The Story
Where it came from, and why it turned out this way.
LineageDescended from the European Reversis · modern form settled in 1880s America
Avoidance came first, hearts came later
Almost every trick-taking game rewards you for taking tricks. Hearts inverts that, and belongs to the avoidance branch whose ancestor is Reversis — a game recorded in sixteenth-century Spain and popular in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, built on the idea of turning trick-taking from an objective into a penalty. Flipping the winning condition outright is rare in card-game history, and once done it forces every technique to be rewritten: you stop competing for the lead and start looking for ways to hand it to somebody else.
The Queen of Spades: one card that reshaped the game
Early Hearts scored only hearts, one point each, thirteen to a hand. The Queen of Spades was added later — a variant known in early twentieth-century America as Black Lady or Black Maria — and a single card carrying 13 points concentrated the entire score in one place. The change matters far more than one extra scoring card: it gave the game a focus. Before her, the penalty was spread thinly across thirteen hearts and everyone could dodge most of it. With her on the table the play acquires a target, and the ace and king of spades — cards worth nothing at all — suddenly become among the most dangerous things you can hold.
Shooting the moon: a way back for whoever is losing
Shooting the moon was another later addition: taking all 26 points stops being a disaster and instead loads 26 onto each opponent. It fixes a structural weakness in avoidance games — if all you can do is dodge, a player who falls behind has no way back and simply absorbs damage to the end. The moon turns taking points from a purely bad outcome into a risky option, and it creates the tensest moment in the game: when you notice one opponent collecting cleanly, deliberately taking a single point becomes the only correct move.
An operating system put it on millions of desks
In 1992 Microsoft shipped Hearts with Windows for Workgroups 3.11. It was not merely a bundled toy — Microsoft wanted people actually using their local network, so it included a four-player card game that only worked properly when connected, using a hand of cards to demonstrate NetDDE. That decision made Hearts one of the most widely installed card games in the world: countless people met it not at a table but on an office computer. FreeCell, from the same era, worked the same way — a game that quietly teaches an operation.
- Other descendants of Reversis survive in the same avoidance branch, all sharing the trait that taking tricks costs rather than earns; Hearts is simply the one that travelled furthest.
- Both nicknames for the Queen of Spades remain in use: Black Lady is more common in America, Black Maria in Britain.
- Two scoring traditions exist for the moon — everyone else takes 26, or the shooter subtracts 26 from their own total. We use the fixed first form; the reasoning is recorded among the digital adjudications in the help.
Complete Rules
Start with what a turn allows and how the game is won.
- Deck
- 52 cards, 13 each
- Penalties
- Heart 1 · Queen of Spades 13
- Game ends
- Someone hits 100; lowest wins
- Each hand opens with a pass: everyone picks 3 cards and passes them face down, all four at the same time, so nobody sees what the others sent. The direction rotates by hand — to Alex on your left, then Sam on your right, then Robin across from you, then no pass at all, repeating. The table prompt names the receiver rather than the direction.
- Whoever holds the 2 of clubs leads the first trick and must lead that card. After that the winner of each trick leads the next.
- You must follow the suit led if you can. Only when you are void may you play something else — and that is precisely your chance to dump a dangerous card.
- Each trick goes to the **highest card of the suit that was led**. Hearts are not trumps, so a card of any other suit cannot win the trick — a heart you throw simply hands a point to whoever does win it.
- No point cards on the first trick: neither hearts nor the Queen of Spades, even if you cannot follow clubs. The only exception is a hand containing nothing but point cards.
- You may not lead hearts until hearts are broken, meaning somebody has already discarded a heart on a trick of another suit. The only exception is a hand of nothing but hearts. The Queen of Spades does not break hearts.
- After 13 tricks the hand is scored: the hearts and the Queen you took become penalty points added to your running total, and the next hand is dealt.
- Shooting the moonif one player takes all 26 points, it inverts — that player scores 0 for the hand and each of the other three takes 26.
- The game ends once somebody reaches 100 or more. If the lowest score is tied at that moment, play continues until exactly one player is lowest.
Your First Game
Use this order of thought to get through a complete game quickly.
- First thing to unlearnyou are not competing for tricks, you are avoiding **points**. Most tricks contain nothing at all, and taking those costs you nothing. What you must dodge are tricks holding hearts, and above all the Queen of Spades.
