Hearts Rules — How to Play and Keep Score
Hearts is a trick-avoidance game for three to six players, at its best with four. There is no bidding and no trump suit. Every heart you capture costs a point and the queen of spades costs thirteen, so the aim is to collect as little as possible over a long series of quick hands. The running total is the entire story of the game, which makes it an ideal fit for a rounds sheet.
Overview
Hearts is a trick-avoidance game for three to six players, at its best with four. There is no bidding and no trump suit. Every heart you capture costs a point and the queen of spades costs thirteen, so the aim is to collect as little as possible over a long series of quick hands. The running total is the entire story of the game, which makes it an ideal fit for a rounds sheet.
Setup
With four players, deal the whole 52-card deck, thirteen cards each. For other counts, strip low clubs and diamonds so the deal comes out even: remove the two of diamonds for three players (seventeen each), the two of diamonds and two of clubs for five (ten each), and the two and three of both diamonds and clubs for six (eight each). Some groups instead deal evenly and leave the spare cards face down as a kitty, claimed by whoever wins the first trick. Either way every heart and the queen of spades stay in the deck, so a hand is always worth the same total.
How to play
Before most hands each player passes three unwanted cards to another player, receiving three in return before looking at what they got. Whoever holds the two of clubs leads it. Players must follow the led suit if they can and may otherwise play anything, subject to the house rules above. The highest card of the led suit takes the trick and leads the next one. Hearts cannot be led until a heart has been discarded on an earlier trick, unless the leader holds nothing but hearts.
Scoring
Enter one number per player per hand, then compute in this order:
- Raw penalty. One point per heart taken, plus thirteen for the queen of spades. With the omnibus setting on, subtract ten for the jack of diamonds.
- Moon check. A player has shot the moon if they took all thirteen hearts and the queen of spades — and the jack of diamonds too when omnibus is on.
- Moon rule. Subtract mode gives the shooter minus twenty-six and everyone else zero. Add mode gives the shooter zero and every other active player plus twenty-six. Off leaves the raw numbers alone.
- Ten of clubs. If enabled, double the final hand score of whoever took it. Doubling a negative score makes it more negative.
Without the omnibus jack, the raw numbers in a hand always add up to twenty-six exactly, which is a useful validation check before saving a round.
Ending the game
Play stops the instant any player's total reaches or passes the target at the end of a hand. The winner is the player with the lowest total, not the one who hit the target. Equal lowest totals share the win, or the group plays one more hand to break it.
Common variations
Cancellation Hearts splits a larger group into partnerships and cancels equal-ranked cards. New Moon caps the target at fifty for a faster session. Many groups also add a rule that a player sitting on exactly one point below the target must play the final hand with no pass.
Scoring at a glance
| Who wins | Lowest score |
|---|---|
| Played to | 100 points by default |
| Score sheet | One number per player per round, with a running total |
| Typical round score | 0 – 26 |
| Negative scores | Possible |
| Worth knowing | Every hand distributes exactly 26 points across the table unless the omnibus jack is in play or somebody shoots the moon. |
Hearts — score sheet
Worked example
Settings: targetScore: 100, shootTheMoon: subtract, jackOfDiamonds: false.
Players: Anna, Ben, Cara, Dan.
Entries are the points each player took in the hand, not the effect on their score. The scorer derives the effect, which is what lets the moon rule be toggled mid-match and recomputed from unchanged entries.
| Hand | Anna | Ben | Cara | Dan | Hand total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 13 | 26 |
| 2 | 0 | 26 | 0 | 0 | 26 |
| 3 | 13 | 4 | 9 | 0 | 26 |
| 4 | 2 | 11 | 13 | 0 | 26 |
| 5 | 0 | 0 | 26 | 0 | 26 |
Hand 2: Ben took all 26 — he shot the moon. With shootTheMoon: subtract, Ben scores
−26 and everyone else scores 0.
Hand 5: Cara shot the moon, scoring −26.
