Hearts

Hearts uses a standard 52-card deck with no jokers. Four players each play for themselves. Every hand the cards are shuffled and dealt out completely, 13 to each player. You sit at the bottom of the table, with the three computer opponents to your left, across from you and to your right. Play moves clockwise.

Cards rank from 2 (low) up through 10, J, Q, K and A (high). There are no trumps, so all four suits are equal.

The goal is the opposite of most card games: you want to take as few points as possible. Hearts and the Queen of Spades count against you, and when the match ends the player with the lowest total wins.

A match is made up of several hands. Each hand has 13 tricks. At the end of a hand, everyone's points for that hand are added to their total. As long as nobody has reached 100, a new hand is shuffled and dealt.

At the start of each hand, all four players at the same time choose 3 cards to pass to another player. The direction follows a four-hand cycle:

1. Hand 1: pass to the left.
2. Hand 2: pass to the right.
3. Hand 3: pass across.
4. Hand 4: no passing.
5. Hand 5 starts the cycle again with a pass to the left.

The cards are exchanged only once all four players have chosen, so you see the 3 cards you receive only after the exchange. You can change your choice until you confirm; after that it is final. On this site, choose 3 cards and press the button such as "Pass left". The cards you receive are marked "received" until you play your first card of the hand. In a no-passing hand the table shows "No passing this hand" and play begins straight away.

After the exchange, the player holding the 2 of clubs leads, and the first card of the hand must be the ♣2. Then each player in turn, clockwise, plays one card to the trick:

• If you have a card of the suit that was led, you must follow suit.
• If you have none, you may play any card, subject to the two rules below.
• The highest card of the suit led wins the trick, and the winner leads the next one. A card of another suit can never win, however high it is.

On the first trick, if you cannot follow clubs but still hold any card that is neither a heart nor the Queen of Spades, you must play one of those cards. You may not discard a heart or the Queen of Spades on the first trick unless your hand holds nothing but those penalty cards.

Until a heart has been played to a trick in the current hand, hearts are "not broken" and you may not lead a heart, unless your hand contains only hearts. As soon as someone discards a heart because they cannot follow suit, hearts are broken and anyone may lead them from the next trick on. Playing the Queen of Spades does not break hearts.

On this site, the table shows a "♥ Hearts broken" mark when hearts are broken and a "♠Q played" mark when the Queen of Spades appears.

When all 13 tricks of a hand have been played, each player scores:

• 1 point for every heart they took, 13 in all;
• 13 points for the Queen of Spades;
• 26 points in total per hand.

For example, a player who took five hearts and the Queen of Spades scores 18 for that hand.

Shooting the moon: if one player takes all 13 hearts and the Queen of Spades in the same hand, that player scores 0 for the hand and each of the other three players scores 26.

After each hand, if anyone's total has reached or passed 100 and exactly one player has the lowest total, the match is over and that player wins. If two or more players are tied for the lowest total, another hand is played, and this repeats until the lowest total is unique.

For example, totals of 100, 40, 40 and 90 mean a tie for the lead, so play goes on. Totals of 104, 60, 75 and 88 end the match, and the player on 60 wins. If you have the unique lowest total, the result panel shows "Victory"; otherwise it shows "Defeat", together with the ranking and totals.

Hearts is a trick-taking game turned upside down. In most trick-taking games you fight to win tricks, but here you want to stay away from any trick with points in it. Every trick asks a small question: play high or low when following, which card to throw away when you are out of a suit, and when to get rid of the Queen of Spades.

Passing gives every hand a planning phase. You can hand dangerous high cards to an opponent, or empty a short suit so you can discard hearts later, while at the same time taking in cards someone else did not want. Shooting the moon adds a twist: with a strong enough hand, you can stop dodging and take all 26 points instead, so that everyone else gets 26.

In Australia the same game is also played under the name Rickety Kate. There are many local variations of Hearts. This site plays a common four-player version: no points on the first trick, the Queen of Spades does not break hearts, a moon always adds 26 to the other three players, and a tie for the lowest score is settled by playing further hands. Some tables let the moon shooter subtract 26 from their own score instead, or treat the Queen of Spades as breaking hearts; those options are not used here.

Open the page and play right away. There is nothing to download and no account to create, and the full game works in portrait or landscape on a phone as well as in a desktop browser. The three computer opponents come in three levels, Easy, Normal and Hard, with Normal as the default. If you change the difficulty from the menu, the new level applies from the next hand.

• Playable cards stand out: on your turn, cards you can play look normal, and cards you cannot play are dimmed but still visible.
• Select, then play: tap a playable card to select it, then press Play. Tapping the same card again also plays it. To change your mind, tap another card.
• Clear reasons: if you try a card you cannot play, the game tells you why, such as "You must follow clubs", "No points on the first trick" or "Hearts are not broken yet". Nothing on the table changes.
• Hint: during passing, Hint selects 3 suggested cards; during play, it suggests one legal card.
• Scores in view: each seat shows the points taken so far this hand and the running total. When one player has taken every point played so far, their seat shows a "Moon threat" badge.
• Fast-forward and skip: speed up a run of computer turns, or tap the trick to skip the collection animation.
• Hand and match results: after each hand a panel shows everyone's hand score, total and any moon; press Next hand to continue. When the match is over, press Play again for a new one.
• Autosave: reload the page, rotate your phone or go in and out of full screen, and the match continues from where you left it.

There is no undo. The cards you have played are already information the other players react to, so every card is final. If you are unsure, press Hint first.

Deal with high spades when passing. The Queen of Spades is the most dangerous card in the game. If you hold few spades, the ♠Q, ♠K and ♠A can easily force you to take 13 points, so consider passing them. On the other hand, if four or five low spades protect it, keeping the ♠Q can be safer, and you may get to drop it on someone who runs out of spades.

Create a void. Use the pass to empty a short suit, for example diamonds when you only hold two or three. Later, when someone leads that suit, you can discard hearts or the Queen of Spades onto their trick.

Get rid of high hearts. The ace, king and queen of hearts are easy to get stuck with in heart tricks. Pass them if you can; otherwise discard them first when you are out of a suit, or play them into a trick that already holds a higher heart.

Remember who is void. A player who discards is out of the suit that was led. Keep track of that and you will know who can throw points at you the next time that suit is led.

Low cards are protection. Keeping a few low cards lets you duck under later tricks instead of being forced to win them. Playing off your safe middle cards early is usually better than spending your low cards too soon.

Watch for a moon. If one player has taken every point played so far, they may be shooting the moon. Taking a single heart yourself to stop them costs far less than letting them collect all 26 and handing you 26.