History and Evolution
Hearts evolved from a game played around 1750 in Spain, called Reverse.
In that game, the Jack of Hearts was called Quinola Grande, and the Queen of Hearts was the Quinola Pequena (Little Queen).
Each of these cards scored many negative points against their captors.
In similar games also called Reverse or Reversis, the usual object of play was to lose tricks, not to gain them.
In another predecessor of Hearts (the game of Four Jacks) the object was to avoid winning in a trick any Jack.
Each Jack counted as a minus point and the Jack of Spades counted as negative two points.
In other variations, certain cards were also designated with a negative point value.
Eventually, all captured points were recorded without the minus sign.
Sometime around 1850, Reverse gave way to simple Hearts.
According to Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith in Culbertson’s Hoyle (New York, 1952), the game of Hearts was: "simple as to rules, but as difficult as Whist to play well. This austere game has been greatly popularized during the last fifty years by the addition of certain features that add to the variety and also tend to make the game easier to play at."
Euchre and Hearts were great favorites about 100 years ago.
However, Hearts maintained continuous widespread popularity because it was taught to children at an early age.
Additionally, its most dynamic feature was the fact that it was played as an individuals' contest - thus earning a reputation as a cutthroat game!
The game of Hearts, in a sense, favors players with losing hands.
In order to win, you need plenty of what, in other games, would be poor cards, such as deuces and threes.
These cards are critical to avoid capturing points.
The real object of Hearts is to avoid winning tricks which contain various penalty cards.
It has lent itself to the evolution of rules changes and novelty variations. Unlike changes in Poker, these additions were not meant to induce high stakes gambling fever, but were improvements to the game itself.
In the original game of Hearts, each heart that you won on a trick, counted as one point against you. If you took all thirteen hearts, you earned thirteen points. As time passed, various embellishments were added, finally raising the game to tournament quality.The original thirteen point allocation per hand (one point for each heart) was retained.
Next came the variation called Black Maria in which the Queen of Spades counted as thirteen additional points against the unfortunate player who captured her in the course of a hand.
For a while, the game was quite dull, as the object was to dump and duck everything in sight! Then some clever chap created a feature called Shoot the Moon in which anyone who was lucky or skillful enough to take the Queen of Spades and all thirteen hearts in the same hand would be credited with twenty six positive points.
A Jack of Diamonds variation with a ten point premium for capturing this card was added in the late 1920’s.
The scoring system was eventually revised so that all points were considered negative and the first person to reach 100 would be declared the loser.
Finally, three good refinements appeared and eventually became standard.
Firstly, no one could lead a heart until a heart had been discarded or the Queen of Spades was played on a previous trick.
Secondly, the pass of three cards before the play of each hand added an additional dimension.
Lastly, the deuce of clubs became the standard card for the opening lead of each hand.
Now Hearts is truly a classic game. It has a great legion of enthusiasts on the Internet, and will be part of the MSO Event in August of this year, as well as the U.S. National Championships (May 2000) in Las Vegas, NV.
For more details on Hearts, Spades, and Euchre - refer to this Site:
http://www.pagat.com - it is a treasure trove of information!
- Joe Andrews
