Your first game of Hearts

Set up

Four people play, each for themselves, and the lowest score wins. Deal a 52-card deck, 13 cards each. Each heart you take in a trick is 1 point, and the queen of spades is 13. There are no partners and no trump.

Your first hand

Before play begins, choose three cards from your hand and pass them face down to another player. The first deal passes to the left, the next to the right, the next across the table, and the fourth deal has no pass. Passing away high cards, the queen of spades and hearts you don’t want is the first skill to learn.

The player holding the two of clubs leads it. Everyone else follows the suit led if they can, and if they cannot they may play any card. The highest card of the suit led takes the trick, and its winner leads the next one. You can’t play a heart or the queen of spades on the first trick unless you have nothing else, and hearts can’t be led until one has been played.

How a game ends

Play all 13 tricks and count the points each player took. The game goes on deal after deal until someone reaches the game’s end score, 100 by default. Then the lowest score wins. If one player takes every heart and the queen of spades, that is shooting the moon: they score nothing and each other player gets 26 points.

A short example

West leads the 5 of diamonds. North plays the 9 and East the king. You play last, and you have no diamonds, so you may play any card. You play the queen of spades. East’s king is the highest diamond, so East takes the trick and the 13 points that come with the queen. Had a heart been played on it too, the trick would have cost East 14.