I have similar problems, especially since whist and bridge players have been playing since they were tiny tots and clearly can't understand why you can't understand the mechanics of leading and bidding. On the Hearts front, I got very confused when Microsoft brought out their electronic Hearts game, as it had different rules to the version I first learnt. I still lose more often than I think is fair. Bah.
"especially since whist and bridge players have been playing since they were tiny tots"
Yes, it does seem like that doesn't it? Even in Albatross, when we spread the hands out at the end of the round and do a post-mortem on what we should have done, there's a lot of talk of cross-ruffing and suchlike which still goes over my head. Of course trumps are another thing Hearts doesn't train you to deal with (unless you're feeling really evil and decide to play with hearts as trumps!).
I've never had too much trouble with MS Hearts; the strange "breaking hearts" rule is occasionally a pain but doesn't seem to bother me too often.
The really evil thing was the game we used to play at school after we got bored with Hearts. It was still recognisably Hearts, but it had all manner of thoroughly nasty extra rules bolted on, mainly aimed at increasing the vindictive nastiness available to the players (which wasn't in short supply in the original Hearts in any case!). We eventually renamed it "You Bastard".
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On the Hearts front, I got very confused when Microsoft brought out their electronic Hearts game, as it had different rules to the version I first learnt. I still lose more often than I think is fair.
Bah.
Yes, it does seem like that doesn't it? Even in Albatross, when we spread the hands out at the end of the round and do a post-mortem on what we should have done, there's a lot of talk of cross-ruffing and suchlike which still goes over my head. Of course trumps are another thing Hearts doesn't train you to deal with (unless you're feeling really evil and decide to play with hearts as trumps!).
I've never had too much trouble with MS Hearts; the strange "breaking hearts" rule is occasionally a pain but doesn't seem to bother me too often.
The really evil thing was the game we used to play at school after we got bored with Hearts. It was still recognisably Hearts, but it had all manner of thoroughly nasty extra rules bolted on, mainly aimed at increasing the vindictive nastiness available to the players (which wasn't in short supply in the original Hearts in any case!). We eventually renamed it "You Bastard".
I didn't play hearts long enough to invent new rules. I moved school and played gin rummy instead. I lost, lots.