Play to 50 / 75 / 100 / 150

Hearts has no fixed number of hands. You keep dealing until somebody’s running total crosses a finish line, and then the player with the lowest total wins. This variant does one thing: it moves the finish line.

Pick 50, 75, 100 or 150. The default is 100.

The rule

After every hand is scored, the table checks whether anybody has reached the target. If somebody has, the game is over and the lowest total wins. If two or more players are tied at the bottom, nobody has won yet: the table deals another hand and keeps going until one of them is in front on their own.

Two things worth being precise about:

• The check is “reached or passed”, not “landed exactly on”. A player sitting on 96 who takes 13 points ends a game to 100 at 109.
• The check happens between hands, never mid-hand. A hand always plays out in full, however far past the target somebody goes.

Nothing else changes. Passing, following suit, breaking hearts, the 13 hearts and the queen of spades, shooting the moon: all identical to the base rules. Only the finish line moves.

Choosing a length

Every hand puts 26 points on the table, so the table’s combined total climbs by 26 a hand no matter how it is distributed. That makes the target a fairly direct dial on how many hands you will play.

Target	Feels like	Roughly
50	A quick game	A handful of hands. One bad hand can decide it.
75	A short game	Enough hands to recover from one disaster, not two.
100	The standard length	The classic. Long enough that skill outweighs the deal.
150	A long game	Bad luck evens out. Expect to be here a while.

The shorter the game, the more a single hand matters. At 50, taking the queen of spades twice can be the whole story. At 150 there is time to give a hand away and still win comfortably, which rewards patient, low-risk play and makes a failed moon shot much less fatal.

Shooting the moon cuts the other way. A successful moon shot moves every opponent 26 points closer to the target at once, so at 50 it can end the game on the spot, while at 150 it is a strong hand rather than a knockout.

Playing to a target with other variants

The “Play to” setting is applied last, so it always wins. If a variant you have also turned on carries its own end score, your explicit choice overrides it.

That matters most with Jack of Diamonds, which plays to 75 by default. Because that rule lets scores go down as well as up, players creep toward the target more slowly and a game to 100 drags. If you want the longer game anyway, pick “Play to 100” alongside it and you will get it.

The other variants have no opinion about game length and combine freely:

• 3, 4 or 5 players — the deck changes size, but every hand still puts 26 points on the table, so a target means the same thing at any table size. Note that with more players the points are spread thinner, so a five-handed game to 100 takes longer than a three-handed one.
• Frank’s Way — the hidden kitty moves points around but does not add or remove any. Still 26 a hand.

A note on the scorecard

If you are keeping score for a real deck of cards rather than playing online, the in-app scorecard uses the same targets and the same engine that runs the online game. Set the target when you start the card and it will tell you when the game is done, and who won.

Which should you pick?

If you are teaching somebody Hearts, play to 50. They will get through a whole game, see how the scoring resolves, and find out whether they enjoy it, all inside a few hands.

If you are playing seriously, 100 is the standard for a reason: it is long enough that a single unlucky deal will not decide it, and short enough to finish in one sitting.

Pick 150 when you have the evening for it, or when you are playing with a variant that adds swing and you want room for it to average out.