- The Queen alone is worth as much as all thirteen hearts, so the whole hand revolves around her. Be wary of holding the ace or king of spades with few spades beside them: when spades are led you are forced to play high, and the Queen may land on you.
- When passing, send the most dangerous cards: the Queen herself, spades above her (ace, king), and high hearts. Never pass your low cards — those are the resources you will need to duck later.
- Following suit comes down to two questions: what is the highest card played so far, and can I go under it? If you can, play the **highest card that still loses** — you avoid the trick and clear out a big card at the same time.
- Being void in a suit is an asset. Empty a suit early and you can freely discard dangerous cards when that suit is led later. Leading your short suits early is how you manufacture that.
- Lead low. Leading an ace or king announces that you intend to take the trick.
- Track who failed to follow which suit. Once someone is void, they are void for the rest of the hand — lead that suit and they must discard, and what they choose to throw often tells you what else they are hiding.
Practical Strategy
Move from knowing the rules to playing with a plan.
- The fight over the Queen of Spades is the spine of the game. The fewer spades you hold, the more exposed you are: when spades are led you have no small card to hide behind. Conversely, three or four low spades are safe, and can even let you lead spades deliberately to flush the Queen out.
- Dumping the Queen safely is the single most valuable move: when it is your turn and a spade higher than the Queen (the ace or king) is already on the table, playing her cannot cost you the trick. Take that chance when it appears — it may not come twice.
- Voids grow more valuable as the hand progresses: an empty suit is an exit you can throw hearts or the Queen through. But a void cuts both ways. Once opponents notice, they will lead that suit repeatedly to make you discard, and after your dangerous cards are gone you will be forced to shed useful ones.
- Shooting the moon is a double-edged plan. Taking all 26 points loads 26 onto each opponent, but falling one point short leaves you carrying 25. It is only worth attempting with a run of high cards and the Queen of Spades under your control.
- Watch for opponents shooting too. If one player keeps taking points cleanly, deliberately taking a single point breaks the attempt — the moment when collecting a point is the right move.
- Think about direction when you pass. Cards you send left tend to come back at you through the player on your right; giving the dangerous cards to whoever is about to hold the lead is worth more than passing them anywhere else.
- In the endgame every hand is short and the voids are effectively public, so you can count precisely: work out how many cards of a suit are still unseen and you will know whether leading it invites a discard.
Winning and Special Rules
Details that are easy to miss but can change the result.
- We use a **fixed** form of shooting the moon: the shooter takes 0 and each opponent takes 26. Some versions let the shooter instead subtract 26 from their own score. We do not offer that choice — it would need an extra decision phase and complicate the rules, the AI and the game record for very little gain. This is our digital adjudication.
- **Played cards cannot be taken back.** That is our digital adjudication for hidden-information games rather than a traditional rule: once a card hits the table the other three have seen it, and undoing it would ask them to forget what they already know.
- The pass is a simultaneous hidden action. Until the exchange actually happens nobody can see which three cards anyone selected — the interface only shows you whether each player has finished choosing.
- Two things must both be true for the game to end: somebody has reached 100, **and** the lowest score is unique. If the lowest is tied, further hands are played until one player stands alone.
- Hearts are not trumps. This is the most common beginner misconception — hearts are simply an ordinary suit that happens to carry points, and they cannot win a trick of another suit.
Common Mistakes
The traps new players fall into most often.
- Treating hearts as trumps and expecting a heart to win the trick. A heart wins nothing; it just hands a point to whoever does take it.
- Passing away your low cards and keeping the high ones. Low cards are what let you duck; give them away and every trick forces you to play high and take the lead.
- Holding the ace and king of spades without concern. Neither card scores anything by itself, but they will pull the Queen of Spades onto you the moment spades are led — among the most dangerous holdings in the game.
- Hesitating over a safe chance to dump the Queen while waiting for a better one. That chance often comes exactly once, and after it passes she stays in your hand.
- Watching only your own score. When one player has been taking points cleanly they may be shooting the moon, and then deliberately taking a single point is the only thing that stops 26 landing on you.
- Assuming that breaking hearts is bad. Breaking is neutral in itself; what matters is timing. If you hold few hearts and the others hold many, breaking early works in your favour.
- Throwing the Queen onto a trick you are going to win anyway. The first trick already forbids point cards, so the rules catch that one — the common mistake is doing it on the very next trick instead.