What three cards should you pass at the beginning of the hearts game?

Answer 1

What cards you choose to pass at the start of a hand of Hearts depends on the rest of your hand (thirteen cards). If you have a strong hand, meaning a string of high hearts and several high cards in other suits, you might consider trying to "shoot the moon" (taking all the point cards: 13 hearts and the Queen of Spades); also if you have a strong hand, but with few or no hearts, you might again consider to "shoot the moon" by winning all the tricks using other suits, thus again taking all the point cards. In either case, you should pass and play the hand "backwards", deliberately passing low cards ("losers", particularly low hearts), and playing away your losing low cards at the beginning of the hand, in hoples of coantrolling the end of the hand so as to win all thich e hearts and the Black Queen.

However, if you do not have a strong hand, then you should pass away those cards which are likely to win tricks that contain points, such as high hearts and particularly the ace and king of spades (which could force you to "win" the trick containing the Queen of Spades.

But in a game of players of well-balanced skill, one must also play defense, including in choosing what to pass. For example, including a low heart in your pass may effectively prevent an opponent from winning all the heart tricks, regardless of the strength of his hand. Also, if you have four or more spades, you might choose to NOT pass away the Queen of Spades, as you should be able to safely control when to "dump" her on a specific opponent (usually the one with the lowest score).