Poor sportsmanship

[Jenny8675]

It's a strategy used by weaker players and not usually new players imo. They realize the table is tough so rather than stepping up their own play, they create drama to try to intimidate other players to play into their hand.

[paolof92]

The poor sportsmanship is also target lower in score and "foe" just because. This ruin the game. Better really have 1 win and 3 lose all.

[PeoplesFrontofJudea]

How sad and pathetic are some people that accuse you of cheating when they lose because something didn't go their way.

So many arrogant people that demand everyone play the way they want and think the know everything.

[FrankJones]

There's a simple solution here. And it has already been suggested:

One person wins. Three people lose.

Rewarding the second player for "beating" two other players is nonsense. And it leads to silly situations.

Also, in any situation I've ever played hearts before playing here on BGA, it was impossible to lose the game by shooting the moon, because in such a situation, that player (who shot the moon) would have 26 points added rather than having everyone have 26 points subtracted.

If a player is more than 26 points behind the leader, and gets dealt a bunch of high cards, what is that player supp0osed to do?? It's a no-win situation (literally).

Hearts is an inherently frustrating game. With over 2 million games played, there are only 2 players with a rating above 450. There is a lot of randomness, and that can be frustrating.

I try to avoid playing with anyone rated below 200 because I just find it frustrating and not fun. When a new player is just handing out moons to whoever he or she passes to, and then when it's my turn to receive that player's pass, and I actually get a protected pass, it's frustrating.

As I said, I try to play with knowledgeable and experienced players. THIs makes it all the more puzzling when I see them allow a moon that can so easily be prevented.

As for dumping the queen: There are two very different situations.

1) The player with the Q is in imminent danger of eating it and must dump it at first opportunity. If it happens to land on someone who has already taken damage instead of on the leader, oh well.

2) This is the scenario that drives my crazy: I am holding the Q, and it is vulnerable. But I want to win, and I want to stick the Q on the leader. So, I hold it when I could dump it on the 3rd or 4th place player. That player, after taking the trick on which I did not play the Q, then plays a SPADE instead of a low card of the suit that I just showed out of! From an experienced player, that's irritating, and I won't want to play with that player again.

But in general, yes, Hearts makes people cranky, myself included. I've almost entirely stopped playing.
Spades is similar, but not as bad because it's 2v2 instead of a free-for-all.

That said, rudeness is never the optimal response. Perhaps something along the lines of, "Hey, last hand I could have given you the Queen, I didn't, and then you made me eat it. That's frustrating."

[DK KL]

Even if a player does not like the rules, it gives them no right to be rude/obnoxious to another player. If you care so much, simply give a red thumb and move on in life. There's no need for the consistent behavior I see in this game.

[Emansp_Benfica]

As pessoas têm pouco encaixe

[Mercarte]

So this game is really messed up, one can't play to win when he meet such players that target him cause they hate him or they are friend with other.
Moderators never interve, they just ban you if you say "atchu" but ignores all the other things.

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Do kingmaking, all should red thumb them and avoid them

*Moderation Edit: please do not use the Forums to call out specific tables or players by name, this is what the Moderation Reports are for. The Forums should remain a general discussion.

[Travis Hall]

One person wins. Three people lose.

The thing is, this simply isn’t true. I don’t mean specifically the BGA implementation of Hearts. It is not a general truth throughout the play of Hearts the world over.

There are no official rules of Hearts. There is no governing body for the game, no worldwide tournaments, no standard rulebook with nigh-universal agreement. Without any of these, there is a lot of variation in the play of the game. There are certainly groups of players who like to treat as 1-wins/3-lose, but there is cultural variation around this.

Probably the closest there is to something that could be regarded as standardised rules would be the rules that have been printed in the major, well-respected compendia of card game rules - I’m thinking The (Complete/Ultimate) Book of Card Games by Peter Arnold (adjective use varying by edition) and, historically, such source as The Standard Hoyle (which Edmond Hoyle had no hand in, as he was a century dead by then… but this seems to contain the earliest published Hearts rules). But both Arnold and Hoyle rules state how scores are calculated, and give no statement that all players whose score is not the highest/lowest (depending on whether your variation scores up or down) are equal losers. Both books also give rules for playing for stakes (that is, money; gambling) and those rules have those who do not get the best score paying different amounts… and it fact it is possible for a player in second or even third place to receive money, not pay it, under either of those rule sets. Edit: Actually, that last is not true under The Standard Hoyle of 1887. The stakes rules there only allow the players with the lowest number of hearts to receive chips from the pool (at the end of any hand). Ties for first pay out, outright second will still pay. So, still variation, not one true way to play.

So changing the ELO system on BGA is not really a solution to anything. It simply moves from mirroring the off-line play experience of one group to mirroring the off-line play experience of a different group.

And furthermore, I want to point out that ELO is not a reward system. It is an attempt to measure skill. If there are two players who win equally often, but one consistently places second when they don’t win, and the other consistently places dead last when they don’t win, I am happy to acknowledge that the one who consistently places first or second is more skilled than the other. There are perhaps arguments to be made about whether a player with a placing distribution of 25%/25%/25%/25% is more skilled than a player with a distribution of 24%/76%/0%/0%, but it is certainly not unreasonable for placings other than first to have at least some small effect on ELO as a measure of skill.

