What is Subtract the Moon?
In the standard game a player who takes every heart and the queen of spades in one hand has shot the moon: they score nothing for the hand, and every other player receives the 26 points instead. In this variant the moon is scored the other way round. The shooter has 26 points taken off their own score, and everyone else scores nothing for the hand.
The difference shows late in the game. With the standard rule a moon can lift the other players to the target score and end the game. With the subtract rule nobody else's score moves, so a moon hand carries nobody to the target; it only lowers the shooter's total. Scores are not stopped at zero: a shooter who had 10 points goes down to minus 16.
Everything else is the standard game: passing, the two of clubs leading, following suit, hearts waiting until they are broken and no penalty cards on the first trick. Nobody chooses between the two scorings during play: the table picks the rule in the setup, and every moon of the game is scored that way.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Hearts | Subtract the Moon |
|---|---|---|
| Shooting the moon | Standard HeartsThe shooter scores nothing, and every other player receives 26 points. | Subtract the MoonThe shooter has 26 points taken off their score, and every other player scores nothing for the hand. |
| Scores below zero | Standard HeartsScores only go up, so they never fall below zero. | Subtract the MoonA moon can take a score below zero, for example from 10 to minus 16. There is no floor at zero. |
| End of the game | Standard HeartsAfter a hand in which a player reaches the target score, the game ends if one player alone has the lowest score, and that player wins. A moon can end it by lifting the other players to the target. | Subtract the MoonDecided the same way, but a moon raises nobody's score, so a moon hand carries nobody to the target. |
| Other options | Standard HeartsBlack Maria, Spot Hearts, Omnibus and the target score can be chosen. | Subtract the MoonSpot Hearts and Omnibus work with it. With Spot Hearts the shooter has 129 points taken off; with Omnibus the moon also needs the jack of diamonds, and the shooter has 26 taken off, without the jack's 10 on top. Black Maria has no moon, so with it this rule has no effect. The target score is chosen as usual. |
History
Shooting the moon is a later addition to Hearts. Black Lady, the form in which the queen of spades is a penalty card, did not have it at first, and the slam called shooting the moon first appeared in Britain in 1939, in a variant called Hitting the Moon. Under modern rules, a player who takes every penalty card may either deduct those points from their own total or add them to every other player's score.
Common Hearts rules give the same pair: the shooter's score is reduced by 26, or the shooter may choose instead to have 26 added to everyone else's. As variations, three fixed ways to settle the moon are also known: the shooter always has 26 deducted; the other players always have 26 added; or the others have 26 added unless that would make one of them win, in which case the shooter has 26 deducted. This page plays the first of those, and the standard game here plays the second; in neither does the shooter choose during play. No description names an inventor or a date for the subtract rule, and none is claimed here.