Hearts is a trick-taking game in which the object is to avoid winning tricks containing hearts and the queen of spades. A standard 52-card deck is used, with the cards in each suit ranking as usual from ace (high) down to two (low). Each heart is worth one penalty point and the queen of spades is worth 13 penalty points. The other cards have no value.

The object is to avoid scoring points. The game ends when a player reaches or exceeds 100 points, and the winner is the player with the lowest score at this point. Deal and play are clockwise. All the cards are dealt out one at a time so that everyone has 13.

The person who holds the 2 of clubs must lead it to the first trick. The other players, in clockwise order, must play a card of the suit that was led if possible. If they do not have a card of that suit, they may play any card. The person who played the highest card of the suit led wins the trick and leads to the next trick.

It is illegal to lead a heart until a heart has been played to a previous trick, unless your hand contains nothing but hearts. Discarding a heart, thus allowing hearts to be led in the future, is called breaking hearts. In general, discarding a penalty card on a trick is called painting the trick. A player whose hand consists entirely of hearts may lead any heart, thereby breaking hearts, even if hearts have not previously been broken.

Players are permitted to lead spades to any trick after the first. Normally, each player scores penalty points for cards in the tricks which they won. Each heart scores one point, and the queen of spades scores 13 points. However, if you manage to win all the scoring cards (which is known as a slam or shooting the moon), your score is reduced by 26 points, or you may choose instead to have all other players' scores increased by 26 points.

The game continues until one player has reached or exceeded 100 points at the conclusion of a hand. The person with the lowest score is then the winner.