Hearts

How to play Hearts

Hearts is a trick-taking game for four players, each playing for themselves. Here you play against three computer players: Mabel on your left, Otto across the table and June on your right. The aim is to finish with the lowest score, so you try not to win tricks that have hearts or the queen of spades in them.

The deal and the pass

All 52 cards are dealt, thirteen to each player. Before play starts, every player chooses three cards and passes them face down to another player. The direction changes each hand:

• First hand: pass to the left.
• Second hand: pass to the right.
• Third hand: pass across the table.
• Fourth hand: no pass. Then the cycle starts again.

Tap three cards to lift them out of your hand, then press the Pass button. Tap a lifted card to put it back. You choose your three before you see the three you are given, which arrive standing up from your hand.

Playing a trick

• The player with the 2 of clubs leads it to the first trick. Play then goes clockwise.
• You must follow the suit that was led if you can. If you cannot, you may play any card.
• The highest card of the suit led wins the trick. Aces are high and there are no trumps.
• The winner of a trick leads the next one.
• Nobody may play a heart or the queen of spades on the first trick, unless they hold nothing else.
• A heart cannot be led until a heart has been played on an earlier trick (hearts are then “broken”), unless the leader holds nothing but hearts.

When it is your turn, the cards you may not play are dimmed. With a mouse, click a card to play it or drag it onto the table. On a touch screen the first tap lifts the card and a second tap plays it, so a slip of the finger can be put right.

Scoring

There are 26 points in every hand. Points are bad: the game ends at the end of the hand in which someone reaches 100, and the player with the lowest score wins. The Scores button shows every hand so far.

Shooting the moon

If one player takes all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades in a hand, that player scores nothing and each of the other three scores 26. It is a risky plan: miss by a single heart and you keep every point you took.

Tips for winning more often

• Pass the queen, king and ace of spades unless you hold four or more smaller spades to protect them. With plenty of small spades, the queen is safer in your own hand, where you decide when she is played.
• Passing every card of a short suit gives you a void. Once that suit is led you can throw away whatever you like.
• High cards are safest early. On the first round of a suit most players still have to follow, so an ace or king is unlikely to collect points.
• Lead spades below the queen when you do not hold her. Each lead makes it harder for her holder to keep her.
• Keep one or two low cards for the end of the hand, so that you can get out of the lead.
• Watch the numbers beside each name. If one player has every point so far, they may be shooting the moon. Taking a single heart yourself stops them.

How good are the computer players?

Mabel, Otto and June all play the same sensible game. They pass their dangerous cards, duck tricks that carry points, get rid of the queen of spades when they can and try to stop a moon when they see one coming. They see only what you would see in their seat: their own cards and the cards already played.