An introduction to the Dirty Nasty Filthy Hearts variant of Hartenjagen

Unlike playing in the online Hartenjagen environment, where everyone plays using the standard rules, playing the game in real life allows for game play variation. As the game becomes more widespread, more and more people come up with their own variants. Though there is absolutely nothing wrong with the current set of rules governing the game, in the long run, the rising popularity of Hartenjagen variants is actually a good thing. Take the so-called Dirty Nasty Filthy Hearts variant from Florida for example. This variant allows for the establishment of more tactical nuance as well as improves the overall mechanics of the game.

Dirty Nasty Filthy Hearts starts just like any other standard Hartenjagen game. This variant follows all the general rules like the use of a standard 52-card deck, passing three, leading with the two of clubs, using hearts as penalty cards, and shooting the moon. However, that’s where the similarities end. The Dirty Nasty Filthy Hearts variant of the game incorporates a lot of twists. One of these twists features the addition of penalty cards similar in characteristic to that of the queen of spades. These new penalty cards take the form of the queens of the remaining suits, bringing the total number of penalty cards, including the hearts, to 17.

Though these new penalty cards minimizes the fear of getting the queen of spades, they do add to the fear of getting queens altogether. However, the queen of spades still remains to be the biggest scoring penalty card of all because the rest of the queens only give a score of 13. Aside from the addition of new penalty cards the Dirty Nasty Filthy Hearts variant of Hartenjagen also features the addition of another card taking the form of the Jack of Diamonds. The Jack of Diamonds or the little man as they term it in Florida removes 10 penalty points from your score. This means that players unlucky enough to fail in shooting the moon can minimize their losses by hoping to take this special card in a trick.

Another big difference in the Dirty Nasty Filthy Hearts variant is the rules regarding “Shooting the moon.” In this variant, successfully shooting the moon means winning the game. That’s right! In this variant of Hartenjagen, shooting the moon has much more rewards. However, these rewards are offset by the fact that shooting the moon is significantly much harder in this variant than doing so when playing standard Hartenjagen rules.