The game

The objective of Hearts is to get the least number of points against you as possible. Hearts can only really be played with four people. Points will be scored against you when you win a trick that contains any Hearts cards, or the Queen of Spades. Each Heart card will count as 1 point against you, and the Queen of Spades counts 13 points against you. However, if in a round you get all the Hearts cards and the Queen of Spades, instead of getting 26 points against you, 26 points goes against the other three players. Some people try to achieve this each round for a quick win, but it's a risky strategy.

The game is over when a player gets 100+ points against them. Sometimes that will happen in just a few rounds (maybe 4 or 5), but sometimes it could take as many as 15 or more rounds before somebody wins. The winner is the person with the least number of points against them when a player has got 100+ points against them.

Some of the rules in Hearts can differ, depending on how you like to play. The Hearts game that comes with most Windows PCs says that the Two of Clubs must be led on the first trick of each round, and that Hearts must be "broken" before they can be played. Hearts can only be broken when a player cannot follow suit or only has Hearts to lead. When I play with real cards with friends or family, we always ignore these two rules. It's just about personal preference. On Yahoo! Games, there is also the option of the Jack of Diamonds counting -10. In other words, whoever wins the Jack of Diamonds in a round will have 10 points taken off from their score, unless they are at 0 points.

The basic rules and guidelines in Hearts are:

• You must follow suit. For example, if the person leading the trick plays a Club, you must also play a Club, unless you haven't got any.
• The person who wins the trick is the person who plays the highest card of the suit that was led.
• Ace counts as higher than the King. It cannot be counted as "one" in Hearts.

At the start of every round, every player can pass three cards to another player. This gives everybody an opportunity to get rid of some of the cards they don't like the look of. Every fourth round, no passing is done. On the first round, you pass three cards to the player on your left, on the second round, you'll pass to the player on your right, on the third round, you pass to the player across from you, and then on the fourth round, no-one passes any cards. Some people prefer to play it so that you pass the same way, instead of left, right, across. That is personal preference also. This routine will repeat until the game is over.

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