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How to Play Hearts

Learn the card game Hearts from scratch: tricks, following suit, passing three cards, breaking hearts, the queen of spades and shooting the moon.

Rules checked against the engine that runs the board on .

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How to play Hearts, step by step

One trick: four players each play a club, and the ace of clubs is the highest, so North takes the trick.K♣You4♣WestA♣North9♣Eastclubs led
One trick. Clubs were led, everybody had to follow suit, and the ace is the highest club — so North takes all four cards and leads the next trick.

  1. Meet the table

    Hearts is a game for four players with one 52-card pack, and every card is dealt out — thirteen each. On this site you sit at the bottom of the table and the other three hands are played by the computer. Unlike solitaire, Hearts is a game you are trying to lose: every heart you win costs you a point and the queen of spades costs thirteen, and the player with the fewest points at the end wins the match.

  2. Pass three cards before the hand begins

    At the start of each hand every player chooses three cards from their own hand and passes them face down to another player, receiving three in return before anybody plays. The direction rotates: on the first hand you pass to the player on your left, on the second to the right, on the third to the player across the table, and on the fourth nobody passes at all. Then the cycle starts again. You choose your three by clicking them and confirming with the button under the table.

  3. Understand what a trick is

    A trick is one card played by each of the four players, in turn, going clockwise. Whoever plays the highest card of the suit that was led wins the trick, collects all four cards, and leads the next one. There is no trump suit in Hearts, so a card of any other suit cannot win a trick however high it is — a two of clubs beats an ace of hearts if clubs were led.

  4. Play the first trick

    Whoever was dealt the two of clubs leads the first trick of every hand, and must lead that exact card. Everyone else must play a club if they hold one. Nobody may throw a heart or the queen of spades on the first trick unless their hand contains nothing else, so the opening trick is always safe. If you hold the two of clubs, the game will show it as your only legal card.

  5. Follow suit, every time you can

    The rule that governs every trick after the lead is simple: you must play a card of the suit that was led if you have one. Only when you have none of that suit — when you are void in it — may you play anything you like, and that is your chance to get rid of a dangerous card by throwing it on somebody else's trick. On this site the legal cards sit forward in your hand and an illegal one shakes and tells you which rule stopped it.

  6. Know when hearts may be led

    Nobody may lead a heart until hearts have been broken, which means until a heart has been played to some trick by somebody who could not follow suit. The queen of spades does not break hearts — only a heart does. The one exception is a player whose hand is nothing but hearts, who may lead one. This is why the early tricks tend to be spades, clubs and diamonds, and why the game changes character the moment the first heart appears.

  7. Count the damage at the end of the hand

    When all thirteen tricks have been played, each player counts the penalty cards in the tricks they won: one point for every heart and thirteen for the queen of spades, so exactly 26 points are shared out every hand. Those totals go on the scoresheet and a new hand is dealt. The match ends as soon as somebody reaches 100 points, and the player with the lowest total at that moment wins it.

Play Hearts That is enough to start. The rest of this page is the reference.

The rules in full

Everything the Hearts lesson above skipped: the edge cases, what happens when you run out of moves, how the game ends and how it is scored. 8 sections, written to be looked things up in rather than read straight through — the contents at the top of the page jump to any of them.

The words on the table

Hearts is a trick-taking game, and trick-taking games have their own vocabulary. Six words carry all of it.

Trick
One round of play: four cards, one from each player, going clockwise.
Lead
To play the first card of a trick. The card led sets the suit everyone else must follow.
Follow suit
To play a card of the suit that was led. You must, if you hold one.
Void
Holding no cards at all in a suit. Being void is what lets you throw a dangerous card away on somebody else's trick.
Trump
A suit that beats all others. Hearts has none — which is why the highest card of the suit led always wins.
Broken
Hearts are "broken" once a heart has been played to any trick. Until then, nobody may lead one.

The deal and the pass

One pack, fifty-two cards, thirteen to each of the four players. Then, before a card is played, everybody picks three cards out of their own hand and passes them face down — all four passes happen at the same moment, so you choose without knowing what is coming back.

The direction rotates over four hands: left, right, across, and no pass at all, then round again. The no-pass hand is played exactly as dealt. The button under the table always names the direction for the hand you are on.

Passing is not a formality. It is the only chance you get to change your hand, and it is where most of the damage is done — either to you or by you.

Playing a hand

The player holding the two of clubs leads the first trick, and must lead that card. After that:

  • Everyone plays one card, clockwise, and must follow the suit led if they can.
  • A player with none of that suit may play anything — with one exception below — and that is where points get dumped on somebody else.
  • The highest card of the suit that was led wins the trick. There is no trump, so a spade played to a diamond lead cannot win, however high.
  • The winner of a trick leads the next one.

Two restrictions sit on top of that. On the first trick, no heart and no queen of spades may be played at all, unless a player’s hand holds nothing else. And hearts may not be led until hearts are broken — until a heart has been played to some trick by a player who could not follow suit. A player holding nothing but hearts may lead one regardless.

Scoring

Count the penalty cards in the tricks you won:

  • Each heart: 1 point.
  • The queen of spades: 13 points.
  • Every other card: nothing.