As for my own approach (not that I play Hearts on BGA much) I enter every game I play with the intent to play for first place. However, if my winning becomes literally impossible, I will do what I can to secure second place; and if that is also impossible, I’ll be playing for third place.

And I have encountered players who expect me to accept a high risk to my own score in order to help target the current leader. Sometimes, I think, even take over 20 points to prevent a leader shooting the moon. Something you have to remember is that I am playing for the highest probability of my own win. I am not playing for the lowest probability of a win by the current leader. Assuming that the game will not end if the current leader shoots the moon, accepting 25 points myself to prevent the leader shooting usually will not improve my chances of winning. I would then have to make up 25 points on all three opponents to win, but if the leader shoots, I have to make up 26 points on them while getting only a little ahead of the other two. With three of us still needing to target that leader, the latter situation give me much better chances to win.

Similar logic applies to cases when I have to decide whether to save the Queen of Spades to attempt to target the leader, or dump it quickly to protect myself. Accepting that risk may help my current “partners”, but it may not help me, in my quest to win.

Or to put it more simply, my objective, generally, is not just to beat the current leader; it is to beat everyone. It’s up to my opponents to account for my objective in their strategies. I won’t generally be trying to help the leader end the game while I am in second place, because then I cannot win, but I also won’t put myself over the line to prevent you going over the line.

I’m pretty sure a lot of the players who complain about those who play for placings or “kingmaking” simply fail to take into account these nuances of strategy.

[FrankJones]

I hear what you're saying. And, yes, my own book of "rules of card games" suggests scoring the way you referenced. As you noted, the game likely has a long history of being played for stakes, which would involve squaring up at the end of the game, and the three people who finished without the best score would not lose equally.

I actually have two books on my shelf - "Jacoby on card games", and a very old-looking "Official Rules of Card Games" with no author listed. On the inside title page it says "The United States Playing Card Company", whatever that is or was.

Anyway, when not playing for stakes, when playing on BGA, it is possible to use a scoring system that awards one win and 3 losses. Is that optimal? Obviously, that is a matter of debate, based on this thread.

If two players each finish 1st the same percentage of the time in Hearts, but one player finished 2nd/3rd more often compared to the other player, I personally am not really any more impressed with that player compared to the other. But that's just my own opinion, and I realize opinions vary on this topic. To me, the goal is to win, not to lose by fewer points than the other players who lost. If I don't win a game of hearts, I have failed to meet my goal. I don't really care whether I finished 2nd or 4th - except for the Elo penalty, because I do care about my Elo.

And, the nature of the game of hearts is that sometimes to give oneself any chance of winning, one must take a longshot risky strategy that might result in finishing in 4th place. I would not look at that finish and say, "Well, that player played worse than the players who finished 2nd and 3rd." It depends on context. I would commend the player who finished 4th but at least gave himself or herself a chance to win. Someone who sells out for second place while throwing away any chance of winning? That doesn't impress me or mean much to me.

I guess my point is, I see merit to all sides of this debate, and the scoring system is not going to change, so, we should take it for what it is and decide whether Hearts, as scored, is a game we enjoy playing. For me, not so much, especially when adding in the general angst that occurs in the chat when players have differing views on how the game "should" be played.

Of course, this is not limited to Hearts. In any multi-player game on this site, the same system is used. Wingspan, for Example. The difference there is, if everyone playing a game of Wingspan is playing to win, it isn't likely to cause someone to suffer a catastrophe and end up in 4th place instead of 2nd place. And, In Wingspan (or similar games), there are very few scenarios where harming the 4th place player will help cement a second-place finish.

Therein lies the frustrating part of Hearts (for some people, including myself). It's a multiplayer individual game which, for better or worse, sometimes encourages and rewards players for piling on the 4th place player while handing an effortless win to the 1st place player.

And, because the scoring here does not allow a successful moon to add 26 to self rather than subtract 26 from everyone else, a player who is ahead by mor than 26 can just hand a moon to the last place player and get the win. I don't think the game should end on a successful moon. I would prefer to see the option to add 26 in such a situation.

Then, there is the (to me) puzzling fact that games to 75 seems the most popular. I was always taught 100, and played that way for decades. The lower the start score (or end score, if counting up, which is who I always played before playing here), the less room there is for skillful maneuvering. Playing to 300 would make it much more likely that the best player would win. Playing to 15 would make it mostly a luckfest. There are hands where there is no way to avoid taking the Queen. There are hands where it takes zero skill to take zero. There are hands where one player gets handed a moon pass and there is no way to stop it.

I suppose it evens out in the long run. But when games go to 75, there is no "long run". Each game is a small sample size of hands with high variance. And that is why there are very few high Elo players.

2.2 million games played, and we have 15 players over 400. None over 500.

That is a high variance high-luck game.

[SavageCj]

I think the greatest point to be made is that the "ARENA" is made for people that would like to play competitively. If this isn't you, then use the "PLAY" function. No harm, no foul. It's akin to playing blackjack at a high stakes table, only to have someone come in and bet the table minimum and pull a face card while dealer has a 4 showing..