How to Win a Hearts Card Game
Though the traditional game of Hearts is very popular, many players remain confused by the large number of strategic possibilities and continue to rely on the same techniques. They rarely win and are forever at the mercy of luck. A more experienced Hearts player, however, knows a few rules and tricks that can help him make the most of any hand. The key to winning consistently is knowing how to play any given arrangement of cards and to change strategies based on those cards.
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Instructions
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Determining and Carrying Out Strategy
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Determine what type of strategy you will be using. Your decision will be based almost entirely on the cards, but it is also important to keep track of where and if you will be passing cards. You may decide to either play low and plan to take only enough points to make it impossible for an opponent to shoot the moon, or attempt to do so yourself, acquiring all the points in the game and delivering 26 points to all other players. If you are dealt a large number of points, and enough spades to make drawing out the queen plausible, it may seem tempting to shoot the moon. This risk versus reward ratio regarding this strategy is one of the things that makes this game so popular. Though it may seem tempting to try to avoid taking any points, as a player with lower cards, it is sometimes a better strategy is to deliberately take one trick to protect yourself.
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Passing cards is the next time strategy comes into play. Before most rounds begin, everyone passes three cards to another player. What three cards to pass, however, can be a matter of much debate. Sometimes this question will easy, such as when you are attempting to shoot the moon and have a few very low hearts. A player who is not trying to shoot the moon should often pass off any high spades that are likely to draw out the queen, assuming that they do not themselves have the queen. If they do, deciding whether to pass it along can be agonizing, and requires looking at more than just the number of other spades in your hand. Instead, it is important to consider if there are any other suites on which you are low; running out of a suit early is one of the best ways to dump the queen on another player. One often successful passing strategy is to get rid of any higher spades, as well as some cards of a suit you are low on.
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Keep up the same strategy you used to determine which cards to pass once the game actually begins. Some players like to start playing spades almost immediately in order to draw out the queen, and, in fact, this is a time-tested strategy. If you are not prepared to take a few hearts, however, it might be best to use a little more caution, because these cards are often dropped by players with no spades. A player wishing to make a run may be tempted to deviate from this rule of strategy, but unless the person has several cards in order starting very high, like an ace, king, and queen of hearts, a run can quickly turn disastrous. Knowing when a run is most likely to be successful is a matter of timing and observation.
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Tips & Warnings
A player with a large majority of low cards who also has a few higher point value cards will be well served to remember that not all tricks carry points, and it does not matter how many tricks a person wins, only how many points he takes. If you take a trick, whether deliberately or by being forced into it, you should almost always play the highest card of that suit. Remember that the longer the game goes on, the bigger a liability high cards can become.
As tempting as it sounds, shooting the moon is very dificult, and there is nothing worse for a game than getting twenty five points in a single hand. Unless you have just about all of the high point value cards, and a way to draw out those you are missing, you should seriously consider simply passing off your high cards and playing a defensive game.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Liko81, Wikimedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hearts_Penalty_Cards.jpg
