I was first introduced to the card game Hearts in college. We had a couple friends that we played the game with for hours. We recently introduced the game to our kids. At first, they were a little confused, but they quickly caught on and now ask to play all the time.
Hearts is a trick taking game. If you’re looking for other games similar to it check out Boodle, Rolling Stone and Linger Longer.
In this post we’ll tell you how to play a standard 4 player Hearts, Hearts rules and special cards, how to score and a variety of Hearts variation including how to play with 7 to 10 players and a 2 player game too.
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What you need for Hearts
First, you need four players to play. You also need a standard deck of cards with the jokers removed. You will also need a paper and pencil to keep track of the score.
The Objective of the Game
To get as few points as possible.
Setting Up Hearts Card Game
To start, deal all of the cards out to the four players. Each player will get 13 cards.
Passing
In the game of Hearts, the players get the opportunity to pass cards that they don’t want to their opponents. This is accomplished in three ways. For the first play, each player chooses three cards from their hands and passes it to the player on their left. You then take the cards that are passed to you and have to add them to your hand.
The second hand, players choose three cards to pass to the player on their right. You then take the cards passed to you and add them to your hand.
For the third hand, you pass three cards to the player sitting across the table from you.
For the fourth hand, you have to keep all of the cards you were dealt.
The pattern of passing starts over again with passing left, then right, then across and no passing throughout the game.
How to Play Hearts
Once all of the passing has been done, the player with the 2 of clubs starts the play. The player on her left then plays a card. She has to follow suit if possible. The third and fourth players do the same. The player with the highest card played wins the trick and gets to start the next round. There is a special rule for the first hand: you can’t play a heart or the Queen of Spades. Aces are the highest card in each suit.
The player who won the first trick then chooses a card to play. Next, the player on his left then must play a card according to suit if possible. If that player doesn’t have a card in the same suit, then she can play any other card she would like. Play continues to all layers have played a card. The highest card in the original suit wins the trick.
For example:
First player: 8 of spades.
Second player: King of Diamonds.
Third player: Jack of spades.
Fourth player: 6 of spades.
The winner is Player 3 and gets to start the next hand.
Breaking Hearts:
When a player plays a heart for the first time, it is called Breaking Hearts. Until hearts are broken, you can not lead a hand with any heart. The exception to this is if it is your turn to lead and all you have are hearts. Each heart that you win will give you one point. remember, you want to get as few points as possible.
The Queen of Spades:
The Queen is very powerful. If you win her, you are adding 13 points to your score. You want to avoid winning this card.
Shooting the Moon:
If you win all the hearts and the queen of Spades, then it is said that you have shot the moon. Instead of adding 26 points to your score, 26 points is then added to all the other players scores instead. (Some people play that you have the option of taking away 26 points from your own score instead.) It is difficult to accomplish this but is very rewarding if you do so.
Scoring Hearts
At the end of the rounds, count all of the hearts that you have won. Each one adds one point to your score. The Queen of Spades adds 13 points.
Round Two
At the end of the round, the card and shuffled and re-dealt. Play beginnings again as it did in the first round.
Winning Hearts Card Game
The first player to get to 100 points loses the game. Everyone else wins.
Hearts Variations
Hearts is a very old game and, as such, there are lots of variations. Here is a list of all the different ones we’ve found.
Domino Hearts
In this Hearts Variation, players are dealt only six cards, the rest makeup the draw pile. There is no passing of cards and the player to the dealer’s left goes first. The game is played the same, except for when a player can’t follow suit. When this happens, he needs to draw cards from the stock pile until he can play. Once the stock pile is empty, players can play a card that doesn’t follow the suit lead.
When a player is out of cards, then she is out of the game. When a player wins a trick with her last card, the player to her left leads the next trick.
The last player in the game is left with all of the cards in his hand as well as any cards that might be left in the draw pile. All hearts are worth one point. The queen of spades has no points value.
Greek Hearts
In this variation, players pass three cards to the player on their right each hand. The Queen of spades is minus ten points. If a player wins all the hearts and the Queen of spades, then all other players lose 26 points.
