Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although variations can accommodate 3-6 players. The game is also known as Black Lady, Chase the Lady, Crubs, Black Maria, and Black Bitch, though any of these may refer to the similar but differently-scored game Black Lady. A standard deck of 52 playing cards is used. The objective of the game is to have the fewest points at the completion of the game. Tricks containing any heart and the queen of spades give points to the winner of the trick. There are no trumps. The game is regarded as a member of the Whist family of trick-taking games (which also includes Bridge and Spades), but the game is unique among Whist variants in that it is an evasion-type game.

The game has become popular in live play among grade school students in the United States, and is enjoying more widespread popularity through Internet gaming sites and due to a Microsoft version of the game packaged with its popular Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems (see Hearts (Windows) for more information on the software game).

History of hearts

The game of Hearts as currently known originated with a family of related games called Reverse, which became popular around 1750 in SpainHearts History on MindZine. In this game, a penalty point was awarded for each trick won, plus additional points for capturing the Jack of Hearts or the Queen of Hearts. A similar game called Four Jacks centered around avoiding any trick containing a Jack, which were worth one penalty point, and the Jack of Spades worth two.

Over time, additional penalty cards were added to Reverse, and around 1850, the game gave way to a simple variant of Hearts, where each Heart was worth 1 point. The Queen of Spades was introduced in a variant called Black Maria which then became known as the standard Hearts game, and soon thereafter, the idea of "shooting the moon" was introduced to the game to add depth to the gameplay. In the 1920s, the Jack of Diamonds variation (ten positive points) was introduced, and some time later the scoring was reversed so that penalty points were expressed as positive instead of negative. Passing cards, breaking Hearts, and leading the Two of Clubs are more recent additions.

Dealing the cards

Thirteen cards are dealt singly in turn to each of the four players.

• When there are only three players, the 2 or 2 is removed from the deck before play commences, and each player receives 17 cards. Alternately, two Jokers can be added, and count as an off-suit, non-Heart card. Each player then receives 18 cards. In another alternative, a randomly chosen card is set aside face down at the beginning of play; this card goes to whomever takes the first heart.
• When there are five players, the 2 and the 2 are both removed, and each player receives 10 cards. Alternately, three Jokers (usually the two from one deck plus one from a similar deck) can be added, and each player receives 11.