Cozy Classic
Free Hearts
Kettle Burrow Hearts
Classic Hearts for four, with the cards you may play lit up, a clear pass step, a score card after every hand, three friendly computer players at three levels, and hints that explain.
What you do
Kettle Burrow Hearts is the classic trick-taking card game for four players, played at the big kitchen table of a hedgehog’s burrow under a hill, with a round window, roots curling from the ceiling, jars on the shelves and a copper kettle on the stove. Each player gets 13 cards. Before every hand but one in four, everyone passes three cards to a neighbor; then the 2 of clubs leads, everyone follows suit if they can, and the highest card of the suit led takes the trick. Every heart you take costs a point and the queen of spades costs 13, so you spend the hand ducking under other players’ cards and slipping your dangerous ones away. Take all 26 points and you shoot the moon instead. When someone reaches 100, the lowest score wins. You play with three friends: Hazel the hedgehog, cheerful and easily flustered; Bertie the badger, calm behind his reading glasses; and Mabel the mole, who peers through her round spectacles and never forgets a card.
- Three levels for your friends: Gentle plays its lowest card and often a card at random, Steady ducks under the winning card and passes and dumps its dangerous cards, and Sharp counts every card and void, hunts the queen of spades, stops a moon it sees coming and sometimes shoots one itself.
- On your turn, the cards you may play stand out and the others dim, and a card you cannot play says why: follow suit, hearts not broken, or no points on the first trick.
- A clear pass step: pick three cards, see who they go to, and confirm. The cards passed to you stay marked until you play.
- A score card after every hand shows each player’s hearts, the queen and the hand’s points beside the running totals, and a final standings card ends the game.
- Standard rules with common options: points allowed on the first trick, how shooting the moon scores (26 to everyone else, 26 off your own score, or the shooter’s choice), a game to 50, and the jack of diamonds worth minus 10.
- Hints that use only what you can see at the table, a look back at the last trick, and an undo that takes back the card you just played until someone else plays.
How to play
- Press Play. Everyone gets 13 cards. Yours sit along the bottom, sorted by suit. Hazel sits on your left, Bertie across the table and Mabel on your right, each holding a fan of face-down cards.
- The pass: on the first hand everyone passes three cards to the left, then to the right on the second, across on the third, and nobody passes on the fourth. Tap three cards to pick them, then tap Pass. The three cards passed to you arrive marked.
- Tricks: whoever holds the 2 of clubs leads it. Everyone must follow suit if they can; if not, they may play any card. The highest card of the suit led takes the trick, and its winner leads the next. On your turn, tap a card to pick it and tap it again to play it.
- By default nobody may play a heart or the queen of spades on the first trick, unless they hold nothing else. Hearts cannot be led until a heart has been played (hearts are broken), unless the leader holds only hearts.
- Scoring: every heart you take is 1 point and the queen of spades is 13. If you take all 26, you shoot the moon: everyone else scores 26 and you score nothing.
- The game ends after a hand in which someone reaches 100. The lowest score wins. If the lowest score is tied, play goes on with another hand until one player alone is lowest.
Controls
- Touch or mouse: tap three cards and then Pass to pass them. In play, tap a card to pick it up and tap it again to play it, or switch to playing on one tap in Settings. After a hand, tap Next to deal the next one. Undo, Hint, Last trick and Menu sit on the shelf below the table, or beside it on a landscape phone.
- Keyboard: the arrow keys move along your hand and Enter or Space picks or plays the card in focus. P passes your three cards, N deals the next hand, L shows the last trick, U undoes, H shows a hint and Escape clears a pick.
- Restart in the toolbar starts a new game. Menu starts a new game, changes your friends’ level, the game length, the first-trick, moon and jack of diamonds rules, how you play a card and your friends’ speed in Settings, and shows your statistics and the rules. The toolbar also has pause, help, optional sound and fullscreen.
