Sunday, May 2, 2010

Hearts - Passing Strategy

Hearts is one of my favorite "light" card games to play. You can teach someone the basics in about 15 minutes, but school doesn't really begin until you play some of these hits.

Overview:
As per Wikipedia, Hearts is an "evasion" game. You're trying to avoid taking tricks with hearts in them, or with the "bitch queen" - the Queen of Spades, worth 13 hearts. It's relatively straightforward - there's no trumps to concern yourself with; just follow suit or shed high cards (preferring hearts) during play.
Most of the fun and stress comes when you're dealing with the King or Ace of Spades, since they can force you to unwittingly scoop up the Queen.
My favorite Dick Move in hearts is actually two phased.
The Pass
Phase I begins prior to the first card played. In Hearts, you pick three cards and pass them to either your left, right, or across depending on the hand. (it rotates hand by hand) The sort of hand you're looking for is a lot of spades with the Ace, King, or Queen. Ideally, you've got something like A, J, 10, 9, 8 of Spades. Even more fun is if you've got the A and 2 of clubs, to guarantee you grab the lead after the first hand (passing the 2) but that's a nuance you don't necessarily need. 
The real trick here is to ONLY pass the Ace of Spades. What you're trying to do here is twofold: 
  1. Grab the lead as early as possible
  2. Start running spades out just under the Queen
Ideally, the person you've passed to is dangerously low on Spades, which puts them in this position:
Jack is led
Villain doesn't want to run out the A, so they throw off the 7. Jack wins the trick.
You run out the 10 of spades right after. In a perfect world, the Ace can't do anything, and is forced to run it out there. The next person gleefully drops the queen on him.
Said player turns to you and says "That was a dick move."
Then you laugh and laugh and eventually apologize to your wife because you like having sex.

About This Site

I play a lot of board games, Euro and otherwise.
I'm an unforgivable asshole in most of them.
It's not even about winning at any cost. I rarely win at games, because I'm awful at game theory. Where most people realize at some point cooperation is in your best interests and temporary alliances are formed to prevent a winner (usually me), I am physically incapable of going through with such an alliance.
Eventually, they expose themselves in the game, trusting me, and I let them have it with all guns blazing.
In short, I pull a Dick Move.

Many times, however, these moves are very powerful and can help you win games if done at an appropriate time.

This blog is going to be somewhat about strategy (as many dick moves will help you surge ahead for a win) but mostly about lines of play in games that are horrifyingly awful. The kind of plays that cause massive fallout in your gaming group, and maybe you feel so dirty you shower after.

These are my stories.