all 26 points in a hand to shoot the moon: you score 0 and everyone else takes 26.

• Passing is the one moment you control your whole hand. High spades without low ones to protect them are a common first choice.
• Creating a void lets you discard a dangerous card later, but it also means you can be forced to take a trick you did not want.
• Watch who is collecting points. A player with ten or more while everyone else sits on zero may be shooting the moon, and one point trick taken away ends that.
• Low cards are safety. Spending them early to win tricks you do not need leaves you leading when you least want to.

Tables differ on details: some add the jack of diamonds as a negative ten, some allow the moon shooter to choose between scoring zero and subtracting 26, some forbid leading the queen of spades before hearts break. Arcadia plays one fixed set: hearts and the queen only, no choice on the moon, and the match ends after the hand in which someone reaches 100.