How to play Hearts

• Four players, each playing for themselves. No partners.
• A full deck of 52 cards, all dealt out: 13 each. Aces are high.
• You want to avoid points. Every heart you take is 1 point, and the Queen of spades is 13.
• When anyone reaches 100 points, the game ends and the lowest score wins.
• There's no trump: the highest card of the suit led always wins the trick.

Before each hand, everyone picks 3 cards to pass. Pass the cards you'd least like to keep, like the Queen of spades or high hearts.

The direction changes every hand, in a cycle of four:

1. Pass left
2. Pass right
3. Pass across (to the player opposite you)
4. No passing: a hold hand, where everyone keeps their cards

At the Club, tap 3 cards to lift them, then press Pass. Nobody gets any cards until all four have passed, so you never see what's coming first. The 3 cards passed to you are marked until play begins.

• Everyone must follow suit (play the suit that was led) if they can.
• If you can't follow suit, you may discard any card: a great time to get rid of hearts or the Queen of spades.
• The highest card of the suit led wins the trick, along with any points in it. The winner leads the next trick.
• There are 13 tricks in a hand.

At the Club, cards you can't play are dimmed. Tap one and it tells you why, for example “You must follow clubs.”

You can't lead a heart until hearts have been broken. That happens the first time someone who can't follow suit discards a heart, or the Queen of spades. From the next trick on, anyone may lead hearts.

• Discarding a heart is always allowed when you can't follow suit (after the first trick), even before hearts are broken. Only leading them has to wait.
• If you hold nothing but hearts, you may lead one, and that breaks them.
• You may lead the Queen of spades any time. Leading her doesn't break hearts; only discarding her does.

The score panel at the Club shows a filled heart and “Hearts broken” once they are.

At the end of each hand, everyone counts the points in the tricks they took: 1 for every heart and 13 for the Queen of spades. That's 26 points in every hand. Points add up from hand to hand.

The game ends at the end of a hand once anyone has 100 points or more, and the player with the lowest score wins. If two players tie for lowest, play goes on for another hand until one of them is ahead.

Taking every point in a hand, all 13 hearts and the Queen of spades, is called shooting the moon. Instead of 26 points, you score 0, and everyone else gets 26.

It's risky: if someone takes even one heart from you, you're stuck with the rest. Watch for a player who's taking every point, and try to win a heart to stop them.

• Pass high spades (the Ace and King) if you don't have low spades to protect them: they catch the Queen.
• Try to empty a short suit when you pass, so you can discard sooner.
• Play your highest card that still loses (“ducking”) when points are in the trick.
• If you're last to play and the trick has no points, win it with a high card.

The same promise as every game at the Club. Nobody should ever wonder.

• Shuffled like a real table. Before every deal the deck is shuffled, cut, shuffled, cut and shuffled again, starting from a fresh deck every hand. The first cut is near the middle; the second splits the deck into rough thirds and stacks them back so no third goes where it was.
• Truly random, using the same kind of cryptography that protects online banking. The deal is never adjusted to help or hurt anyone.
• Check it yourself. After any hand, tap the shield button in the table's corner. Your browser re-creates the whole deal from the secret revealed after the hand, and checks it against the cards you were dealt, the 3 passed to you, and every card played.
• The Club bots play fair too. A Club bot sees only its own cards, exactly like you.

Trick

One card from each player. The highest card of the suit led wins it.

Lead

Play the first card of a trick.

Follow suit

Play a card of the suit that was led. You must if you can.

Discard

Play a card of another suit, because you have none of the suit led.

Void

Having no cards left in a suit, so you can discard when it's led.

Points

Hearts (1 each) and the Queen of spades (13). Points are bad.

Breaking hearts

The first time a heart, or the Queen of spades, is discarded on a trick.

Hold hand

Every fourth hand, when nobody passes.

Shooting the moon

Taking every point in a hand: all 13 hearts and the Queen.

Ducking

Playing under the card that's winning, so you don't take the trick.

Game length: 50 or 100 points, 100 by default.