Hearts - Truly a Classic - History and Evolution

(Excerpted from "The Complete Win At Hearts" copyright 1983 and revised in 1997 by Joe Andrews)

Joe Andrews

Joe Andrews is the author of multiple books and articles about many classic card games, from spades to euchre, providing his readers with advanced strategies for more competitive play as well as interesting histories of the games.
In addition to his writing accomplishments, Mr. Andrews is a contractor and consultant for several organizations and Internet Classic Gaming sites, including the United States Playing Card Company (maker of Bicycle® Playing Cards). Joe is also a frequent guest on "The Jordan Rich Show" which airs on WBZ Radio 10:30 AM.

As a competitive card player, Joe has won more than 100 tournaments during the course of his 30-year tournament life.

Visit

Grand Prix Tournaments

for information on live tournaments, including the World Series of Hearts.

Hearts evolved from a card game played around 1750 in Spain, called Reverse. In that game, the Jack of Hearts was called Quinola Grande and the Queen of Hearts was the Quinola Pequena (Little Queen). Each of these cards scored many negative points against their captors. In similar games also called Reverse or Reversis, the usual object of play was to lose tricks, not to gain them. In another predecessor of Hearts (the game of Four Jacks), the object was to avoid winning, in a trick, any Jack. Each Jack counted as a minus point and the Jack of Spades counted as negative two points. In other variations, certain cards were also designated with a negative point value. Eventually, all captured points were recorded without the minus sign. Sometime around 1850, Reverse gave way to simply Hearts.

According to Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith in Culbertson's Hoyle (New York, 1952), the game of Hearts was, " ... simple as to rules, but as difficult as Whist to play well. This austere game has been greatly popularized during the last fifty years by the addition of certain features that add to the variety and also tend to make the game easier to play at." Euchre and Hearts were great favorites about 100 years ago. However, Hearts maintained continuous widespread popularity because it was taught to children at an early age. Today, there are decks of cards available with a young player's Hearts theme. The most dynamic feature of Hearts is the fact that it is played as an individuals' contest - thus earning a reputation as a cutthroat game! The game of Hearts, in a sense, favors players with losing hands. In order to win, you need plenty of what, in other games, would be poor cards, such as deuces and threes. These cards are crucial to avoiding the capture of points. The real object of Hearts is to avoid winning tricks which contain various penalty cards. And has lent itself to the evolution of rules changes and novelty variations. Unlike changes in Poker, these additions were not meant to induce high-stakes gambling fever, but were improvements to the game itself. The four-handed game is the standard; however, there are three-handed variations, "spot" Hearts and a Partnership version.

In the original game of Hearts, each heart that you won on a trick, counted as one point against you. If you took all thirteen hearts, you earned thirteen points. As time passed, various embellishments were added, finally raising the game to tournament quality. The original thirteen point allocation per hand (one point for each heart) was retained. Next came the variation called Black Maria (circa 1910), in which the Queen of Spades counted as thirteen additional points against the unfortunate player who captured her in the course of a hand. For a while, Hearts was quite dull, as the object was to dump and duck everything in sight! Then some clever chap created a feature called "Shoot the Moon", in which anyone who was lucky or skillful enough to take the Queen of Spades and all thirteen hearts in the same hand would be credited with twenty six positive points. A Jack of Diamonds variation with a ten point premium for capturing this card was added in the late 1920's. The scoring system was eventually revised so that all points were considered negative and the first person to reach 100 points would be declared the loser. Finally, three good refinements appeared and eventually became standards. Firstly, no one could lead a heart until a heart had been discarded or the Queen of Spades was played on a previous trick. Secondly, the pass of three cards before the play of each hand added an additional dimension of strategy and chance. Lastly, the deuce of clubs became the standard card for the opening lead of each hand.

The World Series of Hearts has been conducted by Grand Prix Tournaments (www.grandprixtournaments.com) since 1999. This year, it is in Columbus, OH (May 14 / 15). Hearts is truly a classic game. It has a great legion of enthusiasts on the Internet, especially at Hardwood Games / Silver Creek Entertainment. It is also played in colleges, the military and socially at home. Enjoy the fast paced action!

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