After looking at his or her hand, each player chooses three cards and passes them face down to another player. All players must pass their own cards before looking at the cards received from an opponent. The passing rotation is: 1. to the player on your left, 2 to the player on your right, 3 to the player across the table, 4. no passing. This rotation repeats until the game ends.The player holding the 2 of clubs (after the passing) plays that card to start the first trick. Each player must follow suit if possible. If a player has no cards in the suit led, a card of any other suit may be discarded. Exception: If a player has no clubs when the first trick is led, a heart or the Queen of Spades cannot be played.The highest card of the suit led wins a trick (there is no trumps in this game). The winner of the trick gets all the cards and starts the next trick. Hearts may not be led until a heart or the Queen of Spades has been played (this is called ‘breaking’ hearts). The Queen of Spades can be led at any time.
At the end of each hand, the number of hearts a player has taken, is counted; they count for 1 point each. The Queen of Spades is 13 points. If a player has won all 13 hearts and the Queen of Spades, that player can choose to subtract 26 points from his score, or to add 26 points to every other player’s score.Hearts is played to 100 points, when a player reaches this score, the game ends. The player with the lowest score wins.