The Rules of Hearts Card Game

Video Transcript

"The rules of the game of Hearts are relatively basic. Thirteen cards are dealt to every player. At the beginning of each hand, players have the, it isn't an option, it is required. Every hand has a passing option and then there's a variation called keeper hands. After you pick up your thirteen cards, and we can go into the strategy of the game later on, but after you pick up your thirteen cards, you select any three cards you want and you pass them in a rotation. First pass will be to the left sided person, person in the eldest seat if you will. Second hand, you're going to be passing to the person across, third hand you're going to be passing to the person on the right. And a lot of people play the fourth hand as a keeper or hold hand, meaning that there's no pass at all. My personal preference is that you have a pass every hand and in tournaments, we require that. So the rotations left, right, across. Other rules of the game. Follow suit when possible. If you renege in Hearts, you will be slammed for twenty six points. Which is the maximum amount of penalty that can be applied. You have to follow suit when ever you've won. Secondly, you can not lead a heart until the suit has been played previously or you have nothing but hearts. Most groups play the queen of spades breaks hearts, and that term, breaking hearts, means that you are now eligible or you're allowed to lead hearts and if you throw a heart on somebody, that constitutes breaking hearts. The other thing about the game is that there's not only thirteen tricks. Tricks per say don't mean anything, it's what you take in the tricks. Every heart you take counts one point against you. If you take the nasty queen of spades, it's thirteen points against you. The game is usually one hundred points. It doesn't take long to get there. If you are fortunate enough where you have the high cards or the opponents decide to just get piggy about it and throw all their high cards on you, hearts especially. Then you wind up shooting the moon and that means that you dumped twenty six points on everybody else unless the score dictates that you can't subtract. So Hearts is a faced paced competitive game in which you are playing for yourself. No partner to help you."