The Jack of Diamonds Rule in Hearts

How the scoring works

Hearts is won by the lowest score, so every point card is something to avoid. The Jack of Diamonds turns that around for one card: it is the only card in the deck you want to take. Scoring is arithmetic. Add up the hearts and the Queen you took, then subtract 10 if the Jack was in one of your tricks.

• You take four hearts and the Jack: 4 − 10 = −6 for the hand.
• You take the Queen of Spades and the Jack: 13 − 10 = 3. The Jack has turned a disaster into a shrug.
• You take the Jack and nothing else: −10, the best hand possible short of a moon.

A hand can therefore end below zero. Everything else about scoring is unchanged, including the finish, which is normally at the end of the hand in which someone reaches 100. The standard numbers are on the Hearts scoring page.

The Jack and shooting the moon

This is where tables differ, so settle it before the first deal. Some groups say a shooter must take the Jack of Diamonds as well as all thirteen hearts and the Queen for the moon to count. Others treat the Jack as separate from the moon, so a shooter who sweeps the hearts and the Queen has shot regardless of where the Jack went. Neither version is more standard than the other, because the rule itself is a variant.

On CardCouch the question never comes up. The moon is the thirteen hearts and the Queen of Spades: the shooter scores 0 and each opponent is given 26. Our guide to shooting the moon covers when to try it and how to stop one.

How the rule changes the play

In the standard game diamonds are the quiet suit: no points live there, so a high diamond is simply a card that might win an unwanted late trick. With the Jack worth taking, diamonds become a suit worth fighting over.

• High diamonds gain a purpose. The Ace, King and Queen of diamonds are the cards that can capture the Jack, so a player holding them wants diamonds led while the Jack is still out, rather than getting rid of them early as they would in the standard game.
• The Jack holder wants to control the trick. If you hold the Jack, you would like to play it on a diamond trick you are winning yourself, or to follow suit with it when you can see that the Ace and King are already gone. Playing it into a trick an opponent is winning hands them the 10.
• A late diamond lead becomes a hunt. Once the hand is half over and somebody is known to be void in diamonds, a lead of a high diamond is not a safe way to shed a card; it is an attempt to force the Jack out, and the player with the Jack may be forced to follow suit with it.
• Passing changes too. In the standard game a bare Ace of diamonds is just a mild risk. In Omnibus Hearts it is a weapon, because it captures the Jack.

None of this touches the rest of the game. The Queen of Spades is still the card to fear, hearts still may not be led until a heart has broken them, and ducking still wins hands. The Jack simply adds one trick each hand that everyone is trying to win rather than lose.

The Jack of Diamonds on CardCouch

CardCouch does not offer the Jack of Diamonds rule: the standard game is the one the site is built on, and that is the game the site plays. Our free Hearts game follows the standard rules on every count that matters here: 26 points in a hand, the moon scored as 0 for the shooter and 26 to each opponent, and the Jack of Diamonds worth nothing at all. The full rule set, including the common first-trick rule CardCouch uses, is on the Hearts rules page.