Hearts

Dodge the hearts. Fear the Queen of Spades.

4 players
Bots fill empty seats
Trick-taking
Strategy

Also called Black Lady, Black Widow, Rickety Kate and Slippery Anne.

Four-player Hearts: pass three cards, dodge every heart and keep clear of the Queen of Spades, or take the lot and shoot the moon. Everyone holds their hand on their own phone while the tricks are played on the big screen, and a bot can take any empty seat.

Play now

Playing on Card Sard

Open cardsard.com on a TV, laptop or tablet and press Host.
Everyone else opens cardsard.com on their phone, presses Join, and types the room code or scans the QR code. There’s nothing to install.
Choose Hearts and play: each hand on its own phone, the table on the big screen.

How to play Hearts

Goal

Take as few points as you can. Every heart you take is 1 point, and the Queen of Spades is 13. The lowest score wins.

The deal and the pass

Four players are dealt 13 cards each. Before each hand, everyone passes 3 cards at once: to the left, then the right, then across, then a hand with no passing, and round again.

Playing a hand

Whoever holds the Two of Clubs leads it to the first trick.
Follow the suit that was led if you can. If you can’t, play anything.
The highest card of the suit led wins the trick, and its winner leads the next. There are no trumps.
Nobody may play a heart or the Queen of Spades on the first trick, unless they hold nothing else.
Hearts can’t be led until one has been played on another suit, unless you hold only hearts.

Scoring

After all 13 tricks, each player adds up the points in the tricks they took.
Shooting the moon: take every heart and the Queen of Spades, and you score nothing while everyone else takes 26.
The game ends when someone reaches 100 points, and the lowest total wins. A tie for lowest plays another hand.

Variations

Picked in the lobby before the game starts.

Play to: 100 points. The host can also choose 50, for a shorter game.