That is 26 points in every hand, always, shared out between four players. Points are bad. The scoresheet adds them up hand after hand, the match ends as soon as anybody reaches 100, and the lowest total at that moment wins.

A tie for the lowest score is not a win. Extra hands are played until one player is clear — up to five of them here — and a tie that survives five extra hands is recorded as a shared result rather than awarded to one player.

Shooting the moon

If one player takes all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades in a single hand, the scoring inverts: they score nothing and each of the other three takes 26. That is shooting the moon, and it turns Hearts from a game about avoiding points into a game about watching who is collecting them.

Taking all thirteen tricks — shooting the sun — doubles it: the other three take 52 each. Both are worth knowing about from the first hand you play, because the defence has to start early. One heart, taken by somebody else, ends a moon attempt. The Hard opponents here watch for it and will take a trick deliberately to break it up; none of the three will try to shoot the moon themselves.

What the difficulty setting actually changes

Three opponent levels, and each of them is a difference in knowledge rather than a number being nudged:

  • Easy plays by habit — lowest card of the suit led, highest card when void, no memory of what has gone, and roughly one decision in four played wild.
  • Medium counts. It knows every card played, so it knows the highest card still out in each suit, and it passes to make itself void in a short suit.
  • Hard counts, tracks the queen of spades and who can still be holding her, sheds its own high spades early, plays the highest card it can safely spare rather than the lowest, and spots a moon in progress and breaks it.

Each level keeps its own record. Because Hearts is won by the lowest score, filing a penalty total as a “best score” would make 99 points look better than 12, so the figure kept is the one whose name is true: the fastest match this browser has won against that set of opponents. Your four final scores, the number of hands and any moons shot are shown on the table, each named for what it is.

Where this game makes a choice

Hearts has a long list of published variations. This is the base game, and these are the decisions.

  • Match to 100 points, lowest wins. The common target.
  • Pass left, right, across, then hold, repeating. The standard rotation.
  • The two of clubs leads the first trick, and no points may be played to it unless a hand holds nothing else.
  • Only a heart breaks hearts. The variation in which the queen of spades also breaks them is not used here.
  • The sun doubles the moon — 52 to the others rather than 26. This is a listed variation rather than the base rule, and the page says so because a reader who plays elsewhere may see it scored differently.
  • A tie for lowest plays on, up to five extra hands, then stands as a tie. The standard rules leave the tie unresolved; this is our resolution and it is capped so a match cannot run forever.
  • No jack of diamonds bonus and no “new moon” variants. They are real variations and they are not in this game.

Where these rules come from

The rules on this page follow the standard four-player game as recorded on Pagat, John McLeod’s card-game rules archive, and each was checked against the code that deals the cards — the passing rotation, the legal-play rules, the trick winner and the hand scoring are all pure functions in our Hearts engine’s rules.ts, and each of them has a test. If the page and the table ever disagree, tell us.

Questions people ask

Does the queen of spades break hearts?
No. Only a heart played to a trick breaks hearts, which is the standard rule. Until a heart has appeared, a player on lead who holds any other suit must lead that instead; a player holding nothing but hearts may lead one. The queen of spades is worth thirteen points, but she has no effect on when hearts may be led — a point that costs new players a trick or two while they learn it.
Why can I not play the card I want?
Almost always because you have to follow suit. If a suit has been led and you hold a card of it, that is what you must play, however painful. The other three cases are the first trick, where the two of clubs must lead it and no heart or queen of spades may be thrown unless you have nothing else, and the rule against leading hearts before they are broken. The table shows the legal cards and names the rule when it refuses one, so you never have to guess.
What does shooting the moon mean?
Taking every single penalty card in a hand — all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades. Instead of scoring 26, the player who does it scores nothing and all three opponents take 26 each. It is a real option rather than a curiosity, and the only defence is to make sure somebody else takes one heart. Taking all thirteen tricks, sometimes called shooting the sun, doubles it: the other three take 52 apiece.
How does the match end, and what if two players tie?
The match ends the moment any player reaches 100 points, and the lowest score at that point wins. A tie for lowest is not a winner, so extra hands are dealt until one player is clear — up to five of them here — and if the tie survives that, it is recorded as a shared result rather than handed to somebody. The scoresheet marks which hands were played to break a tie.
What is the difference between the Easy, Medium and Hard opponents?
What each one is allowed to know and what it does with it. Easy plays by habit: lowest card of the suit, highest when void, no memory of what has been played, and the occasional wild card. Medium remembers every card played, so it knows what is still out, and it passes to make itself void in a short suit. Hard does all of that, tracks the queen of spades and who might still hold her, sheds its own high spades early, and will deliberately take a trick to stop you shooting the moon.
Do I have to play the queen of spades if I have her?
Only if spades are led and she is your only spade, or if you choose to. She is a normal card in every respect except her cost, so you can hold her, lead low spades to force her out of somebody else, or throw her on a trick you are not winning when you are void in the suit led. That last move — dropping her on an opponent's trick — is the single most valuable thing to learn in Hearts.

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