Ruling — Hearts

You asked

How are points scored in Hearts?

Answered counted as answered

Asked with: Heartsbg-6887-en-1e

The method for scoring depends on the specific variation of Hearts being played: **Sweepstake Hearts** 1. After the hand is played, each player announces the number of hearts they have taken in [1][2][3]. 2. Each player pays one counter into the pool for each heart they took in [1][2][3]. 3. If a player has taken no hearts, they win the entire pool; if two players have taken no hearts, they divide it [1][2][3]. 4. If all players take hearts, or one player takes all thirteen, the pool remains and forms a "Jack" [1][3]. **Howell's Settling** 1. After the hearts are counted and announced at the end of the hand, each player pays into the pool for every heart they hold [1]. 2. The amount paid is as many counters as there are players besides the player themselves (for example, in a four-player game, a player pays three counters for every heart held) [1]. **Spot Hearts** 1. At the end of the hand, the spots on the hearts serve as the units of value: the Jack is worth 11, the Queen 12, the King 13, and the Ace 14 [4]. 2. The total to be accounted for in each deal is 104 [4]. 3. In settling, the player with the smallest number collects from each of the other players the amount that those players have in excess of the lowest score [4]. **Discard Hearts (Black Jack/Black Lady)** 1. The Jack is worth ten hearts and the Queen is worth thirteen hearts [5]. **Domino Hearts** 1. The winner is the player with the least hearts scored when another player reaches thirty-one points [6].

[1] RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook · p.3 · HEARTS.

[2] RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook · p.3 · HEARTS.

[3] RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook · p.4 ·

[4] RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook · p.6 · VARIETIES OF HEARTS.

[5] RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook · p.7 · VARIETIES OF HEARTS.

[6] RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook · p.7 · VARIETIES OF HEARTS.

🔧 debug — where this ruling came from

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
corpus profile: live
answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only): gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
timings: search 252 ms · ask 12705 ms · total 12969 ms
single-flight (PR-5): queued 0 ms · generation 12969 ms
retrieval refs (raw): [{"page": 7, "score": 0.046696, "snippet": "If there is a tie in one class, the number of other stars must decide; equal numbers of gold being decided by the majority of red on the same card; red ties, by the greater number of gold; and green ties by the fewest number of gold stars. HEARTSETTE. Heartsette differs from hearts only in the addit", "headingPath": "VARIETIES OF HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.032787, "snippet": "Matters may be facilitated by having counters of different colours, the white being the unit, and the red representing the number which it will be necessary to pay for one heart. Practice will make the players so familiar with the amount of the various profits or losses that they simply pay or take ", "headingPath": "HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.032258, "snippet": "For instance: Four play, A has 8 points, B 24, C 18, and D 54. As 8 points is the lowest, B pays A 16, C pays him 10, and D pays him 46. If A and B had 8 each, C 32, and D 56, C would pay 24, and D 48; and A-B would divide the amount between them. The chief variation in play arises from the fact tha", "headingPath": "VARIETIES OF HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.031746, "snippet": "There are two ways of settling at the end of the hand, each of which has its good points. SWEEPSTAKE HEARTS. After the hand has been played, each player announces the number of hearts he has taken in, and pays into the pool one counter for each. All thirteen hearts having been paid for, any player h", "headingPath": "HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "The player making the highest bid pays into the pool the amount he has bid. He then names the suit to be avoided, and leads for the first trick, regardless of his position with respect to the deal. The dealer's position is a great advantage, on account of its having the last bid. After the hand is p", "headingPath": "VARIETIES OF HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 18, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "20. If a player leads out of turn, a suit may be called from him when it is next his proper turn to lead. This penalty can be enforced only by the player on his right. If he has none of the suit called, or if all have played to the false lead, no penalty can be enforced. If all have not played to th", "headingPath": "THE LAWS OF HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 17, "score": 0.029851, "snippet": "1. Formation of table. Those first in the room have the preference. If more than the necessary number assemble, the choice shall be determined by cutting, those cutting the lowest cards having the right to play. Six persons is the largest number that can play at one table. The player cutting the low", "headingPath": "THE LAWS OF HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.029412, "snippet": "For instance: A, B, C and D play. A takes three hearts; B and C five each, and D none. There being three players besides himself, A puts up three times three, or 9 counters. B and C put up 15 each, and D none; so that there are 39 in the pool. Each player then takes out of the pool 1 counter for eve", "headingPath": "HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}]
citations (raw): [{"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "VARIETIES OF HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "VARIETIES OF HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "VARIETIES OF HEARTS.", "sharpsignalDocId": 222}]
boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3): no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 222 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 222 boosted
answered-before recall: this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
debug row retained until: Nov 2, 2026 20:22

retrieval — what the search arm returned

score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.

per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.

token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.

fused rank	document	heading	page	fused RRF score	snippet chars
#1	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	VARIETIES OF HEARTS.	p.7	0.046696 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#2	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	HEARTS.	p.5	0.032787 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#3	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	VARIETIES OF HEARTS.	p.6	0.032258 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#4	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	HEARTS.	p.3	0.031746 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#5	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	VARIETIES OF HEARTS.	p.6	0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#6	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	THE LAWS OF HEARTS.	p.18	0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#7	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	THE LAWS OF HEARTS.	p.17	0.029851 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300
#8	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	HEARTS.	p.3	0.029412 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one))	300

chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited

#	document	heading	page	quote chars
[1]	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	HEARTS.	p.3	no quote on the wire
[2]	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	HEARTS.	p.3	no quote on the wire
[3]	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)		p.4	no quote on the wire
[4]	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	VARIETIES OF HEARTS.	p.6	no quote on the wire
[5]	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	VARIETIES OF HEARTS.	p.7	no quote on the wire
[6]	RULEBOOK Hearts — Rulebook (corpus doc 222)	VARIETIES OF HEARTS.	p.7	no quote on the wire

generation — timing and the path taken

timing split: retrieval 252 ms · first delta 10219 ms · total 12969 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
full breakdown: queued 0 ms · retrieval 252 ms · ask 12705 ms · gateway work 12969 ms · total 12969 ms
tokens in (the prompt the answerer read): 4421
tokens out (what the answerer generated): 396
tok/sec: 147.7 tok/sec — 396 output tokens in 2.681 s of generation
live seat (read from the running child): answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 18s ago)
stream path: streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
watchdog: first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
num_ctx · think posture: both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.

disposition

outcome: ANSWERED — Answered
abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered): answered — no abstain rationale applies

setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render

decision: NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question

errata registry — what the gate above had to match against

this game registers NO errata cards (edition 148), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one

Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.