A trick-taking game you are trying to lose. Every heart costs a point and the queen of spades costs thirteen, the lowest total wins, and the whole thing can be turned inside out by one player deciding to take the lot.
Hearts is an avoidance game, which makes it unusual: for most of a hand you are trying to lose tricks rather than win them, and the skill is in losing them at moments you choose. It plays with three, four or five people, and the differences between those tables are larger than most rule sheets admit — so this page states them.
Fifty-two cards do not divide evenly by three or five, so the deck is trimmed until they do. Only low clubs and diamonds are ever removed, which matters more than it sounds: it means all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades are always in play, so a round is worth exactly twenty-six points at every table size, and shooting the moon stays a well-defined thing rather than a table-size accident.
| Players | Cards removed | Cards each | Points in play |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 2♦ | 17 | 26 |
| 4 | none — the full deck | 13 | 26 |
| 5 | 2♦ and 2♣ | 10 | 26 |
Before each round you pass two cards face down to another player and receive two from someone else, at the same moment — you choose what to give before you know what is coming.
The direction rotates, and the first round of a match is a hold round: nobody passes at all. That catches people out who expect to pass left first. The rotation then repeats for as long as the match runs.
| Players | Rotation, from round 1 |
|---|---|
| 3 | hold → left → right |
| 4 | hold → left → right → across |
| 5 | hold → left → right → across-left → across-right |
Three players have no "across" — there is no seat opposite anyone — so the rotation is only three long. Five players have two: the seat two to the left and the seat two to the right are different people, so both get a round. At four they would be the same person, which is exactly what "across" already means, so four-player tables keep the single across round they have always had.
| Card | Points | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Each heart | 1 | 13 of them |
| Q♠ — the queen of spades | 13 | one, and it decides matches |
| Everything else | 0 | the rest of the deck |
Twenty-six points go out every round, always. That single fact is worth holding on to, because it is what lets you count: if eleven points have landed and you have taken none, there are fifteen still moving around the table and somebody is about to be handed them.
You score zero and every other player takes 26. One hand can rearrange an entire match.
It has to be all of them. Twenty-five points is not a moon — it is a catastrophe, and it is the same catastrophe whether you were trying or not. That asymmetry is what makes the play interesting: going for the moon and missing by one card hands everybody else nothing and you everything.
It also makes defending it a real job. If one player has taken every point so far and the hand is not over, somebody has to take a trick off them, and the cost of doing it is almost always cheaper than the twenty-six coming if nobody does.
Rounds continue until at least one player reaches the target score — 50, 100 or 150, chosen by the host when the table is made, with 100 the default. The lowest total wins, which means the player who crosses the target ends the match and almost never wins it.
The target is worth thinking about before you start. Fifty is a sprint where a single bad round decides everything and one moon is usually the whole match. A hundred and fifty is long enough that consistency beats luck, and long enough for two moons to happen.
A bare Q♠ is dangerous, but so is A♠ and K♠: if you keep them and the queen is elsewhere, you win the trick she is thrown into. Holding the queen with two or three small spades to hide behind is often safer than holding the ace with none. Pass the high spades you cannot protect.
Two cards is a small pass, so spend it on becoming void in a suit rather than on shedding your two worst cards. A void is a licence to throw points at somebody every time that suit is led, and it is the single most useful thing a pass can buy you.
Because exactly twenty-six points are in play, the moment somebody has taken most of them the table's job changes. Stop protecting your own score and take a trick — a few points now is cheaper than twenty-six later. This is the most commonly missed play in the game.
Long strong suits, control of hearts, and preferably early — not a decision made halfway through because you have accidentally taken nine points. The leaderboard pays a moon whether you go on to win the match or lose it, so the attempt is worth making on the right hand, but the right hand is rarer than it looks.
Ten cards each instead of thirteen means less control, fewer chances to shed, and a hand that is over before a plan matures. Voids appear naturally and points move quickly. Play tighter and take your small losses early.
Only the result counts — never your score inside the game — so a narrow win pays exactly what a runaway one does. What does change the value of a win is the number of people you beat.
| Finish | 3 players | 4 players | 5 players |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winner | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Runner-up | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Third | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Each moon shot | +3 | +3 | +3 |
Winning pays the number of players plus one, and every place below the winner pays two less than the one above it, until it reaches nothing around halfway down the table. Third place only scores at a five-player table — not because of a special rule, but because at four players third is already past halfway.
A moon adds three per round you shoot one in, won or lost. Three is not an arbitrary number: it is exactly the step from runner-up to first at every table size, so a moon you shot on the way to second place is worth as much as the win you missed — and never more than a win, anywhere on the board.