The best Hearts strategy comes down to a few habits: when you follow suit, play the highest card that still loses the trick. Pass the queen of spades unless you hold three or more lower spades. When you can't follow suit, throw away the queen first. In our tests, the way you follow suit mattered far more than anything else, including how you pass.
We tested each tip by having the computer players from Poozee's Hearts play 20,000 hands. Here's how, what held up, and two popular tips that made no difference.
How we tested
All four players used the rules of thumb our Medium computer plays by. One player, South, then changed a single habit, while the other three kept the standard ones. We dealt the same 20,000 hands twice, once with South on the standard habits and once with the change, so the luck of the deal cancels out. The passing direction rotated as in a real game: left, right, across, then no pass.
We measured South's average points per hand, where lower is better. With the standard habits, South took 6.87 points per hand. Every change below is compared to that.
| Change from the standard habits | Points per hand | Difference |
|---|---|---|
| Follow suit with your highest card | 8.61 | +1.74 |
| Follow suit with your lowest card | 7.80 | +0.93 |
| Never pass the queen of spades | 7.31 | +0.44 |
| Duck tricks with no points when you play last | 7.18 | +0.31 |
| Don't lead low spades to flush out the queen | 7.16 | +0.29 |
| Throw away hearts before the queen of spades | 7.15 | +0.28 |
| Keep an unprotected ace or king of spades | 7.07 | +0.19 |
| Don't try to empty a short suit when passing | 6.90 | +0.02 |
| Just pass your three highest cards | 6.89 | +0.02 |
| Pass the queen even when it's well protected | 6.87 | +0.00 |
The last three differences are smaller than the normal ups and downs of 20,000 hands (about 0.02 to 0.04 points either way), so they're ties. A computer playing a habit isn't a person, and your opponents won't play exactly like ours, but the results show which habits win when everything else is equal.
1. Follow suit with the highest card that still loses
This was the biggest effect we found, by far. When you have to follow suit, look at the card that's currently winning the trick and play your highest card below it. You don't take the trick, and you get rid of a card that could have won a trick later.
Say North leads the 9 of clubs, East plays the queen, and you hold the 3, 10 and king of clubs. Play the 10. The king would win the trick, and the 3 is worth saving for a later trick where you really need to stay low.
Always playing your lowest card instead cost 0.93 points per hand, and always playing your highest cost 1.74. Over a 10-hand game, that's about 9 or 17 extra points.
2. Pass the queen of spades unless it's well protected
The queen of spades is 13 points on its own. What makes it dangerous is having too few lower spades: when spades are led, you run out of safe cards and have to play the queen onto someone's ace or king.
After the pass, here's how often the player holding the queen ended up taking it:
| Lower spades with the queen | Took the queen | Average points per hand |
|---|---|---|
| None | 94% | 15.0 |
| 1 | 79% | 13.3 |
| 2 | 47% | 10.0 |
| 3 | 20% | 6.9 |
| 4 | 9% | 5.3 |
| 5 or more | 6% | 4.5 |
For comparison, a player holding none of the queen, king or ace of spades took the queen 20% of the time. So a queen with three or more lower spades is about as likely to end up with you as it would be if you didn't hold it at all. A queen with two or fewer is a liability: pass it. Never passing the queen cost 0.44 points per hand, while passing even a well-protected queen made no difference either way.
3. Watch the ace and king of spades too
Holding the ace or king of spades without the queen is the other half of the same problem. Whoever plays the ace or king on a spade trick is the one who catches the queen if it's dropped there.
| Lower spades with the ace or king (no queen) | Took the queen | Average points per hand |
|---|---|---|
| None | 55% | 10.2 |
| 1 | 48% | 9.7 |
| 2 | 33% | 8.4 |
| 3 | 21% | 7.0 |
| 4 | 13% | 5.9 |
| 5 or more | 9% | 4.8 |
With two or fewer lower spades, pass the ace and king if you can. Keeping them cost 0.19 points per hand.
4. Fish for the queen with low spades
If you don't hold the queen, king or ace of spades, spades are your safest suit to lead. Every spade trick forces the queen's owner to play a spade, and sooner or later they have to drop the queen onto a higher one, which you don't have. Our players led their highest spade below the queen. Not fishing cost 0.29 points per hand.
5. Take free tricks when you play last
When you're the last to play and the trick has no points in it, win it with your highest card. It costs nothing, and it gets rid of a card that could catch hearts or the queen later. Ducking those tricks cost 0.31 points per hand.
6. When you can't follow suit, throw away the queen first
Being out of a suit is your chance to get rid of trouble. Throw away the queen of spades first, then the ace and king of spades while the queen is still out, and then your highest hearts. Throwing away hearts before the queen cost 0.28 points per hand.
Pro tip: Count spades. Once the queen has been played, the ace and king of spades are harmless, and you can stop worrying about them.
Two tips that didn't matter
- Emptying a short suit when you pass. It's classic advice: pass all your diamonds, and every diamond trick becomes a chance to throw away a heart. In our tests it made no measurable difference (+0.02 points per hand, within the noise).
- Clever passing in general. Passing by our careful rules and simply passing your three highest cards scored the same, as long as you follow the queen rule above. What you do after the pass matters much more than which ordinary cards you pass.
Shooting the moon
In our 20,000 hands, someone took all 26 points in 669 of them, about one hand in 30. That's rare, but it hurts: everyone else gets 26. If one player has taken every point so far and keeps winning tricks, take a heart yourself, even if it costs you a point or two.
Practice against the computer
On Poozee's Hearts, Medium plays by the habits above, so it's a good test of whether you can beat them. Hard goes further: it imagines many possible deals of the cards it can't see, plays each option out, and picks the best. Hint shows the card Hard would play.
Keep playing
- Play Hearts against three computer players
- Euchre strategy, tested the same way with a partner
- Spades strategy, tested the same way
- FreeCell strategy
- Play Spades, a partnership game with bidding
- Yahtzee strategy, worked out by an exact solver
Frequently asked questions
What is the best strategy in Hearts?
When you follow suit, play the highest card that's still lower than the card winning the trick. Pass the queen of spades unless you hold at least three lower spades to protect it, and when you can't follow suit, throw away the queen first, then high spades and high hearts. In our computer tests, the way you follow suit mattered most.
Should you pass the queen of spades?
Usually. After the pass, a player holding the queen with no lower spades took it 94% of the time in our tests. With three or more lower spades, the risk dropped to 20% or less, about the same as for a player without the queen. Keeping a well-guarded queen and passing it came out even.
Should you void a suit when passing in Hearts?
It's common advice, but it made no measurable difference in our tests. Passing to empty a short suit and passing by other rules scored the same over 20,000 hands.
How often does someone shoot the moon?
In our 20,000 computer hands, someone took all 26 points in 669 of them, about one hand in 30. If one player has taken every point so far and keeps winning tricks, take a heart yourself to stop them.