Rules

How to play Hearts

Updated October 2026 · 4 players · About an hour to 100, half that to 50

Hearts is a game for four players. It works the opposite way from most card games: you want as few points as possible. Only hearts and the queen of spades are worth points. You try to avoid picking them up, unless you decide to pick up every single one. That is called shooting the moon, and it is where the game gets interesting.

What you need

Four players, each playing for themselves, and one full 52-card deck. Cards rank from the ace (highest) down through the king, queen, jack and 10 to the 2 (lowest). No suit is stronger than another.

The deal

One deal is everything played with one dealing of the cards, from the first card to the last. Any fair method decides the first dealer. One way is to spread the deck face down and let each player take one card and turn it over. The player with the lowest card deals first. If two or more players tie for lowest, only those players take another card. After each deal, the job of dealing passes one player to the left. Play always moves clockwise.

Deal the whole deck, 13 cards to each player. If the cards come out uneven, or a card is turned face up while dealing, the same dealer shuffles and deals again. Nobody loses anything for it.

Passing

Before play starts, everyone chooses three cards from their hand and passes them face down to another player. Do not put the three cards passed to you into your hand until your own three have gone. Who you pass to changes with each deal:

1. First deal — pass to the left
2. Second deal — pass to the right
3. Third deal — pass across the table
4. Fourth deal — no passing at all

Then the cycle repeats.

Passing is most of the skill in Hearts. Pass away the cards that could make you pick up points:

• The queen of spades. She costs 13 points to whoever picks her up, as much as all 13 hearts put together.
• High hearts, such as the ace, king and queen. A high heart is likely to be the highest card when a round starts with hearts, so you would pick up the pile and every heart in it.
• The ace and king of spades. Both are higher than the queen of spades. If a round starts with a spade and your only spades are these, you must play one, and you may end up picking up the queen's 13 points.

Another good pass is all your clubs, or all your diamonds, when you hold only one or two of them. Then you may have none of that suit (unless one of the three cards passed to you is from it), and whenever a round starts with a suit you have none of, you may play any card. That is your chance to get rid of a heart or the queen of spades. The next section explains this, and the one round where it does not work.

Playing a round

A deal is played in 13 rounds, until everyone is out of cards. A round is one card from each player, put face up in the middle of the table. Those four cards are called the pile.

1. Someone starts. Whoever holds the two of clubs once the passing is done starts the first round of every deal, and must put that card down. After that, the player who picked up the last pile starts. The first card put down is the starting card, and its suit is the starting suit.
2. Everyone else puts down one card, going clockwise. You must play a card of the starting suit if you have one. If you have none, you may play any card, and that is the best time to get rid of a heart or the queen of spades. The one exception is the first round, which has its own rule (see below). A card of another suit cannot pick up the pile, so someone else ends up with it.
3. Whoever plays the highest card of the starting suit picks up the pile. A higher card of another suit does not count. That player puts the four cards face down in a stack. Cards in a stack never go back into a hand. They only count for points.

For example, in a later round you start with the 7 of clubs. The next player has no clubs and puts down the king of hearts. The other two put down the jack and the 9 of clubs. The jack is the highest club, so whoever put it down picks up all four cards, including the king of hearts (1 point). The king is higher, but it is not a club, so it does not count.

If someone breaks a rule by mistake

Playing another suit when you could have played the starting suit is a mistake. If it is noticed before the pile is picked up, the card goes back and the right one is played. If it is noticed later in the same deal, the printed rules we checked do not settle it. A house rule many groups use is that the player who made the mistake gets all 26 points for the deal (13 hearts at 1 point each, plus 13 for the queen of spades) and nobody else scores. Some groups just play the deal again. Agree which before you start.

Starting a round with a heart too early, or playing a heart or the queen of spades in the first round when you may not, is against the rules too. Handle it the same way.

Scoring

At the end of each deal, count the points on the cards in your stack:

The queen of spades is worth as much as all the hearts put together, so she is the one card everyone works hardest to avoid.

One player keeps score with paper and a pencil. Write the four names across the top of the sheet, one column each. After every deal, each player counts the points in their stack and says the number. The scorekeeper adds it to the total already in that player's column and writes the new total underneath, so each column always shows that player's score so far. The four numbers for one deal always add up to 26 (or 78 when someone shoots the moon, and minus 26 if the shooter subtracts instead), which is a quick check that nobody miscounted.

Points are bad. Add each deal's points to your running total. When any player's total reaches or passes 100 at the end of a deal, the game is over and the lowest total wins. If two or more players share the lowest total, everyone plays another deal and adds its points to their totals. Keep going until one player has the lowest total. (Some groups simply share the win instead — agree beforehand.) The practice game plays one deal at a time and keeps no running total.

Shooting the moon

Say one player picks up all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades, which is all 26 points. That player has shot the moon. Instead of scoring 26, that player scores 0, and each of the other three players scores 26. The practice game plays it this way.

