The only time you benefit from taking tricks with heart cards or the queen of spades is when you take every heart card and the queen of spades, also known as “shooting the moon.” When you shoot the moon and take all the penalty cards, you end up with zero penalty points, and all the other players each get 26 points added to their scores. The two of clubs starts the first trick of each new round, and while you can’t play any penalty cards during the first trick, you can rid yourself of penalty cards or high cards in subsequent tricks when you don’t have to follow suit. In the game of Hearts, you simply follow suit, and the person who plays the highest card of the suit that led wins the trick. However, every heart card is worth one point, and the queen of spades is 13 points. Cards from the diamonds and clubs suits don’t result in penalty points.

The game ends once a person reaches 100 penalty points, and the winner is the player who scored the least. The game of Hearts is a trick-taking game, made up of a series of rounds, or tricks, where winning a trick may mean scoring penalty points.

How to play the queen of hearts