Hearts Unblocked — Play Free Online

Hearts is the four-player trick-taking card game where you try to take as few points as possible. In this version you sit at the bottom of the table and the other three seats are computer players. They get names drawn at random from a small list, so one game you face John, Alice and Frank, the next Lisa, Terry and Carol. You can also pick a face for your own seat on the menu, and the game remembers it.

Super Smash Flash 2, the hero game here, is about knocking other fighters off the stage. Hearts turns that around: the winner is the player who ends up with the least damage.

How a round works

Each player gets thirteen cards. Before most rounds you choose three cards to hand to another player: click three cards in your hand, then click the arrow to pass them. The direction changes from round to round, and every fourth round there is no pass at all, so you play the hand you were dealt.

The player holding the two of Clubs leads the first trick with it. After that, play goes around the table and each player must follow the suit that was led if they can. The highest card of the led suit takes the trick, and the player who took it leads next. If you try a card the rules do not allow, the message bar under the table tells you why.

Scoring

• Each Heart you take in a trick is worth one point.
• The Queen of Spades is worth thirteen points on her own.
• Shooting the moon: if one player takes all thirteen Hearts and the Queen, that player scores zero for the round and each of the others gets twenty-six.
• End of the game: play stops when someone reaches 100 points in total, and the lowest total wins. The score board between rounds shows this hand and the running total for all four seats.

Rules the game enforces

Hearts cannot be led until a Heart has been played on an earlier trick, which is called breaking Hearts. In the first trick nobody may throw a Heart or the Queen of Spades, even if they cannot follow Clubs. The game blocks these plays for you, so you cannot break a rule by accident, but it is worth knowing them because the computer players plan around them too.

Tips against the computer

1. Pass the dangerous cards. The Ace and King of Spades are risky because they can be forced to take the Queen. High Hearts are good passes too.
2. Empty a short suit. If you pass away all your Diamonds, you can throw Hearts or the Queen as soon as someone leads Diamonds.
3. Watch who is collecting Hearts. If one opponent has taken every Heart so far, take one yourself to stop a shot at the moon. Twenty-six points to each other seat is the biggest swing in the game.
4. Count the Spades. Until the Queen is out, leading low Spades can flush her from the player who holds her.

Rounds are short, a few minutes each, and the score carries on until someone crosses 100. After each round press Next Round to deal again; New Game starts a fresh match from zero.