Hearts
Hearts is the rare card game where you are trying to lose. Every heart costs a point, the Queen of Spades costs thirteen, and the whole hand is an exercise in ducking tricks you cannot afford to win. Then there is the other line: take every single penalty card, shoot the moon, and hand twenty-six points to everyone else instead. Knowing when someone is attempting it — and dropping one heart on them to spoil it — is where the game actually lives. Boxless plays four-handed with passing rotation, and bots step in when you are short.
- Players
- 4
- Playing time
- 30 min
- Ages
- 10 to adult
- Shared screen
- Optional
How it's played
Hearts is a game about ducking. You are not trying to win tricks — you are trying not to get stuck holding the expensive ones.
Every hand puts 26 points on the table. Take as few as you can.
Thirteen hearts
1 point each
13
The Queen of Spades
one card
13
That is the entire game in one line: one card costs as much as every heart combined. Most of Hearts is four people trying not to be holding her.
Before each hand you pass three cards, and the direction rotates
- Hand 1Pass left
- Hand 2Pass right
- Hand 3Pass across
- Hand 4Keep them
Then it starts over. You are handing three problems to somebody else, and being handed three of theirs.
Then thirteen tricks
- Whoever holds the 2 of clubs leads the first trick. No choice about it.
- Follow the suit that was led if you can. If you can't, play anything — this is how points get dumped on people.
- The highest card of the led suit takes the trick, and everything in it.
- Nobody can lead a heart until one has been played on some earlier trick. Hearts have to be broken first.
- No points at all on the first trick. No hearts, no queen.
Or take every single one.
Take all thirteen hearts and the queen in one hand and the scoring flips over: you score zero, and all three of the others take 26 apiece.
Miss by one card and you have simply taken 25 points. This is how Hearts ends friendships.
Shooting the moon
Lowest score wins
Keep dealing hands until somebody crosses 100 points. That ends the game, and the player with the fewest points has won it. In Hearts, scoring is something that happens to you.
Marcus crossed 100, so the game ended. Priya won it. Illustrative scores.
If the room liked this
Race to play cards faster than your opponent. No turns, no waiting, pure reflexes!
Partner up in this fast trick-taking classic: call trump, play smart, and reach 10 points first.