Two-Player Hearts: How Two People Can Play

Hearts isn’t really a two-player game: so much of it is about giving points to the other players, and with two there’s only one. No rule book gives a standard two-player version, and World of Card Games says plainly that two people can’t play it alone. But there are ways.

Play the standard game with computer players

The simplest is the game on this site: one of you presses Play with friends and sends the link to the other, and computer players take the other two seats. You play the real four-player game, against each other and the computer.

The old two-handed game

The US Playing Card Company’s 1898 Card Games, Foster’s 1914 Complete Hoyle and the 1926 Hoyle all describe the same game for two:

1. Deal 13 cards each. Put the rest of the deck face down as a stock.
2. The non-dealer leads any card, and the dealer must follow suit if they can.
3. After each trick, the winner draws the top card of the stock, then the other player draws the next. The winner leads to the next trick.
4. When the stock runs out, play out the 13 cards left in your hands.
5. Count the hearts you took. Fewer hearts wins. The 1898 book has the loser pay the difference.

This is the old game with only the hearts counting; you can add the queen of spades at 13 if you like.

Two-Player Hearts (Jeffrey Hope)

A reader’s game on Pagat, built to feel like the four-player game:

• The deck: take out the threes, fives, sevens, nines, jacks and kings, leaving 28 cards.
• The deal: one card face down to a widow, 13 to each player, then the last card to the widow.
• The pass: one card instead of three. If you normally rotate, alternate passing and not passing.
• The lead: the two of clubs, or the four of clubs (then the six) if it’s in the widow; or the non-dealer, if you don’t use the two-of-clubs rule.
• Scoring: 1 point a heart and 7 for the queen of spades. A moon gives the other player 14, and it doesn’t count if there are points in the widow. The first player to 50 loses.

Huse Hearts for Two (Gordon Huse)

Another reader’s game on Pagat, which uses all 52 cards and a face-up dummy hand:

• Deal 16 cards to each player, 16 face up to a dummy, and 4 face down to a “blind”. Sort the dummy so both players can see it.
• Pass three cards to your opponent.
• The two of clubs leads (or the lowest club in the two players’ hands). The leader’s opponent plays one card from their own hand and one from the dummy, following suit with both if they can. If either card beats the lead, the opponent wins the trick; the dummy can never win or lead on its own.
• No points on the first trick, and no point card may be led until one has been played to an earlier trick.
• The winner of the first trick with a point card in it also takes the blind, and its points.
• Scoring: as usual. A player who takes every point card shoots the moon and chooses: 26 off their own score or 26 onto their opponent’s. When someone reaches 100, the lower score wins.

Pagat’s readers’ page has more two-player games, including one with two face-down dummy hands whose top cards are turned up when it’s their turn.

Domino Hearts

The US Playing Card Company’s rule book allows Domino Hearts for two to seven players: six cards each, and a player who can’t follow suit draws from the stock until they can. It’s described on the variations page.