Spades vs Hearts
Same deck, same tricks, opposite goals — one game rewards winning them, the other punishes it.
Play Spades freeSpades and Hearts are the two most-played trick-taking games in the English-speaking world, and they are constantly mistaken for one another. They share a 52-card deck, four players, and the basic mechanic of following suit. Everything after that is a deliberate mirror image: in Spades you promise tricks and try to win exactly that many; in Hearts you try to avoid taking the penalty cards altogether.
The difference at a glance
| 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 swing | Nil — ±100 | Shooting the moon — 26 points |
Opposite goals
This is the difference everything else grows out of. A Spades hand is a contract: before a card is played you announce how many of the thirteen tricks you expect to take, and you are paid ten points a trick for keeping that promise. Take too few and you lose the lot.
A Hearts hand has no contract and no bidding. All thirteen tricks are played out, and the only thing that matters is which cards ended up in your pile. Each heart costs one point and the Queen of Spades costs thirteen — twenty-six penalty points shared out by the play. You want as few as possible, and the game ends when someone reaches 100.
So a trick you fought for in Spades is a trick you would have ducked in Hearts. Players moving between the two describe the adjustment as having to unlearn their instincts, and they are right.
Trumps and partnerships
In Spades the trump suit never changes: spades outrank everything, there is no auction, and a spade played on a trick you cannot follow wins it. That fixed trump is why the game's skill sits in the bidding rather than in choosing a suit. Spades are also protected — you cannot lead one until they have been "broken" by someone cutting an earlier trick.
Hearts has no trump suit at all. The highest card of the led suit takes the trick, every time. Hearts are similarly protected from being led until they are broken, but for the opposite reason: leading them spreads the damage around.
The other structural difference is social. Spades is a partnership game — you and the player opposite share one bid and one score, so covering your partner's nil or dodging a bag on their behalf is half the game. Hearts is played every player for themselves, which produces its own peculiar politics: three players will happily co-operate for one trick to stop a fourth from shooting the moon, then go straight back to knifing each other.
Nil and the moon — the two big gambles
Each game keeps one high-risk, high-reward play in reserve, and they are near mirror images.
Nil (Spades) — bid zero and take no tricks at all for +100. Win a single trick and it is −100 instead. It is a declared promise made before the play, and your partner can actively protect you.
Shooting the moon (Hearts) — take every heart and the Queen. Instead of 26 points landing on you, each opponent takes 26. It is never declared: you simply attempt it, and the other three have to notice in time to stop you by taking one heart.
Nil is a contract you keep. The moon is an ambush you spring. That distinction — announced skill versus concealed opportunism — is the clearest expression of the two games' personalities.
Which should you learn first?
- Learn Hearts first if you are new to trick-taking games. There is no bidding to judge and no partner depending on you. You can play a full hand knowing only "follow suit, avoid hearts and the Queen" and still enjoy it.
- Learn Spades first if you want the deeper game. Bidding rewards accurate counting, and the partnership means every hand is a negotiation conducted entirely through the cards you play.
- Play both if you already know one. They train opposite instincts, and players who move between them read a table better than players who only ever fought in one direction.
What they do share
Both descend from Whist, and the shared inheritance is real: 52 cards, four players, thirteen tricks, follow suit if you can, highest card of the led suit wins unless trumped. Both protect a suit from being led until it is broken. Both are games of counting — knowing which high cards have gone is the single strongest habit in either. Learn to count a suit in one game and the skill transfers whole.
Keep reading
- How to Play Spades — the complete rules.
- Spades Bidding Guide — how to count a hand before you bid.
- Spades Strategy — nil play and bag management.
- 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.
- Spades for 2 Players — two-hand rules and the draw deal.