Black Lady


Black Lady is an American card game of the Hearts group for three to six players and the most popular of the group. It emerged in the early 20th century as an elaboration of Hearts initially also called Discard Hearts, and is named after its highest penalty card, the Queen of Spades or Black Lady. It is a trick-avoidance game in which the aim is to avoid taking tricks containing hearts or the Black Lady. Culbertson describes it as "essentially Hearts with the addition of the queen of spades as a minus card, counting thirteen" and goes on to say that "Black Lady and its elaborations have completely overshadowed the original Hearts in popularity."
The game is often called Hearts, although that is the proper name for the basic game in which only the cards of the heart suit incur penalty points. It is known by a variety of other names including American Hearts, Black Lady Hearts, Black Widow and Slippery Anne. In Australia it is known as Rickety Kate. It is sometimes misnamed Black Maria which, however, is the British variant of Hearts played with additional penalty cards.

History

Black Lady was developed in the early 20th century from the American game of Hearts. It is first mentioned by Foster in 1909 who describes a variant called "Discard Hearts which is sometimes called Black Jack or Black Lady". In Black Jack, the Jack of Spades was worth "ten hearts"; in Black Lady the Queen of Spades was worth "thirteen hearts". Discarding three cards was already part of the game as the name Discard Hearts suggests. The discards were passed to the left. Scoring was simple: one penalty point for every heart captured and thirteen for the Queen of Spades.

Aim

The aim of Black Lady is to avoid capturing heart cards or the Queen of Spades.

Earliest rules — Foster (1909)

The following rules are based on the earliest known rules by Foster in which Black Lady was an alternative name for Discard Hearts, itself a variation of the basic Hearts game.

Preliminaries

The game is designed for three to six players, although "four is the usual number." A standard 52-card pack of Anglo-American pattern cards is used in which cards rank in their normal order, Aces high. If three play, the is removed, if five play, the two black deuces are removed and, if six play, all four deuces are discarded. It was usual practice to play with two packs, one being shuffled while the other was being dealt. Players cut for the choice of seats, lowest becoming the first dealer and choosing his seat first and then others choosing their seats in their order. Players tying must cut again.
Any player has a right to shuffle, the dealer last. Dealer offers the cards to pone for cutting, before dealing all the cards, clockwise and one at a time, to each player starting with eldest hand. The deal always rotates to the left. After the deal, each player discards three cards to his left-hand neighbour. Players may not view the cards they receive before selecting their discards.

Playing

The aim is to avoid taking any hearts or the Black Lady in the tricks. Eldest hand leads any card to the first trick. Players must follow suit if they can; otherwise may discard. There is no trump suit. The winner of a trick leads to the next.

Scoring

Foster's scoring scheme for basic Hearts is that players start with a fixed number of counters and pay one counter into the pool for each heart captured; the Black Lady being worth thirteen. The pool is claimed by the person or people winning it. There are two ways of deciding a winner. In the sweepstake method, the pool may only be claimed by a player or players who takes no hearts at all. If everyone takes at least one, the pool stays and forms a 'jack' until someone eventually takes no hearts at the end of a deal. If more than one player takes no hearts, they divide the pool, any odd counters staying put. In the 'Howell' method, at the end of each deal, players pay into the pool per opponent as many counters as they took hearts. So in a four-player game, if player A takes the Black Lady and a heart i.e. 14 hearts, he pays counters into the pool. Once everyone had paid up, players claim as many counters as they did not hold at the end. So player A may claim counters. This exhausts the pool and is designed to be a fairer reflection of the players' ability. The Black Lady ranks as a spade within the spade suit and so may be discarded if any other suit is played.

Culbertson's rules (1950)

The following rules are based on Culbertson where it is described as a separate game that is "essentially Hearts with the addition of the Queen of Spades as a minus card, counting thirteen". However, it also differed in retaining the discard or passing feature of the earliest rules. The main change is a much simplified scoring system.

Preliminaries

According to Culbertson, Black Lady may be played by three to seven players, individually, the best number being four. The standard 52-card pack is used and, in order to ensure each player gets the same number of cards, twos are discarded in the order:,, and. Aces are high. Again, players may pass any three cards face down and to the left. As an alternative rule, however, players may pass cards alternately to the left and then right from deal to deal.

