Hearts

A four-person trick-taking card game, with a difference. As with most such games, the winner of the last trick puts down a card, and everyone else must put down a card of the same suit (unless they have none, in which case they put down any card they want) and the player with the highest card of the original suit wins. However, the number of tricks won is irrelevant, what matters is the cards you win. Every Heart you win counts for one point, and the Queen of Spades counts for 13 points (although some players play 6). The first player to go over 100 points loses, and the player with the fewest points at this point wins.

Originally popular only among persons of a military persuasion and a few fanatical civilians, the game quickly became first more and then less popular. In recent times it has experienced something of a revival, largely because Microsoft now installs an electronic version as standard on all of its computers.

A variant of the game, Dirty Hearts, uses two decks (and is often used for games involving more than 4 players); in the case of a tie, the first card played of a given rank takes the trick. In addition, the Jacks of Diamonds are each worth 11 points. This makes for a total of 72 points per hand—and makes Shooting the Moon (see below) nigh-impossible.


 * Batman Gambit: Much of the game depends on being able to judge when to put out which cards to ensure that everyone else wins the tricks which would give points. Trouble is, everyone else is thinking the same thing...
 * Even more so when trying to Shoot the Moon, where you basically have to trick all the other players into handing you over all their point cards.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Expect at least one per game, after one player is dealt a particularly good or bad hand.
 * Dark Action Girl: The Queen of Spades.
 * Femme Fatale: The Queen of Spades again.
 * God Save Us From the Queen: Of Spades.
 * Golden Snitch: Both the Queen of Spades and Shooting the Moon count.
 * Gotta Catch Them All: Inverted and played straight. Collecting all of the points cards, or Shooting the Moon, is the most devastating attack strategy possible, but collecting none of them means you will win by default.
 * House Rules: Two of note. One, the Jack of Diamonds is worth -10 points; anyone managing to Shoot The Moon and get the Jack of Diamonds (as always, you can Shoot The Moon as usual without it) gets their choice of whether to take a -36 to their score, a -10 to their score and plus 26 to everyone else, or a plus 36 to everyone else. The other is Shooting The Sun, in which you take every trick, which is worth twice as much but otherwise identical to Shooting The Moon.
 * Not Quite Dead: Your opponent can be on 99 points and you can still lose if they Shoot the Moon successfully a couple of times.
 * Oh Crap: Watch a player's reaction when they realise that you're close to Shooting the Moon and they no longer has any cards high enough to stop you...
 * One Woman Party: The Queen of Spades counts for exactly as many points as all the other cards put together.
 * Taking the Bullet: It can become necessary to deliberately win a trick with a Heart in it to prevent an opponent Shooting the Moon.
 * That One Attack: Shooting the Moon, where you win all 13 Hearts and the Queen of Spades, gives everyone else 26 points.