Hearts Poker Rules

Hearts Poker was contributed to pagat.com by Jack Namazukage. It uses a standard 52-card deck and no wild cards.

Each player ends with two hand cards, and there are three or six community cards. The best five-card hand made from a player's own cards and the community cards wins the pot.

The queen of spades and the jack of diamonds have special effects when held in a player's hand at the showdown (5.2 and 5.3). They have no effect as community cards.

Each player is dealt two cards face down and one card face up. The first betting round follows.

First pass. All players at the same time pass one of their face-down cards to the player on their left. The second betting round follows.

Each player is dealt a fourth card, face up.

Second pass. All players at the same time pass one of their face-up cards to the player on their right. The third betting round follows.

The source does not say who opens each betting round. The dealer shall announce the order before the deal.

Each player now has two cards face down and two face up. Each player discards two cards: either both face-up cards or both face-down cards, not one of each.

A player who discards the face-down cards picks up the face-up cards and keeps them concealed for the rest of the hand. Every player therefore ends with two concealed hand cards.

The remaining players show their two hand cards.

Queen of spades. A player holding the queen of spades as a hand card must discard the higher-ranking of their two hand cards. If the player holds a pair of queens, the queen of spades is discarded.

Jack of diamonds. A player holding the jack of diamonds as a hand card is dealt one extra card.

Each player makes the best five-card hand from their own cards and the three or six community cards. The highest hand wins the pot.

A player left with only four cards, one hand card and three community cards, competes with those four. Such a player cannot make any hand that needs five cards, such as a straight, flush, full house or straight flush.