GAMEPLAY

A full pack of cards containing 52 cards from Ace to two is used to play the hearts game.

The game is meant for four people exclusively.

PASSING CARDS

Players are dealt 13 cards each. Then, each player selects 3 cards to pass to the opponent.

In the first dealing the player selects the cards to be passed to the player on the left; in the second dealing - to the player on the right; in the third dealing - to the player sitting opposite. In the third dealing the cards are not passed. In the fifth dealing the cards are passed to the player on the left; in the fifth one - to the players on the right, etc.

The game is started by the player who has the Club Two (), which is led. Then, other players drop cards clockwise. The cards dropped by all four players are a trick. The player who followed the suit with the highest card wins and collects the suit. He or she is the one to start next.

The card seniority is from Ace to Two, i.e. King, Queen, Jack - 10 and then, 9....2.

The game objective is to avoid collecting the tricks including hearts () and Queen . A player scores points for collecting these cards, which are described in Scoring.

Players are obliged to follow the suit. If a player does not have a card of the suit, he or she can discard any card.

The exception is the first trick, where it is not allowed to discard a heart or Queen . The only situation when it is allowed is when a player does not have any other cards in hand.

Apart from the moment when the Hearts () are "broken", i.e. one of the players does not the card of the suit and discards a Heart, it is not allowed to lead any Hearts to the next tricks. The exception is the situation when a player does not have any other cards in hand except Hearts.

However, Queen can be led to any trick, except the first one, unless the player does not have a card to follow the suit. It is independent of breaking Hearts.

SCORING

When the game is over, the points are scored.

For each collected Heart () one point is scored; for collecting the Spade Queen () 13 pts. He current scoring is displayed at a player's nick.

The exception is the situation when one player collects all the Hearts and the Spade Queen. In this case he or she decides whether to subtract 26 pts from his or her score or to add them to the other players' scores.

VARIANTS

Before the game is started it is possible to select the game variant with Diamond Jack ().

In the variant a player scores 10 pts for Jack . However in order to subtract 26 pts or add them to the other players, he or she must collect all Hearts, Queen and Jack .

GAME OVER

The game is over the moment that any of the players scores or exceeds 100 pts in the game.

The winner is the player who has scored the lowest number of points.