Hearts is a four-player trick-taking card game where the goal is to avoid penalty points. Unlike most card games, you do not want to win tricks — the player with the lowest score when someone crosses the limit wins the match. Each heart you take in a trick costs you 1 point, and the dreaded Queen of Spades costs 13. There are 26 penalty points in play every round.
Memorise this table — it's the only scoring you need:
Total penalty pool each round = 26. These 26 points get distributed across the four players (or two teams) according to who takes which tricks.
Hearts ZAP ships two game modes, toggled via the dropdown next to the difficulty selector.
Classic (Free-for-All) is the traditional version — you versus three AI opponents, every player for themselves. Lowest individual score wins.
2v2 Teams (Partnership) pairs you with North against the West-East pair. Your scores add together as a team. Same rules — passing, tricks, hearts broken, moon shots — but your partner is now your strongest asset. Passing direction is the same rotation, but you can never pass to your partner (passes always go to opponents).
Before each round, every player selects three cards from their hand and passes them face-down to another player. You receive your three cards from another player simultaneously, so you can't pass and react — you commit, then see. The passing direction rotates on a 4-round cycle:
Passing is your most strategic decision in the entire game. Use it to dump dangerous high cards — A♠, K♠, the Q♠ if you'd otherwise be stuck with it. But beware: dumping the Q♠ to someone who's been hoarding spades can backfire spectacularly.
The player holding the 2♣ (two of clubs) leads the first trick of every round — they must play it. Going clockwise, each player adds one card. You must follow suit if you can. If you're out of the led suit, you may play any card — including penalty cards. This is called "sloughing," and it's how penalty cards transfer between players. The highest card of the led suit wins the trick and leads the next.
Two critical rules shape gameplay:
If a single player (or team) takes all 26 penalty points in one round — every heart and the Q♠ — they "shoot the moon." Instead of scoring 26, they score zero, and every opponent gets 26. It's the single most game-changing play in Hearts. A successful moon flips the standings; a failed attempt is catastrophic.
Moon-shooting requires keeping high hearts and the Q♠ (or stopping them from going to opponents). If you spot an opponent collecting hearts intentionally, your defense is simple: take just one heart yourself. One heart from another player breaks the moon-shooter's bid for 26.
The match ends as soon as any player (or team) crosses the score limit. Hearts ZAP uses a difficulty-aware limit so weaker AI gives a longer, more forgiving game:
For Classic mode: Pass your A♠ and K♠ early — they're dangerous because whoever leads spades will draw out the Q♠, and you'd rather not be holding the highest spade when that happens. Keep low cards in your long suits: 2s, 3s, 4s let you duck under tricks safely. Track what suits each opponent voids out of — once they're out of clubs, they can dump anything when clubs are led.
For 2v2 Teams mode: Coordination is everything. Your partner is your safety net. If they're forced into a trick they can't avoid, dump a heart on it — you're on the same team. Moon-shot defense is much easier: only ONE teammate needs to take a single heart to break the opposing team's moon attempt. And remember — your passes only ever go to opponents, so use them to weaken the OTHER team specifically.
Universal: If someone is trying to shoot the moon, take just one heart. It's the cheapest defense in the game.
Seven difficulty levels control how intelligently the AI opponents play. Beginner plays mostly randomly. Medium follows suit correctly and ducks under tricks when safe. Cyborg ☠ tracks every card played, anticipates moon-shot attempts, and ruthlessly dumps the Q♠ onto whoever is leading the scoreboard.
Every day at midnight, the same hand is dealt to every Hearts ZAP player worldwide. Score the lowest to complete your daily challenge and build your streak. Share the deal via the Challenge button to send the exact same hand to your friends and compete on identical cards.
Play Hearts ZAP free online — no download, no sign-up, no ads blocking gameplay. Hearts ZAP is a faithful implementation of the classic four-player trick-taking card game, built as a single-page browser game that runs on any device.
The game features a complete Hearts engine: correct passing rotation, 2♣ lead enforcement, suit-following rules, hearts-broken tracking, first-trick restrictions, and shoot-the-moon detection. AI opponents scale from beginner-friendly to ruthlessly strategic across 7 difficulty levels.
The daily challenge uses a seeded deal so every player worldwide faces the exact same hand — complete it to build your streak. Use the Challenge button to share your score and let friends play against the same deal.
Hearts is the drama engine of the card room, and the build decision I'm proudest of here is the one that protects the drama: the AI recognises a moon attempt. When one player starts scooping every heart — the audacious inversion where taking all the penalty points scores them onto everyone else instead — these opponents notice. They read the pattern as it forms, and they start dumping points strategically to break the run before it completes. The first time you watch the table turn on a moon-shooter, sacrificing their own clean hands to stop the sweep, the game stops being a solitaire exercise with extra players and becomes what Hearts actually is at a real table: a shifting web of temporary alliances against whoever is currently the most dangerous person seated. Building an opponent that plays the player, not just the cards, was the entire point of this page.
And the drama has a queen. The Queen of Spades — thirteen points, a full third of the round's total penalty riding on one card — is where nearly every beginner game is decided, and where the defining mistake lives: players dump her too early. The reflex is understandable. She's a live grenade in your hand, and the instinct is to throw her at the first legal opportunity that appears. But an early, unconsidered Queen is a gift with a bow on it. Drop her before a safe target exists and she may land on the one player quietly building a moon run — handing thirteen points to someone who wanted them, accelerating the exact disaster the table needed to prevent. Or she lands randomly and is wasted, when three tricks later there was a perfect enemy standing in the open.
The discipline: hold the Queen until you can place her, not merely release her. The safe window is a trick you are certain not to win — following suit with the Queen while someone else's high card takes the trick, and takes her along with it. The ideal target is the current leader, the player whose score can least afford thirteen more. Until that window opens, she stays home, guarded, ideally behind a couple of low spades that let you survive spade leads without ever being forced to play her.
Watch the moon signals yourself, too: a player winning hearts on purpose is a player you must feed a point to, even a point you'd rather keep clean. Breaking a moon costs a little. Missing one costs twenty-six.
The daily deal lands at midnight, identical for everyone. Keep your Queen patient, your eyes on the leader, and one suspicious glance reserved for anyone collecting hearts a little too happily.