Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although most variations can accommodate between three and six players. It was first recorded in the United States in the 1880s and has many variants, some of which are also referred to as "Hearts", especially the games of Black Lady and Black Maria. The game is a member of the Whist group of trick-taking games (which also includes Bridge and Spades), but is unusual among Whist variants in that it is a trick-avoidance game; players avoid winning certain penalty cards in tricks, usually by avoiding winning tricks altogether. The original game of Hearts is still current, but it has been overtaken in popularity by Black Lady in the United States and Black Maria in Great Britain, respectively.

History The game of Hearts probably originated with Reversis,"History of Hearts" in which became popular around 1750 in Spain. In this game, a penalty point was awarded for each trick won, plus additional points for taking or in tricks. A similar game called "Four Jacks" centred around avoiding any trick containing a Jack, which were worth one penalty point, and worth two.

Hearts itself emerged in the United States during the 1880s, The Standard Hoyle of 1887 reporting that it had only been played there for "the last five years" and was "probably of German origin". It described Hearts as "a most pleasant game, highly provocative of laughter". It was a no-trump, trick-taking game for four players using a full pack of cards, the aim being to avoid taking any hearts in tricks. The basic format has changed little since. Two scoring variants were mentioned under the name 'Double or Eagle Game'. The first was the precursor to Spot Hearts whereby the cards of the heart suit cost the following in chips: Ace 14, King 13, Queen 12, Jack 11 and pip cards their face value. The second scoring scheme was: Ace 5, King 4, Queen 3, Jack 2 and all pips 1 chip each.

In 1909, the was added as the highest penalty card in a variant called either Discard Hearts, after the new feature of passing unwanted cards to other players following the deal, or Black Lady, after the nickname for the . This new variant has since become the standard game of the Hearts group in the United States where it is often, somewhat confusingly, also called "Hearts". To begin with, Black Lady did not have the option of "shooting the moon"; that came later.

In the 1920s, the variation (ten positive points) was introduced. Sometime later, the scoring was reversed so that penalty points were expressed as positive instead of negative.

The slam is known as "shooting the moon" and first appeared in Britain in 1939 in a variant of Hearts called Hitting the Moon. Today this feature is a common element of modern Black Lady.

Meanwhile, in Britain, the game of Black Maria, with its additional penalty cards in the suit of spades, emerged in 1939. Both it and another offshoot, Omnibus Hearts, are "sufficiently different and popular to justify descriptions as separate games."

The game has increased in popularity through Internet gaming sites which, however, usually offer the Black Lady variant while still calling it Hearts, whereas most books maintain the distinction between the two games. Microsoft Windows included Hearts (in fact Black Lady) in its operating system from Windows 3.1 to Windows 7, making it one of the earliest digital renditions.

Earliest rules (1887) The following rules are based on those published in The Standard Hoyle of 1887.

Preliminaries The game is usually played by four players, but three to six can be accommodated (see below). The aim is to avoid taking any cards of the heart suit in tricks. A standard 52-card pack of English pattern cards is used, cards ranking from ace (high) down to the two. Players draw a fixed number of chips, typically 25 or 50, which may or may not have a monetary value. The deck is shuffled by the dealer, cut by the player to the right, and then dealt clockwise beginning with eldest hand, the player left of the dealer, until each player has thirteen cards. There are no trumps. If cards are misdealt, the deal passes to the left. If cards are faced in the pack, the dealer reshuffles, offers it for the cut and re-deals.

Playing Eldest hand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if able; otherwise may discard any card. The trick is won by the highest card of the led suit and the trick winner leads to the next trick. If a player revokes, they lose the trick and pay the pre-agreed penalty in chips.

Scoring A player taking all 13 hearts pays (or gets paid by if Shoot the Moon rule is used) 13 chips: four to each opponent and one to (or from if Shoot the Moon rule is used) the table. Otherwise, the player with the lowest number of hearts wins and the others pay that player in chips the number of hearts they took. So if A has one heart, B two, C four and D six, A will receive 2 chips from B, 4 from C and six from D making 12 in total. If two or more players have the lowest number of hearts, they divide the spoils and any remainder stays on the table for the next round. So if A and B have two hearts, C has three and D has six, C pays 3 chips, D pays 6 and A and B claim 4 each, leaving the remaining chip on the table. A player who revokes in order to avoid taking 13 chips, pays 8 to each opponent.