Playing

Eldest hand leads to the first trick with any card. Players must follow suit if they can; otherwise may discard any card. A trick is won by the highest card of the led suit and the winner of the trick leads to the next.

Scoring

When all the tricks are played, players tot up their scores. Each heart card captured scores one penalty point and the Black Lady scores thirteen. If one player takes all the penalty cards, no scores are recorded for that deal. When the first player reaches 100 points, the game ends and the winner is the player with the lowest score.

Modern rules — Morehead (2001)

Glenn and Denton state that this version "is nearly universal in the United States." These rules are based on Morehead, except where stated. The major differences are the rules on passing and the feature scoring for shooting the moon.

Preliminaries

Three to six may play, but the game is best suited to four players. There are no partnerships and no trumps. The standard pack is used and an even distribution of cards is achieved by removing as many of the following as are needed:,, and. Cards rank in the normal order with Aces high. Alternative rule: any cards left over after the deal are put into a kitty and the winner of the first trick adds them to his tricks. Some rules allow him to view the kitty as well.
Players cut for the deal, the player drawing the lowest card becoming the first dealer. Cards are dealt clockwise beginning with eldest hand. After the deal each player selects three cards to discard and passes them to his left-hand neighbour. He must do so before viewing the cards he receives from the right. Alternative rule: In the American version of this game, called American Hearts by Glenn and Denton, the cards are passed differently in successive deals. For the first deal, cards are discarded to the left. For the second deal, cards are passed to the right. In the third deal, cards are passed across the table and in the fourth deal, players 'hold' i.e. do not pass any cards.

Playing

Card play follows the normal rules: eldest hand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if able; otherwise, they may play a card from any suit. The highest card of the led suit wins the trick, and the trick winner leads to the next. Alternative rules: The player holding the leads with that card. Some rules state that neither hearts nor the Black Lady may be led until the first heart has been discarded. According to Morehead, in club play, the player with the may be required to play it at the first opportunity by discarding or following a higher spade.
A innovation in modern Black Lady is the take-all or shooting the moon, whereby a player may aim to capture all the penalty cards; i.e., the Black Lady and all hearts. If he succeeds, he scores zero, while each opponent scores twenty-six penalty points. If he fails, he scores twenty-six penalty points as normal. Morehead gives the old scoring rule that no players score for the deal and the other alternative that the player who successfully shoots the moon scores twenty-six plus points.

Scoring

Apart from shooting the moon, the usual scoring system is employed with players scoring one penalty point for each heart taken and thirteen for taking the Black Lady. Game is 100 points. When the first player reaches this score, the game stops and players settle their scores.

Gameplay variations

Passing cards

Unlike the basic game of Hearts, card passing has always been a feature of Black Lady. It is also referred to as discarding, hence the earliest alternative name for Black Lady was Discard Hearts. The idea is that, before each hand begins, each player chooses three cards and passes them to another player. Cards are usually passed to the left, unlike the British game of Black Maria, where cards are passed to the right. Passing cards to the left is easier because you know something about the hand of the player who follows you whereas, in passing cards to the right, you have no information about the hand of the player to your left.
In the earliest rules, passing was always to the left. Today, there are many variations of passing:
There are some common variants to this play:
Shooting the moon, also known as a slam, take-all, getting control, capmangoe, or running the cards, is a very common scoring variation. If one player takes all the penalty cards on one deal, that player's score remains unchanged while 26 penalty points are added to the scores of each of the other players. This is known as playing by "Old Moon" rules. In the "New Moon" rules, the player subtracts 26 points from their own score instead of adding 26 to the others.
There are several sub-variations to these rules:
The main variants of Black Lady are Cancellation Hearts, Omnibus Hearts and Pink Lady.

Cancellation Hearts

Cancellation Hearts is first described in 1950 by Culbertson and is a variant designed for larger numbers of players, typically 6 to 11 players, using two decks shuffled together. If exactly the same card is played twice in one trick, the cards cancel each other out, and neither can win the trick. If two such pairs appear in the same trick, the whole trick is cancelled and the cards are rolled over to the winner of the next trick.

