Hearts Scoring

Point values

That's 26 penalty points in every hand. Points are bad — you want your opponents to collect them, not you.

A worked example

Suppose one hand ends like this:

• You: took 3 hearts → 3 points
• West: took 5 hearts + the Queen of Spades → 18 points
• North: took 2 hearts → 2 points
• East: took 3 hearts → 3 points

That totals 26, so the maths checks out. Those points are added to each player's running total, and a new hand is dealt.

Shooting the moon

If a single player manages to take all 26 points in one hand, they "shoot the moon". Instead of a disastrous 26, they score 0 and every other player is charged 26. Some rule sets let the shooter instead subtract 26 from their own score — agree which version before you start.

It's high risk: if even one point leaks to another player, the shooter is stuck with everything they collected. Read more in the Hearts strategy guide.

Ending the game

Hands are played until a player's total reaches 100 points. At that point the game ends and the player with the lowest score wins. Because a single clean hand scores 0, steady, careful play beats occasional big hands.

Frequently asked questions