Hearts Card Classic Rating: 6,6/10 6615 reviews

Hearts is a trick-taking card game played by four players. This card game as currently known, originated with a family of associated games called Reversis, which were popular around 1750 in Spain. The game has become popular in live play among grade school students in Canada, and has increased in popularity through Internet gaming websites. In many parts of the world it became known through the Microsoft version of the game packaged with most 1990s versions of its Windows operating system.

  1. Hearts Card Classics
  2. Web Browser Card Games Hearts
  3. Classic Hearts Game Full Page No Ads
  4. Hearts Card Classic Play online, free

Shoot the Moon with other players or against the computer in this popular card game! Your Classic Playing Cards Hearts stock images are ready. Download all free or royalty-free photos and vectors. Use them in commercial designs under lifetime. You seem to always get a lot of high suits especially Spaids and Hearts. If you pass an Ace or King of Spaids, you tend to get the Queen of Spaids in return. If you pass high Hearts, you will probably get the Ace, King or Queen of Spaids in return. Sometimes you just get more high Hearts.

You can play mobile Hearts on our website. This free online game is available in browser across all your Android, iOS and Windows devices. Good luck and have a good time!

Basic Rules

Hearts is a four-player point-based strategy card game. The object of the game is to be the player with the fewest points. Cards have the following point values: Hearts: 1 point, Queen of Spades: gives 13 points, Other cards: 0 points.

The layout

Hearts Card Classics

This game uses the standard 52-card pack. Each player is dealt a hand of 13 cards from a 52 card deck. The hand is sorted by suit, then rank: Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, Clubs. Cards that are out of play are inactive and darkened.

To Win

The game ends when a player reaches 100 points. The winner is the player with the lowest total score.

How to play

The game begins with all cards being deal. Next, each player chooses three cards, and passes them to another player. After receiving 3 cards passed to you, the first trick is led by the player to the left of the dealer. Play continues in a clockwise manner. Each player plays one card and together they are called a trick. The highest card in the led suit wins and the point value of all the cards in that trick are assessed. You must follow suit until your hand is absent of the led suit. At that point, any card can be played. The player that wins the trick now leads a card. Hearts cannot be led until they are BROKEN by either someone playing a Heart or the Queen of Spades on a trick. Play continues in this manner until all cards are gone.

Variations:

There are many variations of this awesome game such as: Small Hearts, Queens, Rickety Kate, Partnership Hearts, Likha, Booster Nines, 500 Hearts.

Hearts strategies and tips:

Success in Hearts is largely determined by the cards you discard before every hand. There are two basic passing strategies. The first, and most obvious, is simply to rid your hand of the dangerous cards: High hearts; the ace, king, or queen of spades; and any other high cards. A second strategy is to try to empty your hand of a single suit by passing only one suit to your opponent. Once you have no cards of a particular suit left, you can discard your dangerous cards every time that suit is led.

When playing with the queen of spades, the number of points in each round doubles from 13 to 26 (the queen being worth 13 points). Therefore, the danger of taking any trick is decidedly increased. It's better to keep the Queen of spades and dump her on someone during play than to discard her only to have her dumped back on you. But you can't keep the Queen unless you have enough spades to defend her (four is best, three is chancy). The best insurance against picking up the Queen of spades is to lead low spades every chance you get.

The most obvious strategy is to play low cards, which is all well and good if you have them, but somewhat more difficult when you do not. A good rule to follow when beginning is to play your high cards on the first lead of a suit and move to your lower cards when the suit is led again. With each play of a suit it is increasingly likely that one of the other players will be out of that suit and thus able to discard points (either hearts or, far worse, the queen of spades.

You can play classic Hearts online on our website. And it's free! No download, no login required, simple gameplay! Good luck and have a good time! Find us on the web as 'Hearts 444'.

Hearts is a trick-taking card game for four players. The game is also known as Black Lady and is one of the most popular evasion-type of games. The main goal is to avoid hearts suit and Queen of Spades in winning tricks. Those cards are giving penalty points.

See our additional tips about Hearts rules, dealing & scoring.
Play Hearts online for free with thousands of players worldwide!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

History of Hearts Card Game

The card game Hearts became popular around 1750 in Spain. In this game, a penalty point was awarded for each trick won, plus additional points for capturing J♥ or Q♥. Over time, additional penalty cards were added to Reversis, and around 1850, the game gave way to a simple variant of Hearts, where each heart was worth 1 point. The Q♠ was introduced in a variant called Black Maria which then became known as the standard Hearts game, and soon thereafter, the idea of “shooting the moon” was introduced to the game to add depth to the gameplay. Passing cards, breaking hearts, leading 2♣ are more recent additions.

The card game Hearts is played by four players, each one playing solo. A standard French deck with all 52 cards is used. Cards in each suit rank from Ace to 2, Ace being the highest and 2 being the smallest. The player holding the lowest card – 2 of Clubs, starts the game.

The goal of the game is to not win any tricks containing Hearts or the Queen of Spades or to collect all the Hearts and the Queen of Spades. Each Heart card gives you 1 point and the Queen of Spades gives 13 points. If you collect all the Hearts and Q of Spades though, you score 0 points and all of your opponents score 26 points instead. It is called Shooting the Moon. The scope of the game is to collect as few penalty points as you can. The winner of the game is the one that has the lowest score.

Dealing and playing is clockwise. Each player receives 13 cards and is asked to pass 3 cards in the beginning and receives other 3 cards by another player.
  • In the first round, the cards are passed to the player to the left.
  • In the second round, the cards are passed to the player to the right.
  • In the third round, the cards are passed to the opposite player.
  • In the fourth round, there is no passing.
Hearts Card Classic

The game starts with the player who has the 2 of Clubs. The players are obliged to follow the suite and if they cannot they can give any other card. The one who plays the highest ranked card wins the trick and has to initiate the next trick.

There are certain conditions that have to be followed before you can play Hearts or the Queen of Spades:

  • You can’t play them on the first trick.
  • You can’t lead a Heart before someone “breaks the Hearts”.
  • You can lead a Heart if you do not have any other card in your hands.
The scoring depends on how many penalty points each player has collected. Each Heart gives one penalty point and the Queen of Spades gives 13 penalty points. This means there are 26 penalty points in each round. If a player manages to collect all the penalty points (all the Hearts plus the Queen of Spades) each opponent collects 26 points and he gets 0 points. This case is called “Shooting the moon”. The game is completed when a player reaches 100 points. The winner of the game is the one who has the fewest points.

Web Browser Card Games Hearts

DO YOU PLAY OTHER CARD GAMES?

Classic Hearts Game Full Page No Ads

Then enjoy more opportunities now: Euchre & Crazy Eights.

Hearts Card Classic Play online, free

Download Hearts

Get VIP Games for your mobile devices.