How to Play Hearts
Description
The aim is to avoid winning tricks — especially the ones with hearts or the Queen of Spades. Collect enough of the wrong cards and the scoring flips: a full sweep earns you nothing.
Objective
Finish with the lowest score across hands. Every heart you take costs you — so does the queen of spades.
Setup
Four players, thirteen cards each from a full deck.
Before play, everyone passes three cards to another player — the direction rotates each hand (left, right, across, then a hand with no passing, then it repeats).
Rules
Whoever holds the two of clubs leads it to start the first trick.
Follow suit if you can. No hearts and no queen of spades allowed on the very first trick.
You can't lead a heart until a heart has been played somewhere earlier in the hand.
Highest card of the suit led wins the trick and leads the next one.
Winning
Each heart you take costs one point; the queen of spades costs thirteen.
Take every heart and the queen in a single hand — a "shoot the moon" — and it flips: you score zero, everyone else scores twenty-six.
The game ends once someone reaches 100 points. Lowest score wins.