Hearts Rules

Setup

Hearts uses one standard 52-card deck with no jokers. Four players sit around the table. In this online version, you are South, and West, North, and East are AI opponents. There are no partnerships in classic Hearts; every player keeps an individual score.

Shuffle and deal the entire deck one card at a time until every player has 13 cards. There is no stock pile, discard pile, bidding phase, trump suit, or card exchange in this streamlined browser version. Each hand is decided by the 13 tricks created from those dealt cards.

Card ranking

Cards rank ace high, then king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, and two. Suits do not outrank each other because Hearts has no trump. The highest card in the led suit wins the trick unless players cannot follow suit and discard off-suit cards, which cannot win that trick.

Objective

The goal is to finish with fewer penalty points than every other player. A trick that contains no hearts and no queen of spades is worth zero. A trick that contains three hearts is worth three. A trick that contains the queen of spades is worth thirteen, even if no hearts are present.

Since all points are bad, a strong Hearts hand is not always the hand with the most aces and kings. High cards can force you to win tricks at the wrong time. Low cards are valuable because they help you duck dangerous tricks when another player is already taking points.

Turn Order and Legal Plays

The player holding the 2 of clubs leads the first trick, and that card must be played first. A trick is one card from each player, played clockwise. The first card played to a trick sets the led suit. Every other player must follow that suit if they can.

1. The 2 of clubs starts the first trick.
2. Each player follows clubs if they have a club.
3. If a player has no clubs, they may discard another allowed card.
4. The highest club wins the trick because there is no trump.
5. The trick winner leads the next trick.
6. The hand ends after all 13 tricks are complete.

The same follow-suit rule applies all hand. If spades are led and you have a spade, you must play a spade. If diamonds are led and you have no diamonds, you may play a heart, the queen of spades, or any other card that is legal under the first-trick and hearts-breaking rules.

Hearts Breaking

Hearts cannot normally be led until hearts are broken. Hearts break when a heart is played to a trick after a player cannot follow the led suit. Once that happens, the winner of any later trick may lead hearts.

Example: West leads diamonds. North and East play diamonds. You have no diamonds, so you discard the 5 of hearts. Hearts are now broken. If East wins that trick, East may lead hearts on the next trick. Before that heart was discarded, a player leading a new trick could not choose hearts unless their hand contained only hearts.

What if you only have hearts?

If you win a trick before hearts are broken and your remaining hand contains only hearts, you may lead a heart. The restriction prevents unnecessary early heart leads, but it never leaves a player with no legal card to play.

First Trick Restrictions

Many Hearts tables do not allow penalty cards on the first trick when a player has a safe alternative. Our online game follows that friendly rule. If you cannot follow clubs on the first trick and you have a non-point card, you must play the non-point card. You cannot dump a heart or the queen of spades unless every legal card in your hand is a point card.

This keeps the opening trick from turning into an unavoidable ambush. It also matches how many casual players learn Hearts: the first trick starts the hand cleanly, then the point-avoidance battle opens as suits run out.

Scoring

Count the point cards captured in each player's tricks after the hand ends. Each heart is worth one point. The queen of spades is worth thirteen points. There are 26 total penalty points in the deck: thirteen hearts plus the queen of spades.

If you take the 4 of hearts, 9 of hearts, and queen of spades, you score fifteen points. If North takes six clean tricks and one trick containing a single heart, North scores one point. If West takes no point cards, West scores zero and will usually win the hand unless another player shoots the moon.

Who wins?

The lowest point total wins the hand. Our online version treats each hand as a complete round so you can play again quickly. Traditional Hearts tables often keep cumulative scores and continue until one player reaches 100, at which point the lowest total wins the game.

Shooting the Moon

Shooting the moon is the dramatic exception to ordinary scoring. If one player captures every point card in the hand, all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades, that player scores zero and each other player scores 26. Instead of avoiding all danger, the moon shooter takes all of it.

A moon attempt usually needs control cards, long suits, and enough timing to force opponents into giving up point cards. It is risky. If you take many hearts but miss the queen of spades or one stray heart, you may end with a terrible score while another player wins comfortably.

Examples

Example 1: You lead the 8 of clubs. West plays the jack of clubs, North plays the 4 of clubs, and East plays the ace of clubs. East wins because the ace is the highest card in the led suit. If no hearts were played, the trick is clean and worth zero points.

Example 2: North leads the 10 of diamonds. East has no diamonds and plays the 7 of hearts. You play the queen of diamonds. West plays the ace of diamonds. West wins the trick and takes one point because the trick contains a heart. Hearts are now broken.

Example 3: West leads a low spade. North plays the king of spades. East plays the queen of spades. If you have the ace of spades, you must play a spade and you will take the queen unless someone else already played a higher spade, which is impossible here. This is why high spades can be dangerous before the queen appears.

Common Mistakes

Winning clean tricks too often

A zero-point trick is not bad by itself, but each trick you win makes you lead next. If your hand has awkward high cards, taking control can force you into a later point trick. Sometimes the best play is a lower card that lets someone else lead.

Forgetting the queen of spades

The queen of spades is worth as much as thirteen hearts. Track whether it has appeared. If it has not, be cautious with the ace and king of spades. If it has appeared, your remaining high spades become safer.

Breaking hearts without a reason

Dumping a heart can be helpful, but it also opens hearts as a lead suit for everyone. If you have a safe discard that does not break hearts, consider whether delaying the break protects your hand.

Hearts Variants

Many physical Hearts games include a passing phase before trick play: players pass three cards left, right, across, or not at all depending on the hand number. Some versions use the jack of diamonds as a bonus card worth minus ten points. Some allow the queen of spades on the first trick, while others block all point cards.

The core remains the same across variants: follow suit when possible, avoid hearts and the queen of spades, count penalty points after 13 tricks, and remember that shooting the moon flips the usual point-avoidance logic.