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Turbo Hearts

Turbo Hearts is an American version of the Chinese game Gong Zhu (Catch the Pig).

• The Jack of Diamonds is used as in the variations above.
• Whoever captures the Ten of Clubs doubles their score for that hand.
• After the pass but before the first lead each player may "turbo-charge" one of the following cards: Ace of Hearts, Queen of Spades, Jack of Diamonds, or Ten of Clubs. They do this by placing the card face up in front of them.
• A turbo-charged Queen of Spades or Jack of Diamonds doubles the value of that card for that hand.
• A turbo-charged Ace of Hearts doubles the value of all hearts for that hand.
• A turbo-charged Ten of Clubs quadruples the score for that hand of the player who captures it.
• A player may not play a turbo-charged card the first time a card of that suit is led.

Booster Nines

When at Upenn, Richard Garfield introduced a further development of Turbo hearts. Booster nines work the following way. If a nine is led to a trick or played while following suit, then there is a boost: one more round is played in the same suit - i.e. a further card from each player, in rotation. The first of the eight cards played id the led suit, and the highest card of this suit takes the eight card trick. If a nine is sloughed (discarded on a lead of a different suit) or played in the last trick, there is no boost - the trick consists of just four cards as usual.

This variation makes shooting the moon somewhat easier, since you can dump a loser on your own good nine (or one drawn from an opponent).

Cancellation Hearts

This is a version of Hearts for 6 to 10 players using two 52 card packs shuffled together. The cards are dealt out as far as they will go, any left over cards being placed in a face-down kitty which is taken by the winner of the first trick. The player to the dealer's left leads first and can lead anything.

When two identical cards are played to a trick, they cancel each other out in terms of trick-taking power (but still carry penalty points if they are penalty cards). The trick is taken by the highest card of the suit led which is not duplicated. If all the cards played of the suit led are in cancelling pairs, the trick remains on the table, the same player leads again, and the cards go to the winner of the next trick. If the very last trick has no winner its cards go to the winner of the previous trick.