Friends with Modems Classic games with the people you love.

Hearts guide

Hearts best practices

Tips for playing well, the most useful first.

  1. Pass the cards you least want to keep. With fewer than four spades below the queen, pass any of the queen, king and ace of spades you hold. After those, pass your highest hearts.
  2. Passing three cards from one short suit can leave you with none of it, which lets you discard dangerous cards when that suit is led.
  3. When you can’t follow suit, throw the queen of spades if you have it, then your highest heart, then your highest card. It’s your best chance to give points away.
  4. When you can follow suit, play the highest card that still loses the trick. Low cards in a long suit are your safe leads.
  5. Keep count of the spades. Once the queen of spades has gone, the rest of the suit is much safer to hold.
  6. Watch for a moon. If one player has taken every heart so far, take one heart yourself. A single point is cheap against 26.
  7. You don’t have to take zero points every deal. The lowest total wins, so keeping every deal’s points small matters more than one clean hand.