Hearts

From Wikinfo

Hearts
Players	3-5
Age range	6 +
Setup time	1 min
Playing time	20-50 minutes
Random chance	Medium
Skills required	Card Counting Strategy

Hearts (also Black Lady, Chase the Lady and Black Maria ^[1]) is a trick-taking playing card game for four players (although versions for other numbers are known). A standard deck of 52 playing cards is used. The objective of the game is to avoid taking tricks containing any heart and the queen of spades because these cards carry negative points to the winner of the trick. There are no trumps.^[2]

Contents 1 Methodology 1.1 Dealing 1.2 Passing 1.3 The play 1.4 Scoring 1.5 Shooting the moon 2 Strategy 3 Variations 4 References

Methodology

Where other than four players are involved, minor alterations are necessary to the methodology.

Dealing

Thirteen cards are dealt singly in turn to each of the four players.

Passing

For the first deal of a session, each player selects three cards from their thirteen (having first looked at them) and passes them face down to the player on their left. When all players have passed, these three cards are picked up and absorbed into the new hands. For the second deal, three cards are passed to the right and for the third deal, they are passed across the table to the remaining player. This alternation of passing direction continues for the rest of the session.^[2]

A common variant is to pass left on the first deal, right on the second, across on the third, and hold (where no passing occurs) for the fourth. Another variant is that the queen of spades may not be passed.

The play

The player to the left of the dealer leads to the first trick and the other players play a card in turn clockwise. Players must follow suit, when they are able to, but may play a card from any other suit, when they cannot. The player who plays the highest card of the suit led, takes the trick and leads for the next trick.

Common variants include: The initial lead must be the two of clubs; hearts may only be led once a heart has been discarded on a previous trick (or if the player with the lead has only hearts remaining in his hand); and no penalty card (a heart or the queen of spades) may be played on the first trick.

Scoring

Each heart won in a trick scores 1 penalty point for the player winning the trick, and the player winning a trick containing the queen of spades (the black lady or black maria) scores 13 penalty points. There are, therefore, 26 penalty points in each deal. The game ends either when one player reaches 100 points or after a predetermined number of deals or time has passed. In either case, the winning player is the one with the fewest penalty points.^[3]

Simplified scoring with chips is possible: all players contribute one chip to a central pool of chips and the pool is divided equally between those players taking no penalty cards on a deal; if all players take penalty cards, the pool remains on the table and is added to the next pool; once one player has won all available chips, the game ends.

There are many scoring variants including: A player reaching exactly 50 or 100 subtracts 50 points from their score; different points are allocated to each penalty card; the ace of spades (and sometimes the king and ten) is also a penalty card; the ten and jack of diamonds scores negative points if used to win a trick.

Shooting the moon

A very common scoring variant is called shooting the moon. If one player takes all the penalty cards on one deal, that player subtracts the total number of penalty points available (normally 26) from their previous total score. Alternatively, 26 penalty points can be added to each of the other three players.

Strategy

Main article: Hearts (strategy)

Hearts strategy starts with the passing stage. The pass can be used to void a suit but this may not be the best strategy as the void may be filled with (higher) cards passed in; this is especially dangerous with spades and hearts. Passing high clubs and diamonds, even voiding these suits is perceived by many to be the best passing strategy.

During the play, strategy will vary from hand to hand but, where a player seems destined to take some tricks, it is often best to take tricks early before others have become void in the suit concerned.

Teamwork may be required to prevent one player shooting the moon or hitting 50 or 100 points exactly. It is also considered good play to attack the leading player by saving penalty cards to damage that player, especially when this can be done fairly safely.

Deciding to shoot the moon is a critical decision that can be "make or break" (success is worth 26 good points whereas failure by one risks 25 bad points).

Variations

• Hearts (Windows) - the PC version of the game
• Complex_hearts - scoring uses complex numbers, while trying to keep the absolute value of your score less than 100.
• Double Deck Cancellation Hearts – good for six or more players.
• Chinese Hearts – in addition to the normal points for hearts, a variety of points are attached to the different hearts face cards, the queen of spades and the ten of clubs.^[4]
• Booster Nines – if a nine is played then an extra round in the suit is played.^[5]
• Joker Hearts – adding the joker cards, which can be played any time and count for zero points.^[6]
• Shooting the Sun – taking all the tricks, not just all the points, gives all other players 52 points.^[7]

References

Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Hearts" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearts, used under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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