Hearts

Hearts Rules

Four competing players participate in the game. The objective of the game is to get the lowest possible score at the end of the game. It is played with the French deck of 52 cards.

At the start of each game, the deck is shuffled and 13 cards are dealt to each player. In each round or "trick", each player will throw one of his cards, following the order of the table in a clockwise direction

Once the cards are dealt, there is a first phase in which the player must discard 3 cards that he will send to another player of the table in the following way:

• In the first game, he will pass them to the player on his left.
• In the second game, he will pass them to the player on his right.
• In the third game, he will pass them to the player in front of him.
• In the fourth game, no cards are passed.
• In the fifth game, the cycle is repeated, that is, the player would pass them back to the one on his left, in the sixth to his right, ...

Once the cards have been changed, the rounds or tricks start. In the first round, the player who possesses the two of clubs leaves in his hand and must leave with that card. Then and following the clockwise direction, it will be the turn of the next player who must draw a card of the same suit. If a player does not have a card of that suit he must take another card of any suit with the following exceptions:

• In the first round, you can not throw hearts
• In the first round, you can not take the queen of spades

Win a trick the player who throws the card of more value that is of the suit from which the first player in the round has left. The correlation of the value of the cards is as follows: Ace, King, Lady, Jack, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four three and two.

To count the score of each player, you have to add the value of the cards of the tricks that you have taken:

Carta

Valor

13 puntos

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

1 point

Once the round is over, the player who has won the trick by following the above criteria picks up the four cards and stores them on his mount. The player who has taken the trick, starts throwing in the next round.

The player who wins the trick can throw any card but can not leave hearts until a player has dropped a card from that suit for not being able to follow the suit.

The 13 rounds or tricks are played until all players run out of cards and the game ends. Next, we proceed to count points in the mounts of the four players.

The count

For each player the cards of his mount are analyzed. It takes 1 point for each heart you have and 13 points for the queen of spades. The points of the last game are added to the points accumulated in the previous games. If a player reaches the 50 points, the game ends and the winner is the player with the least accumulated points. In case no player reaches the 50 points, a new game starts and so on until someone reaches that score.

Reach the moon

If a player has all the hearts and the queen of spades in his mount and, therefore, all the points (26), it is said that he has reached the moon and the following score is applied:

• The player who reaches the moon does not take any point
• The rest of the players get 26 points each

Glossary

Follow the stick .

Exit a stick so that the other players have to play the same suit.

Reach the moon .

Obtain a player all the possible points of a game by taking all the hearts and the spades queen.

Black Lady .

It is also called the queen of spades.

Stack .

It is the set of all the tricks and cards that a player accumulates by having the highest card in each round throughout the game. At the end of the 13 rounds of a game, the mountain is used to count the points.

Broken hearts .

It is said when a player, unable to follow the suit from which he has left because he does not have cards of that suit, throws the first card of the suit of hearts. From that moment, the rest of the players will be able to open their tricks by throwing cards from the heart club.