Spades vs Hearts
Same deck, same tricks, opposite goals. One pays you for taking tricks, the other punishes you for it.
Play Spades free
The difference between Spades and Hearts is the goal. In Spades you bid how many tricks you'll take, spades are always trump, you play with a partner, and the first team to 500 wins. In Hearts there's no bid, no trump suit and no partner: you try not to take hearts (1 point each) or the Q♠ (13 points), and when someone reaches 100 the lowest score wins. Both use a 52-card deck, four players, 13 cards each, and the rule that you follow suit if you can.
Side by side
| Spades | Hearts | |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Win the tricks you bid | Avoid penalty cards |
| Winner | Highest score | Lowest score |
| Trump suit | Spades, always | None |
| Teams | 2 v 2, partners opposite | Every player alone |
| Before the hand | You bid a number of tricks | You pass three cards |
| What scores | 10 × bid, +1 per overtrick | 1 per heart, 13 for the Q♠ |
| Game ends at | 500 points | 100 points |
| The big gamble | Nil, worth ±100 | Shooting the moon, 26 to each opponent |
A contract against a penalty count
A Spades hand is a contract. Before a card is played your side says how many of the thirteen tricks it will take, and you're paid ten points a trick for delivering. Take fewer and you lose the lot; take more and the extras are bags, which cost you 100 when you get to ten.
A Hearts hand has no contract. All thirteen tricks are played and the only thing that matters is which cards end up in your pile. Each heart costs a point and the Queen of Spades costs thirteen, 26 points in all. You want as few as you can get.
So a trick you'd fight for in Spades is often a trick you'd duck in Hearts. If you play both, expect your instincts to take a few hands to switch over.
Trumps
In Spades the trump suit never changes: spades beat everything, there's no auction for trump, and a spade played on a suit you can't follow wins the trick unless a higher spade comes after it. Because trump is fixed, the skill goes into the bidding. Spades can't be led until they've been "broken" by someone cutting an earlier trick.
Hearts has no trump suit. The highest card of the suit led takes the trick, every time. Hearts has its own version of breaking: you can't lead a heart until one has been thrown on an earlier trick.
Partners, or every player for themselves
Spades is a partnership game. You and the player opposite share one contract and one score, so covering your partner's nil or soaking up a bag for them is part of every hand. Hearts is played every player for themselves, which makes for odd alliances: three players will cooperate for one trick to stop a fourth shooting the moon, then go straight back to dumping points on each other.
Nil and the moon
Nil (Spades): bid zero and take no tricks at all for +100. Take a single trick and it's −100. You announce it before play, and your partner can help protect it.
Shooting the moon (Hearts): take every heart and the Queen. Instead of 26 points landing on you, each opponent takes 26. Nobody announces it: you just go for it, and the other three have to notice in time and stop you by taking a single heart.
Nil is a promise you make in public. The moon is something you try quietly and hope nobody spots.
Which to learn first
- Hearts, if trick-taking games are new to you. There's no bid to judge and no partner relying on you. "Follow suit, avoid hearts and the Queen" is enough to play a whole hand.
- Spades, if you want the bidding. It rewards careful counting, and with a partner every hand is a conversation you can only have through the cards you play.
- Both, if you already know one. They train opposite habits, and switching between them makes you think about every card. Both are free on CardsLobby.
What they have in common
Both come from Whist: 52 cards, four players, thirteen tricks, follow suit if you can, highest card of the suit led wins unless something beats it. Both lock a suit until it's broken. And both reward counting: knowing which high cards are gone is the most useful habit in either game, and it carries straight over.
Other Spades pages
- How to Play Spades: one full hand, then the complete rules.
- Spades Bidding Guide: how to count a hand before you bid.
- Spades Strategy: nil play and managing bags.
- How to Play Hearts: the rules of the other game.
- Nil in Spades: bidding it, making it, breaking it.
- Spades for Beginners: the five rules that matter.
- How to Play Spades with 2 People: two-hand rules and the draw.