Hearts: Free Online Card Game

Hearts: Card Game is our own version of the classic trick-taking game. You sit at the bottom of the table with three computer players, Maya, Theo and Rosa, and everyone gets 13 cards. The aim is to take as few points as you can: every heart you win in a trick costs 1 point and the queen of spades costs 13. When someone reaches 100, the player with the lowest score wins.

Each hand starts with a pass. Pick three cards and tap the arrow to give them away: to the left, then to the right, then across the table, and every fourth hand nobody passes. The three cards you get back light up in gold for a moment, so you always know what you were handed. Then the 2 of clubs leads the first trick. Follow suit if you can, and if you can't, throw something away, which is your chance to get rid of the queen or a high heart. No points may be played on the first trick, and hearts can't be led until one has been played. Cards you can't play are dimmed, and tapping one tells you why.

Take every heart and the queen of spades in one hand and you have shot the moon: you score nothing and the other three get 26 each. The computer players know the trick too. They watch for a player who is taking every point and will win a heart off them to stop it, and when they hold the cards for it they will go for the moon themselves.

There are three levels. Easy players follow simple habits and slip now and then. Medium players count the cards, fish for the queen with low spades, keep it safe behind enough spades and drop it on whoever is winning the trick. Hard players think ahead: before each card they deal out the cards they can't see many times over, consistent with everything they know, play each choice to the end of the hand, and pick the one that costs them least. For a game of your own you can also choose a short game to 50 and the other moon rule, where 26 comes off the shooter's score instead.

The daily game is the same four deals for everyone each day, one with each pass direction, against Hard players. Each deal scores 26 minus the points you took, so a clean deal is 26, and a moon of your own scores 52. The best possible day is 208, and your first finish of the day goes on the leaderboard. Undo is free in your own games and turned off in the daily game. A hint costs gems and suggests three cards to pass or the card to play, and it never changes your score. You can look back at the last trick for free at any time. Hearts: Card Game is free to play in your browser with no download or sign-up, and its cards, sound effects and music are all made for the game.