Double Hearts is a double-deck version of the Hearts game on early Windows systems. It's called Gong Zhu alternatively, as you can find on Wikipedia.
Just like Hearts and Bridge, Double Hearts is a trick-taking card game, but it is based on two decks of 52 poker cards. It requires exactly 4 players to play. Players should NOT collaborate with each other.
In each deal, each player is dealt 26 cards randomly. They take turns in leading rounds, in which they play cards from their hands. Eventually, when their hands are cleared simultaneously, their scores are calculated and they initiate the next deal.
In each round, the leader leads with one single card or a pair of identical cards, and the other players take turns to follow in counter-clockwise order with the same number of cards.
The player who played card(s) of the highest value wins the round (trick), takes all scored cards played in that round, and becomes the leader of the next round.
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Generally, each round should be lead with a single card (e.g., ♠9) or a pair of identical cards (e.g. ♦77).
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Generally, the followers must follow with same number of cards in the same suit as the leading card(s).
- If the round is led by a pair, the follower must follow with a pair in the leading suit when he has one.
- If a follower's hand is empty in the leading suit, he can discard, i.e., play cards from another suit.
- If the leading cards are a pair (e.g., ♠99) while the follower has only 1 card in the leading suit (e.g., ♠K), he must play the remaining card (♠K) and select another card (e.g., ♥J) to discard. This mixed playing will still be regarded as discarding.
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The first leader is a random ♣2 owner who must lead the first round with one or two ♣2(s).
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In the first round, when running out of the ♣ suit, the followers must not follow with ♦J, ♠Q or ♥5-A.
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In the same suit, the card values are equivalent to their ranks: 2 < 3 < 4 < 5 < 6 < 7 < 8 < 9 < 10 < J < Q < K < A.
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A discard always has lower value than the leading play and the other following plays within the suit.
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A pair of higher rank has higher value than another pair of lower rank in the same suit.
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A pair always have lower value than two different single cards in the same suit, whose value as an entity is decided by the one of higher rank. This is a reward to pairs as a better card type.
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In a round, when two players play cards of the same value, the first one wins.
For instance, when a round is led by ♦88, ♦K♥A < ♦88 < ♦AA < ♦23 < ♦9Q (player after ♦2Q) < ♦2Q (player before ♦9Q). If the players actually followed (♦K♥A), (♦2Q), (♦9Q) sequentially, the one who played ♦2Q wins this round and takes the penalizing ♥A into his pocket.
- List of scored cards and their basic effects:
| ♣10 | ♦J | ♠Q | ♥2-4 | ♥5-10 | ♥J | ♥Q | ♥K | ♥A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| x2 | +100 | -100 | 0 | -10 | -20 | -30 | -40 | -50 |
Clearly, most cards (♠Q and ♥ honors) are with penalty scores. The essence of this game is to avoid taking tricks containing these penalties.
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Generally, at the end of each hand, a player's score is given by first summing up scores of the scored cards (except ♣10) he got from winning rounds, and multiply the sum with the multiplier decided by the (except ♣10) cards he has.
- For instance, if a player got {♣10 10, ♠Q, ♥2 7 J}, his base score is -130, the score sum of {♠Q, ♥2 7 J}. Since he has two ♣10's, his final score is base score times 4, which equals -520.
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Special cases:
- A player got no scored cards (including ♥2-4) except ♣10: each ♣10 is worth +50 points now as a reward of avoiding winning penalty tricks under doubled and even quadrapled risks.
- Small slam: a player who gets all 26 hearts (including ♥2-4) in one hand should turn all negative heart scores to positive.
- Grand slam: a player who gets all scored cards should turn all negative heart and ♠Q scores to positive.
After dealing all cards, each player chooses 3 cards to pass to another player. The number of hands dealt decides to whom to pass the cards.
Note that card passing is not commonly included in the game. Consider it as some additional seasoning in a meal that is already delicious.
♣10, ♦J, ♠Q are considered special scored cards because they are all the unique scored cards in their respective suits. After card trading, the players choose to expose an arbitrary combination of the special cards in their hands. Exposed cards will be public and enjoy double effects:
| ♣10 | ♦J | ♠Q |
|---|---|---|
| x4 | +200 | -200 |
Note that there exists alternative rules where an exposure will cause all cards with the same face to be doubled. It is also allowed to expose ♥A in some other rules, which results in doubled penalty of the entire heart suit. This, however, is considered imbalanced in this implementation, because you can easily get large negative scores in a single deal with exposed cards. In such cases, luck and exposure is too much more emphasized than playing the cards in the optimal order.
Run server at port 32266: (default port is 23366)
java -jar DoubleHeartsServer.jar -p 32266
Run client in English and connect to server at IP address 142.857.428.571 (obviously fake) with port 32266:
java -jar DoubleHeartsClient.jar -l en -a 142.857.428.571 -p 32266
Enjoy!