Hearts for 5 Players

The deal

Fifty-two cards do not divide by five, so two cards come out before the deal. The usual pair is the 2 of diamonds and the 2 of clubs. Both are harmless: neither carries points, and removing low cards rather than high ones leaves the Queen of Spades and all thirteen hearts in play, so a hand is still worth exactly 26 points. Shuffle the 50 cards and deal them out one at a time, 10 to each player. The deal usually passes to the left after each hand.

Some tables remove a different pair of low cards, for example two low diamonds. It makes little difference to the play, but it does change who leads, so settle it before the first deal.

The first trick

In the four-player game the 2 of clubs leads. With that card gone, the player holding the 3 of clubs after the pass leads it to start the hand. Everyone else must follow with a club if they have one.

The common rule, and the one CardCouch uses in its four-player game, is that no points may be played on the first trick: a player with no clubs may throw any card except a heart or the Queen of Spades, unless those are the only cards they hold. Not every table plays this way, so it belongs on the list of things to agree beforehand. From the second trick on, the standard rules apply: follow suit if you can, the highest card of the suit led wins, and hearts may not be led until a heart has been played on a trick (only a heart breaks them; the Queen of Spades does not, though some tables differ).

Passing with five players

Each player still passes three cards before looking at what they receive. The four-player rotation of left, right, across and hold does not transfer directly, because with five seats nobody sits directly across from you. There is no single standard arrangement; these are common ones, and the table should agree on one before the first hand:

• Left, right, hold, then repeat. The simplest cycle and the easiest to keep track of over a long game.
• Pass left every hand, which some tables prefer for its simplicity.

The passing advice itself does not change: the Queen of Spades and the Ace and King of spades go unless you hold several low spades to guard them, high hearts go, and you keep low cards in every suit. Passing to your left is still the riskiest direction for the Queen, because the player on your left plays after you on every trick and can wait to drop her on you.

What changes with five hands

• Hands are shorter. Ten cards and ten tricks instead of thirteen. With fewer cards each, players run out of a suit sooner, so voids, and the discards that come with them, tend to appear earlier in the hand than four-player regulars expect.
• More players to dodge the Queen. Five seats means four other hands the Queen can land in, and only one of them has to win the wrong trick. The flip side is that you see fewer of the cards yourself, so counting spades and hearts matters more, not less.
• Shooting the moon is harder. A shooter still needs every heart and the Queen, but now has four opponents, any one of whom can end the attempt by taking a single heart. With only ten cards it is also harder to hold the high cards in enough suits to control the hand. When a moon does succeed, the common scoring is unchanged: the shooter scores 0 and each of the four opponents takes 26 (subtracting 26 instead is a variant CardCouch does not offer).

Scoring

Nothing changes. Each heart taken costs 1 point and the Queen of Spades costs 13, so 26 points are dealt out every hand across the five players. The game ends at the close of the hand in which anyone reaches 100, and the lowest total wins. Because the 26 points are spread among five players rather than four, a game to 100 can take a while; some tables play to 50 instead, which is a known variant rather than a five-player rule. The scoring guide covers the moon and the finish in full.

Larger tables use the same idea: remove low non-scoring cards until the deck divides evenly, then play the standard game with the lowest remaining club leading. As with five, agree the removed cards and the passing cycle before you start.

Hearts on CardCouch

CardCouch does not offer five-player Hearts. The game here is the standard four-player one: you against three computer opponents, 13 cards each, passing left, right, across and then a hold hand, the 2 of clubs leading, no points on the first trick, and game to 100. It is the same game your five-player table is built on, so the passing and play practice carries straight over.