Heartsette
In this variations of Hearts, is played the same as the base game, but has a widow hand. When 3 or 4 players are playing then you remove the 2 of spades. For a 3 player game, each players is dealt 16 cards. In a 4 player game each player gets 12 cards. When playing with 5 or 6 no cards are removed. A 5 player game, each player gets 10 cards. And for a 6 player game, each player gets 8 cards. The rest of the cards makes up the widow hand.
The player to the dealer’s left starts the trick. The player who wins the trick gets to pick up the widow hand, adds the cards to her hand and then discards until she has the right amount of cards.
Omnibus Hearts
This game is also called Hit the Moon and is best played as a four player game. To play, 13 cards are dealt to each player. Three cards are passed to the right by each player. The queen of spades is minus 10 points. What makes this variation different is that the 10 of diamonds is a bonus card and is plus 10 points. If a player wins all the hearts, the queen of spades and the 10 of diamonds he has hit the moon and gets 26 points to the positive. The game is over when one player reaches minus 100 points. The player with the most positive points or highest minus points wins.
Pip Hearts or Spot Hearts
This game is played the same as the base Hearts game with one difference. The heart cards are worth their face amount of points. For example, the 3 of hearts is worth 3 points and the 8 of hearts is worth 8 points. The Jack is worth 11 points, the queen 12, the king 13 and the ace 14 points. The queen of spades has no point value.
Sweepstakes
You can play Hearts with chips instead of points. There are a few ways to play this way.
First, is that every players puts in one chip for every heart and 13 for the queen of spades. The player with the lowest score for the round takes the pot. When there is a tie, the tied players slip it evenly, leaving any odd chips it the pot for the next round.
The second way plays the same but only players with a score of zero can take the chips.
Cancellation Hearts
This Hearts variation is for 7 to 10 players and is played with two standard decks of cards. The dealer deals out cards so that everyone has an even amount of cards. Any remaining cards are set aside as a widow hand.
No one passes any cards in this variation.
The player who wins the first trick wins the widow hand.
When two cards of the same rank are played in the same trick, then they cancel each other out and neither can win the trick. When all cards are paired in the trick, the cards go to the winner of the next trick.
Auction Hearts
In this variation, players need chips and the Queen of spades has no value.
After the deal is done, the first player may now say how many chips she will bid to be the player who gets to pick what suit that will count towards points. After the first player, each player in turn can bid or pass. All new bids must be higher than the one before.
The player who wins the bid, puts the chips in, names the suit and starts the first trick.
When the round is over, all players put one chip in for each penalty card that they have. If there is a player who has taken no penalty cards, she wins the pot. When there is a tie, the players split the pot.
If every player has at least one penalty card, no one wins the pot. When there is a player who has taken all 13 penalty cards, no one wins the pot.
If no one wins the pot, the player who won the last bid gets to name the suit.
Black Maria
In Black Maria Hearts the only difference is that the queen of spades is called Black Maris and is worth 13 points. Some variations also say that you only pass three cards to the player on your right.
Four Round Hearts
In this game, players only play four rounds. The first hand has players passing left, then right, then across and last not passing. At the end of the four rounds, the player with the least amount of points wins.
Jack and Ten of Diamonds
In some variations the Jack or the ten of diamonds is a bonus card that is worth plus 10 points.
Pink Lady or Bloody Mary
Not only is the queen of spades worth 13 points in this game, but so is the queen of hearts. In this variation the total points for a round is 38.
Hearts for Two
To play Hearts with two players, first deal 13 cards to both players. The rest of the cards make up the draw pile. When a trick has been played, the winner takes the top card and the other player takes the next card. Both players add the card to their hand. When the draw pile is empty, the players continue until all the cards have been played.
Family Game Night Fun
Hearts is a fun, family card game. I would say that kids need to be in upper elementary to grab the strategy of the game, although it might be possible to play with younger children. The game does take a while to play, so budget somewhere about an hour. Overall, this a great game that we love to play here at FamilyGameShelf.
If you need some new playing cards, you can shop here, I like these cute cat ones. Canadians can shop playing cards here.
Looking for more card games? Check out our list here.
For great dice games, check out our list of Dice Games here.
If board games are more your thing, check out our game reviews here.
