Objective:
The objective of hearts is for you to try to get the lowest score by avoiding taking tricks that contain hearts or the queen of spades. Hearts is usually played with four players using a standard deck of (52) cards. Aces are high and twos are low.

Rules:
A random dealer is picked and deals out the entire deck, one at a time, face down, to all four players. Then each player must select three cards from their hands to give to another player. On the first hand you pass the cards to the left, on the second hand you pass to the right, third hand you pass to the player across from from you and on the fourth hand you don't pass any, you keep them. After that you repeat the cycle over again by passing your cards back to the left and so on.
The game begins with the their card face up in the middleodfplayer that is holding the two of clubs placing this card face up in the middle of the table. Play continues clockwise around the table. the next player must place a card, face up on the table and follow the suit of the lead out card. If you can't match the suit that was lead, you can place any other card in your hand.

Exceptions:
You can't lead out with a heart unless a heart or the queen of spades has been played on a previous trick or you have no other suit in your hand.
On the first hand of the game you may not discard a heart or the queen of spades.
The player that has discarded the highest card in the suit that was led, wins and collects the trick and must then lead out the next one.

After all tricks have been played, you then add up all the hearts in the tricks that you have collected. Each heart is worth one point and the queen of spades is worth thirteen points. If a player ends up taking all the hearts and the queen of spades, he "shoots the moon" and scores zero points and gives twenty-six points to the other three players. The game ends with the first player to reach 100 points or any other predetermined amount. The player with the lowest score is the winner.

Strategy:
When choosing which cards to pass to another player, you should try to pass the ace, king and queen of spades (only if you have less than four spades) otherwise you would be forced to take the queen if spades are led. You should also try to get rid of diamonds or clubs if you have less than four of them in either suit. This will allow you to get rid of hearts early on if diamonds or clubs are led.