Variants There are two scoring variants known as the Double Game of Hearts (or Eagle Game of Hearts): The hearts score the following in chips: ace 14, king 13, queen 12, jack 11 and pip cards their face value (e.g. the nine is worth 9 chips) The hearts score the following in chips: ace 5, king 4, queen 3, jack 2 and pip cards their face value. If a player captures all 13 Hearts, they get paid 13 chips (Shoot the Moon).

Modern rules (2011) The following rules are based on Arnold (2011).

Preliminaries Three to six may play, but four is best. A standard pack is used. For three players, the is removed; for five players the and are removed, for six players the , , and are left out. Players draw cards to determine the first dealer; lowest deals. Deal and play are clockwise. Dealer shuffles and youngest hand (right of dealer) cuts. The dealer then deals all the cards, individually and face down, beginning with the eldest hand (to the left of the dealer).

Passing A common variant is that players will select three cards from their hand and pass them to another player in a predetermined cycle that changes each hand, receiving three replacement cards from another player. This allows players to attempt to improve their hand, such as by discarding high-ranking cards likely to win a penalty trick, and also provides some information-sharing since the player passing knows three of the cards the player they passed to now holds.

Playing Eldest hand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if able; otherwise, they may play any card. The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led, and the winning player captures the cards played in the trick. The winner also leads the following trick.

Minor rule variants Instead of the eldest hand leading, the player holding the leads it to the first trick. A heart may not be played to lead a trick until another Heart has been played off-suit (known as "breaking Hearts"), or the leading player has a hand of only point cards. A penalty card may not be played to the first trick. If a player's hand has only penalty cards (rare), a misdeal may be called, or any of several possibilities for the penalty card on the first trick can be implemented, such as not counting that point, or laying it aside and giving it to the player who has the least nonzero points for the hand. For three players, two Jokers can also be added; how these cards behave when played can vary, most commonly they can never win any trick.

Scoring Each heart captured in tricks incurs a penalty point, there being thirteen penalty points in total. The winner is the player with the lowest score either after an agreed number of deals, such as 8, or when one player reaches an agreed ending score, such as 100 points.

If Hearts is played for stakes, the average score is worked out and those above it pay the difference into a pool, while those below it draw the difference.

Shooting the moon With this rule variant (also known as "running" or “going for control”) in effect, a player who captures every penalty card in the hand may either deduct this maximum score from their total, or add it to every other player's score.

Variants Auction Hearts The variant of Auction Hearts appears for the first time in the 1897 edition of Foster's Complete Hoyle. It is a game for four players, although five or six may "form a table". Its novel feature is that, after the deal, players may bid in sequence to declare the penalty suit. The eldest hand begins the bidding by stating the number of chips they're willing to pay for the privilege of naming the suit. The succeeding players may pass or bid higher. The dealer goes last and there is only one round of bidding. The player who wins the auction pays the winning bid into the pool and leads to the first trick.

Black Jack

Black Jack appeared at the same time as Black Lady, both as alternative names for the more general name of Discard Hearts. Discard Hearts, as the name suggests, introduced the concept of discarding (also called passing or exchanging) for the first time into Hearts. It is identical to the basic Black Lady game, but with the as the penalty card, worth 10 "hearts" (i.e. points). It is last mentioned by Gibson in 1974, only this time with the same penalty as Black Lady of 13 points.

Black Lady

Black Lady appeared in 1909, at which time it was also called Discard Hearts, and has since become the most popular variant in the United States, overtaking Hearts itself to become a game in its own right. It is frequently, and confusingly, also called Hearts, not least in computer gaming versions. However, its distinguishing feature is that the , the Black Lady, is an additional penalty card worth 13 points. The first description of the game already included the feature of discarding cards to one's neighbour after the deal. Over time, the game has developed elaborations such as 'shooting the moon' and passing cards in different directions with each deal.

Black Maria

Black Maria is the British variant of Hearts and features three additional penalty cards – the worth 10 points, the worth 7 points and the Black Maria or worth 13 points. It was first described by Hubert Phillips in the mid-20th century. It usually includes passing to the right (not left as in other variants) which is considered more challenging because you don't know any of the next player's cards. Hitting the moon is an optional rule. Confusingly, sometimes the name Black Lady is given to this game and sometimes Black Lady is called Black Maria.

Cancellation Hearts

Cancellation Hearts was first described in 1950 by Culbertson and is a variant designed for larger numbers of players, typically 6 to 11 players, using two packs shuffled together. If exactly the same card is played twice in one trick, the cards cancel each other out and neither can win the trick. If two such pairs appear in the same trick, the whole trick is cancelled and the cards are rolled over to the winner of the next trick.

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