Learn Hearts: Tutorial

Before play begins, each player selects 3 cards to pass to another player. The direction rotates each hand:

1. Left (hand 1)

2. Right (hand 2)

3. Across (hand 3)

4. No pass (hand 4)

This is your chance to get rid of dangerous cards! Common strategies:

- Pass the Queen of Spades if you have it

- Pass high hearts

- Pass high cards in a suit you want to void (so you can dump penalty cards later)

All players pass simultaneously before play starts.

The player holding the 2 of Clubs must play it to start the first trick. This rule ensures a consistent starting point for every hand.

Play proceeds clockwise from the lead player. Each player must play one card to the trick.

On the first trick, you cannot play hearts or the Queen of Spades (unless you have no other choice). This protects players from early penalty damage.

When a card is led, all other players must follow suit if they can. If clubs are led, you must play a club if you have one.

If you cannot follow suit (you have none of the led suit), you may play any card. This is called "sloughing" and is your opportunity to dump penalty cards on the trick!

The trick is won by the highest card of the led suit. Cards of other suits cannot win the trick, no matter how high they are. The trick winner collects all 4 cards and leads the next trick.

The core strategy of Hearts: avoid taking penalty cards!

- Each heart card in a trick you win costs you 1 point (13 hearts = 13 points total)

- The Queen of Spades costs 13 points -- the most dangerous card in the game!

Total penalty points per hand: 26 (13 hearts + Queen of Spades).

When you cannot follow suit, consider dumping the Queen of Spades or high hearts. But be careful -- if someone collects ALL penalty cards, something special happens...

Hearts cannot be led until they have been "broken." Hearts are broken when a player plays a heart because they cannot follow the led suit.

Once hearts are broken, any player may lead with a heart for the rest of the hand.

Exception: If a player has nothing but hearts in their hand, they may lead a heart even if hearts have not been broken.

In this example, hearts have just been broken. Notice the `heartsBroken` flag is now true, and hearts can now be led.

If one player collects all 26 penalty points in a single hand (all 13 hearts + the Queen of Spades), they have shot the moon!

Instead of receiving 26 points, the moon shooter gets 0 points and every other player receives 26 points.

This is a high-risk, high-reward strategy. If you notice you have already taken most penalty cards in a hand, you might try to capture the rest. But if even one heart goes to another player, you are stuck with a huge score.

Shooting the moon can completely change the outcome of a game!

At the end of each hand, penalty points are added to each player's running total:

- Each heart taken = 1 point

- Queen of Spades taken = 13 points

- Moon shot = 0 points for shooter, 26 for everyone else

After scoring, a new hand is dealt and the pass direction rotates:

1. Left, 2. Right, 3. Across, 4. No pass, then back to Left.

The game continues hand after hand. Keep your score as low as possible!

In this example, after several hands the scores are: P1: 23, P2: 45, P3: 8, P4: 31.

The game ends when any player's score reaches 100 points (or the configured target). At that point, the player with the lowest score wins!

Here Player 2 has reached 102 points, ending the game. Player 3 wins with only 34 points.

Key tips for winning:

- Void a suit early through passing so you can slough penalty cards

- Avoid the Queen of Spades -- pass it if you can, duck under it if you cannot

- Count cards to know when it is safe to lead high

- Watch for moon attempts and block them by taking just one heart

Good luck!

The Jack of Diamonds is worth -10 points (a bonus!). Shooting the moon now requires taking J♦ as well.

In the Omnibus variant, the Jack of Diamonds becomes a valuable card to win. It offsets 10 penalty points from hearts and makes scoring more nuanced.

When shooting the moon with Omnibus enabled, you must collect all 13 hearts, the Queen of Spades, and the Jack of Diamonds to succeed. Missing the J♦ means you don't shoot the moon.

This variant adds an extra layer of strategy: do you try to win J♦ for the bonus, or focus on avoiding penalty cards?