About This Game

Hearts is a four-player trick-taking game where the goal is to avoid taking heart cards and the Queen of Spades. Each heart scores one penalty point. The Queen of Spades scores a painful 13. When someone crosses 100 points, the player with the lowest score wins.

The twist is shooting the moon. If one player takes all 13 hearts and the Queen of Spades in a single hand, every other player gets 26 penalty points instead. It's a big risk with a big reward. Before each hand, you pass three cards to another player, which adds a layer of planning to every round.

Screenshot

History & Background

Hearts grew out of a French game called Reversis in the 1700s. The goal was to avoid tricks with certain cards. The version with hearts as penalties came together in late-19th-century America. Shooting the Moon — taking every penalty card on purpose — was an early American addition.

Microsoft shipped four-handed Hearts with Windows for Workgroups 3.1 in 1992. It became a fixture of office breakrooms thanks to built-in network play. The game's penalty-avoidance logic is complex enough that it's still used as a test problem in AI research.

How to Play

Each player is dealt 13 cards from a standard 52-card deck
Before play, pass three cards to another player (direction rotates each hand)
The player with the 2 of clubs leads the first trick
Follow suit if you can — play any card if you can't
Highest card of the led suit wins the trick
Hearts can't be led until they've been played on another trick ('broken')

Tips & Strategy

Pass high hearts and the Queen of Spades if you can't protect them

Clear out one suit early by passing all those cards — then you can dump penalty cards in that suit

Keep low spades so you can duck under the Queen when someone leads spades

If you see someone collecting hearts, feed them more to cut off a shoot-the-moon attempt

Tips for the Real-World Game

Deal all 52 cards to 4 players — 13 cards each.

Each hand starts with a 3-card pass: left, right, across, then no pass — rotating each deal.

The player with the 2 of Clubs leads the first trick. No hearts or the Queen of Spades may be played on trick 1 unless you're out of clubs and have nothing else.

You can't lead hearts until they've been "broken" — played on a trick where someone was out of the led suit — unless your whole hand is hearts.

Shooting the Moon means winning all 13 hearts AND the Queen of Spades. That gets you 0 points and hands 26 to everyone else. Only try it when you're already holding high cards in every suit.

Features

✓ 4-player game vs 3 AI opponents

✓ Card passing between hands

✓ Shoot the moon mechanic

✓ Score tracking to 100

✓ Smart AI opponents

✓ Smooth card animations

Controls

Desktop

Click cards to select for passing or playing.

Mobile

Tap cards to play them.

Play Hearts Now Jump straight into the game — runs in your browser on any device.

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