Professional Card Players Tips For Hearts

My tips for winning a game of Hearts

[travisadkins]

An old timer once told me that the perfect hearts player will take exactly one point every hand.

[Mikey_AK_]

Hearts is a game of options. The goal is to have cards which give you the option to either collect tricks or duck. Long suits with both highs and lows make the strongest hands, balanced hands with middle cards are the weakest. You usually want to play your unsafe cards first so that you have options later. Shooting the moon isn't a "strategy, " but rather the threat of shooting the moon limits the other players' options. Running spades at the start of the round is always the default play, pay attention to who's pulling spades and who isn't. It's also usually important to try to put your lefty on lead, this lets you dump high cards on no-point tricks and duck point tricks.

Passing is the most complex aspect of hearts, hearts without passing is like bridge without bidding. You want the 10 cards you keep to be able to receive any 3 cards from the person who passes to you. The deuce through Jack of spades should almost never be passed. Ace/King fourth spade is usually safe, Queen fourth can be safe. It's good to pass high clubs left and high spades right. You usually want to pass a heart to prevent moons. Passing a medium-high heart is best, especially your 2nd highest heart if your hearts are good, passing the Ace doesn't count. Don't just dump all your hearts or clubs every hand.

[DisappearingBoy]

It's not just counting cards, but also counting the kinds of cards played. Not easy to do, but you have to pay attention to what the other players are playing to get a read on what they may be trying to do and also what options you may have.

[mauricemorning]

The importance of counting cards in Hearts cannot be overstated. This is the only video I found on the subject on YouTube and I thank you for that. You will never be able to run with a good player who is keeping track of the deck just by being clever. I used to consider myself a pretty good Hearts player when I played with my brothers, cousins and uncles and we just played for bragging rights. Then when I played against a friend who said he used to play in college for money(I don't know if it was pennies or dollars a point) I could see him grinding in his mind and he was so much better than any of the rest of us that we didn't have a chance. I asked him why he was so good and he asked me if I was keeping track of which cards have been played and I said "why no, are you?" To which he replied, "of course".I still played for years without counting but then I started to notice the importance of knowing the status of the Spades in case you were ever in a spot where you had to take a trick with a higher Spade with the intention of leading with the deuce or three or if you could just go ahead and lose with the deuce or three but possibly be susceptible to being forced to take the next trick and hold the lead the rest of the way. I still don't count perfectly but I would not be anywhere near as good a player as I am by just hoping for the best. When I play with family and friends now I consider I have a chance to shoot the Moon about every third hand. I do it by knowing which suits I have completely dominated sometimes counting on one of them to dump the Ace of Hearts if I am not holding it. Among my favorite things about playing hearts are: taking a trick early which contains one or two hearts knowing that I will never take another trick and have prevented anyone from shooting and also targeting the leader. This is especially important because if there is a huge disparity among the scores of the other players you can never count on shooting the moon as a bail out because that will often end the game with you in second or third place. I always try to keep the other players scores balanced. Probably my favorite delight is the type of hand with which you can go either way. If you have a hand with many high and many low hearts you always have a chance to bail out if your moonshot fails. Also there have been many times when playing against computer opponents, who are way too predictable by the way, where I planned on avoiding points and ended up shooting the moon because of the way that hand went. I really think Hearts is a great game which stirs up the larceny in all of us!

[bennattj]

The idea that you should target opponents is idealistic and, in my experience, leads to many arguments over correct play. You should absolutely try to give points to the person that you need to give points to--that's kind of a ridiculous statement to need to be made. But you also shouldn't bend over backwards and take points in the hopes of giving someone else points--that's almost always a losing strategy. You should _always_ "take no points" first and "give points" second.

[easterbunnybrandon]

If possible stick the low man with the queen. Pass atleast 1 small or medium heart so the odds of them shooting the moon decrease drastically.

[hammersticks]

I think I have a better understanding of how to play this. I just played it for the first time on the Apple Arcade game room. It has an option for hearts and I didn’t get a good understanding of what I was doing with the information it shared. Thank you.

[olive]

Thank you! Good tips and pleasant to listen to.

[robertleslie]

Always pass a cover card, most likely a low heart. It’s not always about avoiding the queen. Taking the queen is not the worst thing. Great video!

[bennattj]

As far as shooting the moon goes, it depends on what you're dealt. Sometimes you can set yourself up without risk. Say you're long in a particular suit--you could easily keep the out of that suit _and_ trade away your suits that you'll lose! So example of a perfect a hand to do this in (within reason):

Clubs: couple of high, some low
Diamonds: same
Spades: few or high cards (if you have queen--you can manipulate to your advantage unless you're short on the queen--then you're needing to win fast)
Hearts: try trading away all hearts to go out--a good opponent won't let you do this (unless they're too screwed in hearts). I prefer to keep a low heart if possible but will trade away if it sets me up. I have no problem trading away middle hearts!

[frederikmarohn]

A good way to get rid of dirty cards is to keep the person w the queen of spades on lead. Figure out who is and isn't leading spades early If someone overtakes a spade lead and plays a high club or diamond, or if someone is playing an A or K of spades w two others to act, you can be relatively sure they have the queen. Also, people who void themselves in high diamonds on the 2 of clubs trick are also likely to have to queen. If they run their diamonds or clubs out after overtaking a spade trick to try to get void, keep ducking, split hearts to prevent moons if you need to, and drop dirty cards, and once they've had their run, drive spades again.

[clareroberts]

Very interesting and helpful many thanks!

[bennattj]

I'm probably jumping in too early but "counting cards" is obviously necessary when playing hearts. I try and fail--generally my intuition is good enough (against most opponents).

Whenever I try and teach someone how to play hearts, I start by playing with all hands face up. It seems weird but you'd be surprised at what they're not seeing (being new to the game). As an example, I played a round against my two good friends, both know how to play spades (so they understand the basic rules) but only one actually knew how to play hearts. So I say, ok, I'll play my hand face up (so they didn't show me their hands but they could see mine). I proceeded to shoot the moon and said, while I was doing it, ok, well, you see that I'm trying to win everything--you really need to stop that.

[Paul-impd]

do you play variations? Like Jack of Diamond -10p?

[FaithfulNation]

You sound like you play the game identical to myself. My problem is, once I get up to the higher levels in online hearts, I get pummeled every time. I'm not sure if these guys have a chart they use to know which cards have been played or what. But it seems impossible to beat them.

[JamieKing-wnqm]

Hi im wondering can u play the queen of spades before hearts have been broken?

[maxdavidson]

Pass AKQ spades first then clubs, if no AKQ spades pass clubs.