Omnibus Hearts

In 1950, Culbertson reported that Omnibus Hearts was "rapidly becoming the most popular
of Hearts games" and was so called because it included all the features found in different members of the Hearts family and Arnold states that it is "sufficiently different and popular" to justify being described as a separate game." In effect, Omnibus Hearts is really a variant of Black Lady to which has been added the bonus card of the which earns 10 plus points for the player who takes it in a trick. If a player takes all fifteen counters, he scores 26 plus points for the deal and the rest score zero. Arnold states that Omnibus Hearts is considered the best version of Hearts by many players. He refers to the capture of all counting cards as "hitting the moon, take-all or slam". The game ends when a player reaches or exceeds 100 penalty points, whereupon the player with the lowest score wins.

Pink Lady

Pink Lady is an "almost forgotten variant" that "doubles the fun of Black Lady", "adding interest and intensity." Its key feature is the addition of an extra high penalty card, the or Pink Lady, which scores 13 penalty points like her counterpart, the. There are now 38 penalty points to be avoided per deal. The presence of the Pink Lady makes the and as dangerous as their spade counterparts and forms a counter to the Black Lady, enabling a player saddled with one 'lady' the opportunity to even the score by offloading the other. Spadaccini, like Gibson, recommends playing to 100 points.

Black Jack

Black Jack is recorded by Foster as early as 1909 and has appeared sporadically in the literature since. The takes the place of the Black Lady but is worth 10 hearts or penalty points instead of thirteen. Moss calls it Black Jack Hearts. In early rules, the Black Jack may be discarded if its holder is void in the suit led. In later rules, he must discard the Black Jack before any other card if void in the led suit.

Other variants

General

With the exception of trying to shoot the moon, players attempt to discard high cards, especially high hearts or spades, and try to avoid winning points. This can either be accomplished by creating a void, or playing a high card last in a trick that has no points. Generally speaking, it is advantageous to play the highest card possible without winning the trick. Players particularly concentrate on getting rid of high cards in suits that they do not have padding low cards in. For example, if a player had the would not be much of an issue; they can play the four lower cards and hopefully exhaust another player's spades before being forced to play the. In contrast, if they only had, then they would be forced to play the the first time spades were led, with the risk that another player will respond with.

Passing

The main objectives of passing are to try to become "short" or "void" in a suit, and thus able to play off-suit when that suit is led; or to rid one's hand of "dangerous" cards that could force a player to take a trick containing penalty points, such as the Ace, King, or Queen of any suit. and are two of the most important cards to get rid of, because they can draw in. In addition, high hearts can leave the player defenseless once hearts are broken. Care must be taken in passing too many high cards which could allow the player receiving the cards to shoot the moon. When creating voids, it is best to do that in either clubs or diamonds, because players want to avoid receiving high hearts or spades without having any padding. For this reason spades lower than the Queen are typically not passed unless the player is attempting to shoot the moon.

Voids

A void is when a player does not have any cards of a certain suit. Generally this is a highly advantageous situation, because it prevents the player from winning any points in that suit, and provides a means to dispose of poor cards. These can be intentionally created with good passing strategy, or appear by themselves.

Bleeding spades

If a player does not have,, or, it is to that player's advantage to lead spades to try to force onto another player. This is also referred to as "smoking the Lady/Queen", in reference to the combat action of creating smoke in a closed area so that any enemy combatants hiding there would be forced to come out into the open. A player who has or but not, and with a large number of other spades, may feel that he is insulated from being forced to play or in any subsequent smoking play, and thus could also participate in smoking. Even the player that has the, provided he similarly has a lot of other spades may decide to "smoke himself" to empty all the other players of their spades, thus ironically insulating himself from being smoked in the future – or perhaps to get the game into the situation in which another player has a "dry" spade that is or, in which case he could start a trick with in full knowledge that some other player has this dry or and will be forced to play it, taking the 's points.

Shooting the moon

Attempting to shoot the moon is often a risky strategy, as failure to capture every single penalty card will result in the remaining penalty points being added to one's score.
Shooting the moon can rapidly change the direction of a game in a player's favour. A good hand for shooting the moon should contain significant high cards, in addition to a long run of a single suit that can be used to keep the lead once the other players have run out of that suit.

Footnotes

Literature