Hearts is a card game for 4 players, every player for themselves. It uses the standard 52-card pack. Ranked A (high) to 2 (low).

Setup

The entire deck is dealt, giving each player a hand of 13 cards. After looking at your hand, choose three cards to pass to another player.

The passing rotation is: (1st hand) to the player on your left, (2nd hand) to the player across the table, (3rd hand) to the player on your right, (4th hand) no passing. The rotation repeats until the game ends.

Tricks

After passing cards, the player holding the 2 of clubs leads the first trick.

Each player must follow suit if possible. If you have no cards of the suit led, you may play a card of any suit. Exception: You may not play a heart or the Queen of Spades on the first trick, even if you have no clubs.

The highest card of the suit led wins the trick. The winner of a trick starts the next trick.

Hearts may not be led until a heart has been played (this is called "breaking hearts"). In traditional Hearts, playing the Queen of Spades also breaks hearts. The Queen of Spades may be lead at any time after the first trick.

There is no trump suit.

Scoring

At the end of each hand, each heart taken by a player counts -1, and the Queen of Spades counts -13.

If one player has taken all 13 hearts and the Queen of Spades (this is known as "shooting the moon", or "slam"), that player scores 0 and all other players score -26. Warning other players about an attempt to shoot the moon is team play, and a breach of Hearts etiquette.

When one or more players reach zero, the game ends. The player with the highest score wins.

Variants

Normal game is 100 points. Quick game is 75 points.

The very popular Modern Variation (in which the "hold" or "no pass" hand is skipped) will be added shortly, along with Autocomplete.