

Then everyone else follows and plays a card. Whoever has the Deuce of Clubs always has to play first, and it has to be that card. The computer version will prompt you to select three cards. Knowing who you will be passing to is important when you play cards. On the fourth hand, you won't pass any cards at all. The first hand you will pass to the player on the left, the second to the player to your right, and the third to the player in front of you. During the first three hands of the game, you will pass three of your cards to another player. For example, if the first player put down a Three of Diamonds, and the next put down a Queen of Spades, the player with the Three of Diamonds would win the trick. Even if it's ranked higher than the card in the suit initially played, you do not receive the cards from the trick. What if you don't have a card in that suit? Then you can play any of your other cards. The highest card in that suit receives the cards from that hand. So if someone plays a club, then everyone else must play a club if they have it. Whoever plays the first card of a hand (also known as a trick) determines what suit must be followed. Before you even attempt a game of Hearts, you must know about the suits and card ranks. Luckily, when playing on the computer, all of this is figured out for you, but you should know the rules so you can plan your strategy when you play. How evil will I become?ĭumping the queen of spades on a rival can feel satisfyingly evil.There are various rules that you must adhere to when playing Hearts.
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If you get passed the black maria bare, you'll have to play it as soon as spades are led. When passing cards, try to become void in one suit, but not spades. If you decide to go for it before passing your three cards, it's not too hard to pull off. Because while winning hearts and/or the queen is a bad thing, if you win all the scoring cards, you get no points and all opponents get the maximum penalty (130). What gives hearts its zesty twist is the possibility of "shooting the moon". Things get fraught when hearts are trumps, as it's far harder to dump them on another player when you can't follow suit. There are two ways of doing this - to rotate the trump suit each turn (hearts, clubs, diamonds, spades, no trumps), or to decide trumps by cutting before the deal. All hearts are worth their face value (the four is worth four points etc, jack 11, queen 12, king 13, ace 15, queen of spades 25) and there are different trumps each round. When one player reaches a pre-agreed number of points - 100, normally, or 500 - the player with the fewest points wins. To make things more interesting, before play begins, each player must pick three cards to pass on - to the player on their left in the first round, to the right in the second, across in the third, no passing in the fourth.Īt the end of each hand, players tally up the points in their tricks. Unlike whist, the object is not to win the most tricks, but to win as few tricks as possible containing hearts or the queen of spades (the "black maria"). Play progresses like whist - one player leads a card, everyone else follows suit if they can, the player of the highest card (or trump) takes the trick and leads to the next. Left of dealer starts, and can play any card. Play with real people in the real world, and it's a wheeze.Įach player is dealt 13 cards. If you've never played hearts, you might be forgiven for assuming it's a terrible game, thanks to Microsoft.