Some groups let the player who shot the moon choose, once the deal is counted. The choice is between the way above and subtracting 26 from their own total, which leaves the other three players with no points for that deal. Agree beforehand whether to allow this choice. A third way, from Pagat's rules: the other three players get 26 each, unless that would make one of them reach 100 and win, and then the shooter subtracts 26 instead.

Shooting is risky: if you pick up most of the points but miss even one, you keep every point you picked up. It does not happen often, but often enough to watch for. If one player seems to be picking up every point, they may be going for it. To stop them, you must pick up a pile with a heart or the queen of spades in it. A pile with none does not stop them.

Practice Hearts

Hearts is easier to understand than it is to play, because the instinct that serves you in most card games — try to win — is exactly wrong here. The practice game deals you in against three opponents and tells you, as you play, when you could have avoided picking up points.

Three things beginners get wrong

Keeping the ace or king of spades

The ace and king of spades are both higher than the queen of spades. Say you keep your ace or king, and the queen has not been played yet. After the first round, a spade may start a round at any time, and you cannot stop that. If your lower spades are gone by then, you must play your ace or king. You will usually be the one who picks up the pile, and the queen's 13 points may be in it.

To avoid this, pass the ace and king of spades away before the first round, or play them when a round starts with a suit you have none of. Once the queen of spades has been played in an earlier round (so someone has already picked her up), your high spades can no longer cost you her 13 points.

Passing away your lowest cards

It is tempting to pass the cards that look weakest. In Hearts, low cards are the ones to keep. A low card lets you play a card lower than the one that is winning, so that someone else picks up the pile. Pass away the cards that could be the highest in a round with points in it: the queen of spades, high hearts, and the ace and king of spades. The exception is clubs or diamonds when you hold only one or two cards. Passing all of them can leave you with none of that suit, which is usually worth more than keeping them.

Forgetting that the game lasts many deals

Picking up four points to stop someone shooting the moon is well worth it, since their moon would cost you 26. Playing every deal to score zero, whatever the others are doing, loses games.

Questions people ask

Does the queen of spades let someone start a round with a heart?

Not in the standard game: only playing a heart does that. Some groups play that the queen does too; agree before you start.

Can you pass the two of clubs?

Yes. Whoever holds it once the passing is done starts the first round with it.

If a round starts with the queen of spades, do I have to play a spade?

Yes, if you have one. You must always play the starting suit if you can, whichever card starts the round. The only extra limit on what you may play after someone else has started the round is in the first round: if you have no clubs, you still may not play a heart or the queen of spades, unless you have nothing else.

What if I only have hearts left?

If every card you hold is a heart, you may start a round with one, even if none has been played yet. If you hold only hearts and the queen of spades, and no heart has been played yet, you must start with the queen of spades, because she is not a heart.

What happens if two players tie for the lowest score?

If two or more players share the lowest total when the game ends, everyone plays another deal and adds its points. Keep going until one player has the lowest total. Some groups instead agree beforehand to share the win when this happens.

Common variations

• The queen of spades counts too — playing her allows a round to start with a heart, just as playing a heart does.
• Only hearts and the queen of spades left — if a player holds nothing else and no heart has been played yet, many groups let that player start with a heart instead of the queen of spades.
• Points in the first round — the rules on this page (Bicycle's) keep hearts and the queen of spades out of the first round. Pagat's standard rules allow them: a player with no clubs may play a heart or the queen in round 1.
• The older first round — the player to the dealer's left starts the first round with any card, instead of the holder of the two of clubs. In this version the first round has no special limit, so anyone who has none of the starting suit may play a heart or the queen of spades. If your group also keeps the usual rule about starting with a heart, the first card cannot be a heart. This is the older rule, found in some printed rule books such as Hoyle's.
• Starting with a heart at any time — the original rule, which some groups still use: a round may start with a heart whether or not a heart has been played.
• Jack of diamonds — a bonus card worth minus 10. Whoever picks it up takes 10 points off their score for that deal, so a deal can end below zero for them. Shooting the moon still means picking up all the hearts and the queen of spades.
• Passing every deal — some groups leave out the deal with no passing. They pass left, then right, then across the table, and then start over.
• Playing to 50 for a shorter game.
• Spot hearts — each heart is worth the number on it (jack 11, queen 12, king 13, ace 14), and the queen of spades is worth 25. The hearts add up to 104, so every deal has 129 points in it, and groups play to a higher total, such as 500. Agree beforehand how shooting the moon scores; most simply, it is the same rule with 129 in place of 26.
• Three players — take out the two of diamonds and deal 17 cards each. Pass three cards, going left, then right, then no passing, and repeat. The holder of the two of clubs starts the first round, as usual.
• Five players — take out the two of diamonds and the two of clubs and deal 10 cards each. Pass three cards the same way as with three players. Whoever holds the three of clubs starts the first round with it.

With three or five players, never take out a heart or the queen of spades, so the 26 points and shooting the moon still work.