Hearts Strategy: Dodge the Queen and Win More Games
How to win more games of Hearts: what to pass, how to dodge the Queen of spades, which card to play when you can't win, and when to shoot the moon.
Sunroom Games · Updated
Hearts is a game of small decisions. There are 26 points in every hand, and you can't dodge all of them every time. The aim is to take fewer than everyone else, hand after hand, and to stay out of the way of the Queen of spades. The good news is that most of the skill comes down to a handful of habits, and every one of them can be learned.
If you'd like the rules first, see how to play Hearts.
Points in one minute
Each heart you take costs 1 point and the Queen of spades costs 13, so she's worth half the hand on her own. When someone reaches 100, the lowest score wins. On Sunroom Games, hearts are "broken" once a heart has been played; the Queen of spades can be led at any time.
1. Pass with a plan
The three cards you pass are your best chance to shape your hand. The usual choices, in order:
- The Queen of spades, unless you also hold four or more lower spades. With that many spades you can keep playing under the King and Ace, and wait for a trick where you can't follow suit to drop her.
- The Ace and King of spades, for the same reason. They're the two cards that can be forced to win a spade trick with the Queen in it.
- High hearts: the Ace, King, Queen and Jack tend to win tricks full of hearts.
- High cards in a short suit. If you hold only two diamonds, passing both leaves you with none, which is useful later.
And remember where you sent them. If you passed the Queen of spades to the player on your left, you know exactly who has her for the rest of the hand.
2. Look hard at what you were passed
The player passing to you is getting rid of their own dangerous cards, so expect a high spade or a fistful of high hearts. On Sunroom Games the cards you receive stay raised in your hand until you play your first card. Take a moment to see what they change: a new Queen of spades with only two spades to protect her means you'll want to empty another suit quickly.
3. Empty a suit as early as you can
A suit you have none of is your best friend in Hearts. Whenever that suit is led, you're free to play anything, and that's your chance to drop the Queen of spades or a high heart onto someone else's trick. Lead from your shortest suit to use it up, and pass short suits away when you can.
The first trick is a gift here. Nobody can play points on it, so if you're following clubs, it's a safe moment to get rid of your highest club.
4. Play the highest card that still loses
This is the most useful habit in the game. When you follow suit and can't win the trick safely, play your highest card that's still lower than the card that's winning.
High cards are dangerous to keep, because sooner or later they'll win a trick. Low cards are safe to keep. Shedding the high ones while they can't win keeps your hand safe for the end.
5. Keep a few low cards for the end of the hand
Late in a hand, the player who wins a trick has to lead the next one, and leading the wrong card can hand you a pile of points. A low card in each suit, like a 2, 3 or 4, gives you a way to give up the lead and let someone else take the risk. Don't throw them all away early.
6. Hunt the Queen of spades
If you don't have the Queen, and you don't hold the Ace or King of spades either, lead low spades. Each spade trick forces the other players to follow suit, and sooner or later the player holding the Queen has to play her, or be left with her as their last spade.
If you do hold the Ace or King of spades without the Queen, be careful: play them only once she's gone, or when you can't follow suit and want to get rid of them. And if you hold the Queen, keep her until a trick you can't follow, then drop her.
7. Count the spades and remember who's run out
You don't need to remember every card. Two things are worth tracking:
- Spades. There are 13. Once you know how many have gone, you know how safe your own high spades are, and whether the Queen is still out.
- Who couldn't follow suit. If a player throws a heart on a diamond trick, they have no diamonds left. Next time diamonds are led, expect them to drop points.
8. Take the safe tricks
Winning a trick isn't a disaster if there are no points in it. When you're last to play and the trick holds no hearts and no Queen, you'll often take it whatever you play, so use your highest card in that suit. It's a free chance to clear a dangerous card from your hand.
9. Stop a moon shot in time
If one player has taken every heart and the Queen of spades, they score nothing and everyone else gets 26. So when one player has every point taken so far and the hand is getting late, take a single heart yourself if you can. It costs you 1 point instead of 26.
10. Shoot the moon only with a very strong hand
Shooting the moon yourself is thrilling and risky. It needs long, high hearts, like the Ace, King, Queen and Jack and more, plus control of spades and high cards in the other suits. If anyone else takes even one heart, the attempt is over and you're left with a pile of points. In test games between our computer players, a moon shot happened in about 3 hands in 100. Save it for the hand that clearly calls for it.
Play to the scoreboard
Near the end of a game, the scores matter more than any single trick. The game ends as soon as someone reaches 100, so if you have the lowest score and another player is close, points going to them end the game with you winning. If you're behind, the opposite is true: you need more hands, so keep points away from whoever is nearly out.
How often should you win?
With four evenly matched players, each one wins about one game in four. In our own tests, a player following the hint button won about one game in four against the computer players. So if you're winning more often than that, you're beating the table.