OBJECTIVE OF CANCELLATION HEARTS: The objective of this game is to have the lowest score. When a player hits the pre-determined score, the player with the lowest score at that time wins the game.
NUMBER OF PLAYERS: 6 to 10 Players
MATERIALS: Two standard 52-card deck, a way to keep score, and a flat surface.
TYPE OF GAME: Trick-taking game
AUDIENCE: 13+
OVERVIEW OF CANCELLATION HEARTS
Cancellation Hearts is a trick-taking card game for 6 to 10 players. The goal of the game is to have the lowest score when a player reaches a score of 100.
SETUP
Cards are dealt clockwise and face down. The first dealer is determined randomly then it passes to the left for each new round.
The dealer shuffles the deck and deals out cards until each player has an even number of cards and no more cards can be dealt. Any remaining cards from the deck are placed face down in a pile, and are called the kitty. The kitty is taken by the winner of the first trick of the round.
After hand are dealt each round, players will pass cards. During the first round, players will pass any three cards from their hand to the left, then pick up the 3 cards passed to them and add it to their hand. For round two, the 3 cards are passed to the right, and for the third round, cards are passed to the player sitting opposite you. During the fourth round there is no passing. Then the pattern is repeated.
GAMEPLAY
Once all cards are dealt and players have arranged their hand accordingly, the player with the two of clubs goes first.
All players are required to follow suit if able. In Cancellation Hearts, there is no trump suit. The highest card played of the leading suit wins, and the winner gets to begin the next trick. If a player is unable to follow suit, they can play any other card in their hand. This is a great opportunity to get rid of any high cards, to prevent winning unwanted suits. The only exception is that neither Hearts nor the queen of spades can be thrown out in the very first trick, however, they can be thrown in any trick thereafter, as long as the player is void the suit currently being led.
If two cards of the same exact rank and suit are played to the same trick, they cancel each other out. They still count in scoring, but they are not used to determine the winner of the trick. If all cards in a trick are cancelled out each player will play an additional card to the trick until a winner is determined. If no suck winner can be found before the end of the round, then the trick is won by the last player to win a trick in the round.
After the first trick is won the winner takes the kitty into their hand and discards an equal number of cards from their hand.
Players cannot lead with a heart until either a heart or the queen of spades has been played, however, the queen of spades can lead at any point in the game.
Players will continue playing until a player reaches a score of 100 or more points.
SCORING
This is a trick-taking game but the goal is to win a minimal number of tricks, or better yet, the goal is to NOT win tricks that contain Cancellation Hearts or the queen of spades. At the end of each round players add up the number of Cancellation Hearts they’ve won that round, as well as the queen of spades, and add that to their score. Remember, the objective is to have the lowest score.
Each heart is worth 1/4th of a point and the queen of spades is worth 13 points.
If you win all scoring cards, however, you may choose to reduce your score by 26 or increase all other players’ scores by 26 points.
END OF GAME
Once a player reaches 100 or more points the game ends. The player who has the lowest score wins the game.
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