“Shooting the moon” is when a player wins all the hearts and the queen of spades, a clean sweep of all 26 possible points. This is another rule variation some like to play. Once someone reaches 100 points the game ends, and the player with the lowest score is declared the winner. After each hand, players total their scores. Another version has the jack of diamonds reducing the score by 10 points. Other variations of the game have higher hearts, such as the ace and picture cards, worth more. The standard rules have every heart worth one point, the queen of spades worth 13 points, and the remaining cards have no value. When a player wins a trick, he keeps all four cards that were played in the trick, and they count toward his score. Hearts is an unusual game in that the object of the game is to score as few points as possible. This allows him to discard big danger cards such as the queen of spades. The game gets interesting when a player doesn’t have a card of the suit that was led, as this is an opportunity for him to play any card from his hand. The player who plays the highest of that suit wins the trick. Players are required to “follow suit”, which means players must play a card of the suit that was led, if possible.įor example, if someone plays a club, each of the other three players must follow suit and also play a club, if they have one. Once a trick has been led out, play passes clockwise, with each of the other three players playing a card. For the next 12 tricks, the winner of the previous trick leads out. The player who has the 2 of clubs leads out on the first trick. There are different versions of the game but we will explain the most standard game play rules and scoring system.Įach hand of hearts is broken down into 13 separate rounds known as “tricks”, with each player playing one card per trick. Another good variation to the game is to have no passing every fourth hand and simply play the 13 cards dealt to you. This is not too hard if the pass direction is noted by the person scoring the game. Although the easiest way to do this is to pass the cards to the left, the fairest way is to pass to each of the other three players in turn each hand. An optional rule variation has each player passing three cards to an opposition player. Hearts is played by four players, with the deal passing around the table. Whether French aristocrats where involved or not remains unknown. For those of you that just have to know, the game of hearts is considered a member of the “whist” family of trick taking games (like bridge), which seems to have originated in the early 17th century. Rules and styles of play differ from place to place and it’s better to just learn and enjoy these games instead of wondering where or how they may have appeared. They appear to spring up from nowhere and travel across the globe by word of mouth faster than the plague. Tracing the history of card games is often problematic. But there are hundreds, if not thousands, of card games that people play for enjoyment without necessarily betting money on the result. In the gaming world cards are the basis of many games that we have come to love like baccarat, blackjack and poker. This is a great game for four players and thanks to the internet you can play this game against people all over the world.įor centuries the deck of cards has brought countless hours of enjoyment to millions of people. The most common is probably “black lady” which refers to the dreaded queen of spades. Hearts, like most card games, has many different names. This article first appeared in the Mar/Apr 2012 issue of World Gaming magazine.
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