What is Omnibus Hearts?
In the standard game every card you can take either costs you points or is harmless: the goal is only to avoid hearts and the queen of spades. Omnibus Hearts adds one good card. Whoever wins the trick containing the jack of diamonds has 10 points taken off their score for the hand.
That changes the play of the diamond suit. A player who can win the jack safely, without collecting hearts or the queen in the same trick, gains a lot, so high diamonds become useful, and players try to make the jack fall when they can win it. Because the jack is worth minus 10, the points dealt out in a hand add up to 16 instead of 26.
Shooting the moon is harder. Here a player shoots the moon only by taking every heart, the queen of spades and the jack of diamonds. They are then scored like a standard moon: everyone else receives 26 points, or, if the table chose that rule, the shooter has 26 taken off. The jack's 10 is not counted on top. A player who takes all the hearts and the queen but not the jack has not shot the moon: they score their 26 points, and the jack's winner gets the 10 off.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Hearts | Omnibus Hearts |
|---|---|---|
| Jack of diamonds | Standard HeartsNo value. | Omnibus HeartsTakes 10 points off the score of the player who wins it. |
| Points in a hand | Standard Hearts26. | Omnibus Hearts16: the usual 26 penalty points, less the jack's 10. |
| Shooting the moon | Standard HeartsTake every heart and the queen of spades. | Omnibus HeartsTake every heart, the queen of spades and the jack of diamonds. The moon is scored as usual, and the jack's 10 is not added. |
| Other options | Standard HeartsBlack Maria, Spot Hearts, the moon rule and the target score can be chosen. | Omnibus HeartsAll of them work with Omnibus. With Black Maria there is no moon, so the jack is simply worth 10 off; with Spot Hearts the moon is worth 129 points. |
History
Hearts is traced to the United States in the 1880s, and Black Lady, which made the queen of spades a 13-point penalty card, is recorded from 1909. The jack of diamonds variation, a card worth ten points in the taker's favour, dates from the 1920s. Omnibus Hearts is Black Lady with a bonus card worth 10 to its taker; in one common description that card is the ten of diamonds, and a jack of diamonds rule gives the bonus to the jack instead. Ely Culbertson, writing in 1950, said Omnibus Hearts was rapidly becoming the most popular Hearts game. In those Omnibus rules, the moon needs all fifteen counting cards, the bonus card included, as it does here.
Other descriptions also give the jack of diamonds, sometimes the ten, as a card worth minus 10 to its taker. In one such version a player can shoot the moon with the hearts and the queen alone, and the jack still counts for whoever took it. The jack is the bonus card here.