Running totals:
| After | Anna | Ben | Cara | Dan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | 0 | 8 | 13 |
| 2 | 5 | −26 | 8 | 13 |
| 3 | 18 | −22 | 17 | 13 |
| 4 | 20 | −11 | 30 | 13 |
| 5 | 20 | −11 | 4 | 13 |
Expected standings after hand 5: Ben −11 (rank 1), Cara 4 (rank 2), Dan 13
(rank 3), Anna 20 (rank 4). finished: false — nobody has reached 100.
Three things this catches:
Low score wins, but the target ends the game. The target of 100 is a ceiling that
stops play; the winner is whoever is lowest when it trips, not whoever hit it. An
implementation that treats targetScore as "first to 100 wins" inverts the result
of every game of Hearts. This is the single likeliest scoring bug in the app.
Every hand totals 26. 13 hearts at one each, plus the queen of spades at 13. That invariant is worth asserting in a test: if a hand's entries do not sum to 26, either the data is wrong or the moon rule has been applied to the stored values instead of the derived ones.
Moon handling changes signs, not just magnitudes. Ben goes from 0 to −26 in one
hand and leads the game with a negative total. Under shootTheMoon: addToOthers the
same entries would instead give Ben 0 and add 26 to each of the other three — same
entries, different standings, recomputed live when the setting is toggled.
House rules and settings
Every table plays Hearts a little differently. These are the 8 rules groups argue about. Each one is a setting in the app — and changing it recalculates a match that is already in progress, which is the thing no other score keeper does.
End game at: what is the default in Hearts?
The game stops as soon as any player's running total reaches this number at the end of a hand. The player with the lowest total is the winner.
Default: 100. Adjustable from 25 to 500 in steps of 5.
In the app: “End game at”.
Shooting the moon: what are the options in Hearts?
What happens when one player collects every penalty card in a single hand instead of avoiding them.
Default: Shooter subtracts 26. Four options:
In the app: “Shooting the moon”.
Omnibus jack of diamonds: on or off in Hearts?
Turns the jack of diamonds into a bonus card worth minus ten to whoever wins it, so a hand is worth sixteen points instead of twenty-six.
Default: off.
In the app: “Omnibus jack of diamonds”.
Ten of clubs doubles: on or off in Hearts?
Whoever wins the trick containing the ten of clubs has their score for that hand multiplied by two.
Default: off.
In the app: “Ten of clubs doubles”.
Passing: what are the options in Hearts?
Which neighbour you hand three unwanted cards to before each deal. The standard cycle repeats every four hands and includes one hand with no passing at all.
Default: Left, right, across, hold. Five options:
In the app: “Passing”.
Queen of spades may be led early: on or off in Hearts?
Whether a player is allowed to lead the queen of spades before any hearts have been played. Turning this off protects players who were dealt few spades.
Default: on.
In the app: “Queen of spades may be led early”.
First trick is safe: on or off in Hearts?
Bans hearts and the queen of spades from being discarded on the very first trick of a hand, so nobody can be hit before the game has started.
Default: on.
In the app: “First trick is safe”.
Queen breaks hearts: on or off in Hearts?
Whether playing the queen of spades counts as breaking hearts, which frees everyone to lead hearts from then on.
Default: on.
In the app: “Queen breaks hearts”.
Variants of Hearts
Omnibus Hearts
The jack of diamonds is worth minus ten, and a player must capture it as well as all the hearts and the queen to shoot the moon.
Turbo Hearts
The ten of clubs doubles the hand score of whoever takes it, which turns a good hand into a disaster and a moon into a rout.
Spot Hearts
Hearts are worth their face value rather than one each, with the ace counting fourteen, so a hand is worth far more than twenty-six.
Hearts is also known as
Black Lady, Chase the Lady, Black Maria. These are the same game — the rules and the score sheet above apply to all of them.
Keep score offline
The sheet above works in your browser. Cardzo for iPhone remembers your players, survives a closed tab, and works in a field with no signal.
Coming to the App Store.