Tips worth knowing
- Pass the queen of spades, the ace and king of spades and your high hearts, unless you hold plenty of low spades to guard them.
- Empty a short suit in the pass. With no clubs left, you can throw a heart or the queen whenever clubs are led.
- Duck. When you must follow suit, play the highest card that still loses to the winning card, and keep your low cards for later.
- Count the spades. Until the queen of spades has been played, a high spade can catch her; once she is gone, your ace and king of spades are safe.
- Watch for a moon. If one player has taken every point so far, take one heart yourself to stop them.
- Use the hint to learn. It looks only at the cards you can see, including the three you passed, and says why.
Accessibility
- Everything can be played with a keyboard: the arrow keys move a visible focus along your hand, Enter or Space picks and plays, and single letter keys pass, deal the next hand, show the last trick, undo and hint.
- Every card in your hand is labeled for screen readers with its name and whether it can be played now, and why not when it cannot. The name plates read out each player’s score and points this hand.
- The cards you may play are marked by an outline as well as by dimming the others, and every score is shown as a number.
- Nothing is timed. Your friends wait while a menu is open, their speed can be set to Relaxed, and the last trick can be looked at any time.
- Reduced motion places the cards at once instead of dealing and sliding them, stops the friends’ fidgeting and keeps the sparkles small. Sound is optional and never needed to play.
Questions
How strong is each level?
We measured the levels with our own simulation of 1,000 games to 100 for each pairing, one player against three of another, with the seats and the first dealer moving round the table. In a four-player game an even match wins about one game in four. Against three players that pass and play at random, Gentle won 752 of 1,000 games, Steady 945 and Sharp 946. One Steady player beat three Gentle players in 688 games (68.8 percent) and one Sharp player beat three Gentle in 735 (73.5 percent). One Sharp player beat three Steady in 375 games (37.5 percent), and one Steady player beat three Sharp in only 182 (18.2 percent). These are computer players, not people, so treat the numbers as a guide.
Can a beginner beat Gentle?
Yes, that is what Gentle is for. In the same simulation, a simple scripted beginner that passes its three highest cards, plays its lowest card when it can follow suit, throws the queen of spades or its highest heart when it cannot, and leads its lowest card, won 500 of 1,000 games against three Gentle players (50.0 percent, twice an even share). The same beginner won 180 of 1,000 against three Steady players (18.0 percent) and 86 of 1,000 against three Sharp players (8.6 percent).
Which Hearts rules does this use?
Standard four-player Hearts: 13 cards each, passing three cards left, right, across and then not at all, the 2 of clubs leading the first trick, no hearts or queen of spades on the first trick, no leading hearts until they are broken, 1 point a heart and 13 for the queen of spades, 26 to everyone else for shooting the moon, and a game to 100 that the lowest score wins. Rule books and families differ, so Settings offers points on the first trick, taking 26 off the shooter’s own score or letting the shooter choose, a game to 50, and the jack of diamonds worth minus 10.
What is shooting the moon?
Taking every heart and the queen of spades in one hand: all 26 points. Instead of scoring 26 yourself, every other player scores 26 and you score nothing (or, with the other options in Settings, 26 comes off your score). It is a risk: if one heart slips to another player, you are left with 25 points.
What can I undo?
Undo takes back the card you just played, as long as nobody has played a card since, so no new card has been seen. Once the next player plays, your card stands. Your pass is final once made, because the three cards passed to you arrive straight away.
Do Hazel, Bertie and Mabel look at my cards?
No. Each friend chooses from what a player at the table could see: their own cards, the cards played to every trick, who has run out of a suit, the three cards they passed and to whom, the three they received, and the scores. The hints follow the same rule. Our regressions check this by shuffling the hidden cards and confirming every choice stays the same.
What does the game save?
It saves after every card: your settings, the game in progress (every pass and every card played, so you can close the page mid-hand and carry on later) and your statistics for Gentle, Steady and Sharp. Everything stays in this browser’s local storage, with no account.
