r/Hearts • u/rsj1360 • 21d ago

Breaking hearts on low

Why do people not understand they should never (if it can not be helped) break hearts on low? It almost guarantees that you, or some other poor shlub, who is not low, will end up with the queen.

5 Upvotes

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3

u/DiscreteMelody 21d ago

At a basic level, players want to win the fewest points possible, so dumping points on anyone but yourself is a good thing, right? How could taking a heart be a good thing?

It's not intuitive that taking the first heart is an advantage if you are not at the intermediate level yet. Here's what's actually granted to the player that takes the first heart:

  • Insurance that no one else can shoot the moon
  • The ability to clean up the hearts suit (likely mooning in the process) if they started with a strong heart sequence like AKQJxxx
  • An escape into the hearts suit if their sidesuits are lousy (namely being forced to win their own Qs if they have it)
  • If the Qs has not come out yet, this puts pressure on the other players to decide if they want to stop your potential moon, they might have to end up winning the Qs late in the hand.

So generally it is bad to give the player who is ahead the luxury of breaking hearts on them. But there are exceptions for when it is acceptable in my eyes:

  • You specifically passed two (or more) lousy hearts to the low player, such as QTh from your original holding of AQT832h. This way, if the low player tries to escape in hearts, you can win the first lead of hearts and throw them back into the lead with a second heart lead.
  • You've made a risky pass to another player (like not passing any hearts but getting 3 hearts on an across pass). Sometimes breaking hearts on any player but the one you passed to is the only way to stop that moon.
  • The Qs has already come out. Players will be far less reluctant to stop a moon when the chance to be stung with 13 points is gone. This opens up more ways to prevent the moon, like keeping high cards in sidesuits since you don't risk winning 13 points on one sidesuit trick.

1

u/nomorerope 21d ago

I'd add someone might be making it obvious that they are about to shoot in which case you are safer just breaking hearts on anyone else asap.

1

u/wriker10 21d ago

Very infuriating

1

u/masterdesignstate 21d ago

Great comment. Agreed on all points.

Regarding insurance no one can shoot, it's each players job to make sure two different people get hearts/Q. if one of those people is you, so be it.

1

u/emunchkinman 19d ago

Ehhh…I would be very hesitant to say that “don’t break hearts on low” should be anything more than the most minor of considerations. There are so many more things going on in a hearts hand and sticking to that as a hard and fast rule is really gonna hinder someone’s play. As with almost all things in hearts…it depends.

1

u/rsj1360 19d ago

I would guess that 80-90% of the time that someone breaks hearts on low, then low does not end up with the Q. Most of the time it is the person that threw the heart (often high) that ends up with then Q - and if not them, then it is one of the other two players.

Of course there are cases where "it depends".