Hearts is a trick-taking game where you are trying to lose. Every heart you collect costs you a point and the queen of spades costs 13, so the whole game is about ducking out of the way and letting someone else take the damage. A full game runs about 30 minutes.

What You Need

Players: 4 is the standard game; 3-6 works with a small change to the deck.
Deck: One standard 52-card deck. Aces are high, 2s are low.
Extras: Pen and paper for scoring.

Key Terms

Trick: One round where every player plays a single card. The best card wins all of them.
Lead: The first card played to a trick. Its suit is the suit everyone else must follow.
Follow suit: Playing a card of the led suit. You must do this if you can.
Point cards: The 13 hearts (1 point each) and the queen of spades (13 points).
Breaking hearts: The first time a heart gets played. Until that happens, nobody may lead a heart.

Setup

Deal the entire deck out clockwise, one card at a time - 13 cards each with 4 players.
Pick 3 cards from your hand and pass them face down to another player. The direction rotates every hand: left, right, across, then a hand with no passing at all.
Whoever holds the 2 of clubs leads it to start the first trick.

How to Play

The leader plays one card face up to the middle of the table.
Going clockwise, everyone plays one card. If you hold the led suit you must play it. If you are out of that suit you may play anything, which is your chance to dump a heart or the queen of spades on someone.
The highest card of the led suit wins. Hearts has no trump suit, so a heart played on a club lead can never win the trick - it just adds a point for whoever does win.
The winner stacks the cards face down in front of them and leads the next trick.

Two restrictions trip up new players:

You cannot lead a heart until hearts have been broken, unless hearts are the only cards left in your hand.
No point cards may be played on the very first trick of a hand.

Scoring & Winning

Each heart you took is 1 point, the queen of spades is 13 points, and points are bad.
Every hand distributes exactly 26 points among the players.
Shooting the moon: if you take all 26 points yourself, you score 0 and everyone else scores 26 instead.
Keep playing hands until someone reaches 100 points. The player with the lowest score at that moment wins.

Example

Clubs are led and you have no clubs left, so you can play anything. You drop the Q♠, and whoever wins that trick picks up 13 points.

Variations

3, 5, or 6 players: remove cards so the deck deals evenly (remove the 2♣ for 3 players, the 2♣ and 2♦ for 5) and deal them all out.
Jack of diamonds: the J♦ scores -10, giving everyone a reason to fight for a trick instead of avoiding them.
Black Maria: the queen of spades must be discarded at the first legal chance.

Tips for New Players

Getting rid of a whole suit early is powerful - it lets you dump point cards whenever that suit is led.
Hang on to low cards. High cards like the A♥ or K♠ win tricks you did not want to win.
The A♠, K♠, and Q♠ are all dangerous. If you hold the Q♠ without several small spades to protect it, pass it away.