Hearts strategy and tips

By Marya · Updated by Holger in September 2026

When I first started playing the card game Hearts, I had one very basic strategy. If I had the Queen of Spades, I'd dump it as soon as possible!

I also believed Hearts wasn't a team game.

And if I didn't come in last, I'd feel like I "won"!

I was wrong on all counts. There's just one winner in Hearts, the player with the lowest score at the end of the game. Your goal is to be that player. By the way, with four players and only one winner, your odds of losing are 75%, all other things being equal. So if you're going to play Hearts, you need to accept losing most of your games. In that way, the game is a good test of character!

And Hearts is a team game. During any hand, the player who's winning is the one with the lowest score. The "team" is a loose alliance of the three players with the highest scores at that moment. They should be working together to dump point cards on the player with the lowest score.

By working together, I don't mean "table talk", which is openly discussing the play with the others. You should never do that unless everyone at the table agrees to it. Instead, I mean that you should read what the other players do to get a hint about the cards they hold and what they plan to do.

The team should do everything it can to stop the player with the lowest score from shooting the moon. They should also try to keep the player with the highest score from taking any more points. You don't want that player to reach 100 points while someone else has the lowest score. If that happens, you lose.

So if you have the Queen of Spades, don't just get rid of it at the first chance. It's a valuable tool that can bring you closer to winning. Think about how you can give it to the player with the lowest score. Hold onto it until it's completely clear that this player will take a trick. Then drop it on that trick. It's not easy! Sometimes it's very clear who'll take the trick. Other times you won't be sure. In those cases, it's best to hold onto the Queen. If it looks like you might "eat the Queen" by holding onto it, you have to weigh the pros and cons of dropping it on a trick. If the wrong player gets the Queen, will the game end with you as a loser? These days, in that situation, I'd rather risk taking the Queen myself than end the game as a loser.

Once I started playing Hearts as a team game in this way, I enjoyed it much more.

Example of passing cards from the tutorial

There's a fun Hearts tutorial at World of Card Games. It's there to explain how the game works. But the simple strategy it shows leaves something to be desired. Let's take a look.

In the screenshot below, the Professor is explaining the phase where you pass 3 cards to another player. He says, "You want to avoid taking cards, so it is good to get rid of high cards." Then he says, "In Hearts, Aces are high, so let's pass those."

This probably isn't a good idea. The Professor ends up passing his 3 Aces to Marvin. That may give Marvin the tools to shoot the moon. This can happen if Marvin has a couple of high hearts. It can also happen if he has no hearts at all but a few other high cards.

If I had this hand, I'd probably hold onto all of my hearts. I have plenty of low hearts to avoid taking a trick full of hearts. I could also try to dole them out onto anyone I chose by making a void in another suit as quickly as possible.

Instead, I'd probably pass the Ace of Diamonds to try to make a void in diamonds. The Ace of Clubs is probably safe to keep, since I'd likely be able to play it on the first trick. I'd get rid of middle cards like the Jack and 6 of Clubs instead.

Another option would be to keep all the Aces and try to shoot the moon. But with all those low hearts and spades, it's pretty risky.

Example strategy for playing a card from the tutorial

Now the second trick is being played. The Professor has no diamonds, so he's going to break hearts by playing the 10 of Hearts. He knows for sure that Sandy will take the trick. It looks like his strategy is to get rid of his point cards as soon as he can.

Since he already gave his Aces to Marvin, this is probably a good idea. It's very likely that Marvin will take some point cards with one of those Aces.

But in general, you probably don't want to get rid of all your high hearts until you're sure nobody can shoot the moon. For example, if you were holding the Ace of Hearts, you might not want to get rid of it yet. You could play your next highest card instead and keep the Ace in case you need it to stop someone shooting the moon. If you had to do that, you'd be playing the role of "sheriff". Mark Whitley explains this and other Hearts strategies on his great Hearts tips pages.