I Love Hearts! (Hearts (PC))

Member Name: keeperofthematri

Product:	Hearts (PC)
Date:	23/07/09 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Helps you with card strategy

Disadvantages: Can't see opponents scores during the rounds in some PC versions

Hearts is one of those free card games you've probably got on your PC, along with Minesweeper & a few others.

It's a game played by four players &, in the version I have the players are Pauline, Michelle, Ben & Me (ie the person playing the game). Pauline, Michelle & Ben are, of course, controlled by the computer.

The objective of the game is to score as few points as possible. Each card in the Hearts suit scores one points whilst the Queen of Spades scores 13.


Playing the game:-

In round one, after the cards have been dealt & you have seen them, you can pass three of you cards to the player on your left so this is a chance to decide what strategy you're going to adopt. The player with the 2 of clubs starts the game. Play is similar to whist, in that, you must lay down a card in the same suit as the player who started the round if you have one. If not you may play a card from any other suit. The four cards laid are "won" by the player who laid the highest value card in the suit that started the round. Hands that contain all diamonds or club obviously score nothing. Hands that contain any Hearts or the Queen of Spades are scored as the details above. The highest score you can get in a single hand is therefore 16 (the Queen of Spades plus 3 Hearts)

In rounds two & three you pass you cards across the board & to the player on the right. In round four there is no opportunity to change any of your cards so you must play with the ones dealt to you. Round five, is the same as round one, in that you can pass three cards to the player on the left . Play continues until one of the players has passed the 100 point score & has therefore "bust".


Strategy:

You can adopt two methods to try & win the rounds in this game:-

01) Try to win all the Hearts & the Queen Of Spades. This is called "Shooting The Moon" & will automatically add 26 points onto all of your opponents scores.

02) Attempt to make sure that you don't win any hands containing Hearts or the Queen Of Spades. Ensure that the Queen of Spades or any Hearts that you lay are won by your opponents. If you end a round with without the Queen of Spades or any Hearts then you will score zero.



The Hearts package on my work computer comes with the Windows XP package & is fairly basic. One of the most annoying things about it is that you can't see what each player is scoring until the end of each round.

Hearts is available various websites on the internet & may vary from the version in the Windows package. You can, for example, play for free at www.king.com but on that site you can see each of your opponents score throughout the game. The win "threshold" is also lower as people only have to score over 51 points to go "bust". This is quite an addictive game which will help to hone your card strategy, particularly if you play on a website against other people rather than just using the standard version on your PC. Each round is different & you really need to consider the likelihood of you being able to "Shoot The Moon" or whether it would just be better to try & get rid of any Hearts (or the Queen of Spades) in your hand as well as avoiding these cards that your opponents might play.

All in all, it's an easy game to learn & something you can play at work (assuming your company haven't removed it from your PC) even if you don't have internet access. And, frankly, it's more enjoyable than Minesweeper.......

Summary: Decent Card Game