Hearts, only one winner?

[rakjam]

Why not make hearts scoring just like real life. Only one winner.

Giving points to 2nd place and less negative points to 3rd place only encourages bad hearts play. I would like to see the scoring dhange to something like positive points of the winner a the same amount of negative points for 2n, 3rd, and 4th. This would encourage players to aim for the leader as opposed to taking out 4th place to get 2nd or worse 3rd.

Anyone else see this as annoying?

[ufm]

This has been talked to death. Please check other posts.

[FrankJones]

Why not make hearts scoring just like real life. Only one winner.

Giving points to 2nd place and less negative points to 3rd place only encourages bad hearts play. I would like to see the scoring dhange to something like positive points of the winner a the same amount of negative points for 2n, 3rd, and 4th. This would encourage players to aim for the leader as opposed to taking out 4th place to get 2nd or worse 3rd.

Anyone else see this as annoying?

Yes, this would obviously make the game better.

No, it will never happen. As ufm noted, it has been discussed extensively.

Much to my chagrin, some of my old books on card rules use the existing scoring mechanism, likely a carry-over from the original days of the game when it was commonly played for money, and each player won or lost $$$ per point to each other player.

This might also be the way official tournaments are scored (If such tournaments exist; I don't know).

[SavageCj]

This is the only way for people to play the game as intended.. only the winner to gain points, and all 3 losers lose points..

[BibFortuna]

Of course this is the correct answer... however, the fine folks helping to run BGA are 100% committed to their ELO system, even in the case of a game like this where their very system helps to ruin the game slightly. There are no options as they see it for how to run this system. So, the game must be broken....

[emunchkinman]

Late response to this, but here’s my perspective which may help. At first, when I started playing hearts on here, I felt similarly. I was very frustrated that it wasn’t one winner and three equal losers, per how hearts is played in real life. BUT, upon playing it more on here, I actually appreciate it being the way it is, where there is a distinction between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. The thing is, you have to view “real-life” hearts and “bga” hearts differently. They are NOT the same game. That being said, bga hearts, due to its mechanic of 2nd 3rd, 4th as well as only adding when shooting the moon, makes for some really really interesting game theory dynamics that are absent/different in the real life version. So once you appreciate that aspect and embrace it as a different game, it genuinely becomes really fun in its own right. Food for thought.

[XTC-456]

... one winner and three equal losers..


Incorrect. The right way to make it better would be that there is one winner and three losers, but the 2nd looses less than the 3rd and the 4th, and of course the 3rd looses less than the 4th. My humble point of view.

[XTC-456]

Why not make hearts scoring just like real life. Only one winner.

Giving points to 2nd place and less negative points to 3rd place only encourages bad hearts play. I would like to see the scoring dhange to something like positive points of the winner a the same amount of negative points for 2n, 3rd, and 4th. This would encourage players to aim for the leader as opposed to taking out 4th place to get 2nd or worse 3rd.

Anyone else see this as annoying?

totally agree.

[Dayvit78]

Late response to this, but here’s my perspective which may help. At first, when I started playing hearts on here, I felt similarly. I was very frustrated that it wasn’t one winner and three equal losers, per how hearts is played in real life. BUT, upon playing it more on here, I actually appreciate it being the way it is, where there is a distinction between 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. The thing is, you have to view “real-life” hearts and “bga” hearts differently. They are NOT the same game. That being said, bga hearts, due to its mechanic of 2nd 3rd, 4th as well as only adding when shooting the moon, makes for some really really interesting game theory dynamics that are absent/different in the real life version. So once you appreciate that aspect and embrace it as a different game, it genuinely becomes really fun in its own right. Food for thought.

Can you elaborate on the "interesting game theory dynamics" ? From what I see, it just prevents people from ganging up on the leader.
And you say they are different games. Yeah, we agree. We want the same game. Why do they call it hearts if it's not hearts? Call it Hearts-Like.

Anyway, you brought up an old thread. It's not going to change, that's why we don't comment anymore. And now with the revamped game board, a ton of people have just stopped playing period.