How to play hearts: rules, passing and shooting the moon
Updated · 4 min read
Hearts turns the usual trick-taking game upside down: instead of winning tricks, you are trying to avoid the cards that score against you. There are no partners and no trumps, so every hand is you against the table. It is easy to learn in one hand and takes years to stop learning. Here are the rules most people play, the common variations, and how our version works.
What you need and the goal
- Four players is the classic game. Three, five or six also work, with a few low cards taken out so the deck divides evenly.
- A standard 52-card deck. Cards rank ace high, down to 2.
- A score sheet. Points are bad in hearts, so you are hoping for small numbers.
Each heart you take in a trick counts 1 point against you, and the queen of spades counts 13. That makes 26 points in every hand. The game ends when someone reaches the target, usually 100, and the player with the lowest score wins.
Setup and the pass
With four players, deal out the whole deck so everyone has thirteen cards. Before any card is played, each player chooses three cards and passes them face down to another player. The direction rotates: to the left on the first hand, to the right on the second, across the table on the third, and no pass at all on the fourth. Then the cycle repeats.
The pass is where good players win hands. You want to get rid of dangerous cards: high spades if you lack low ones to protect them, high hearts, and anything that leaves you short in one suit. Remember that you will also receive three cards, and the player passing them is doing the same thing to you.
How a hand works
Whoever holds the 2 of clubs leads it to the first trick. Everyone must follow the suit led if they can. If you cannot follow suit, you may play anything, which is how hearts and the queen of spades usually get dumped on someone else. The highest card of the suit led takes the trick, along with every point card in it, and the winner leads the next trick.
- On the first trick, nobody may play a heart or the queen of spades, unless they hold nothing else.
- Hearts cannot be led until a heart has been played on an earlier trick, which is called breaking hearts. A player holding only hearts may lead one anyway.
Scoring and shooting the moon
After all thirteen tricks, everyone adds up the points they took: 1 for each heart, 13 for the queen of spades. Those points go on your score.
There is one big exception. If a single player takes all 26 points in a hand, every heart and the queen too, they have shot the moon. Instead of taking 26 themselves, every other player gets 26. It is a dramatic play, and stopping it is just as important: if someone seems to be taking everything, make sure you win at least one heart.
Common house rules
- Moon scoring: some tables let the shooter subtract 26 from their own score instead of adding 26 to everyone else.
- Game length: 100 is standard; 50 makes a quicker game.
- Jack of diamonds: a popular variant makes the jack of diamonds worth minus 10, so taking it helps.
- Hearts on the first trick: some groups allow points on the first trick, or let anyone break hearts whenever they like.
- Odd numbers of players: low clubs and diamonds come out so everyone gets the same number of cards.
How hearts plays on Knockout
Our Hearts seats three to six players and uses the standard rules above. From the game's own settings:
- The host picks when the game ends, at 50 or 100 points (the default), and how the moon scores: everyone else plus 26 (the default) or the shooter minus 26.
- With three players the 2 of diamonds comes out; with five, the 2s of diamonds and clubs; with six, the 2s and 3s of diamonds and clubs. The lowest club left leads the first trick.
- At six players the pass is two cards instead of three. With four or six players the pass rotates left, right, across and hold; with three or five there is no across pass.
- There is no jack of diamonds bonus.
Beginner tips
- Pass the queen, king and ace of spades if you hold few low spades. Keep them if you have four or five spades to hide behind.
- Try to empty one suit with your pass. Being void in a suit lets you dump hearts and high cards whenever it is led.
- Lead low spades early to smoke out the queen when you do not hold her yourself.
- Get rid of high cards in the middle of a hand, while other players can still follow suit and take the trick.
- Keep an eye on the scores. Late in a game, pass your points toward the leader rather than the player in last place.
Where to play hearts free
Hearts is free in a browser here. Playing the computer needs no account: open the game and computer players fill the empty seats at Easy, Normal or Hard. To play with friends, make a free player (a username and a PIN or password), create a game and share the invite link or code; any seats your friends do not fill can go to computer players.
If you want to win tricks instead of dodging them, try Spades with a partner, explained in How to play spades: rules, bidding and scoring. For a lighter card game with a mixed group, see How to play crazy eights: rules, scoring and variants, and for everything else, Free card games online: classics, partners and party decks.