Games for When You’re Bored at Work

Great games for when you’re bored at work are simple card games like Hearts, Spades, and Solitaire. These games require strategy that keeps the brain sharp while being fast enough to not eat into your workday.

Having a deck of cards at your desk isn’t always the best idea, which is why playing online, such as a Hearts game at Hearts.co, is perfect for a slow day at the office. Below, we’ll talk about what makes each of these games so fantastic.

Spades

Playing Spades is a fantastic game for four players. It requires teamwork and the ability to read your teammates during the game. The goal is to be the first team to 200 or sometimes 500 points.

Each player gets thirteen cards, and before play begins, players must bid for how many tricks they believe they can win. The team bids are combined into a single number. If the team fails to win that many tricks, they get zero points. If they meet the goal, they get ten points per trick won and one point for each additional trick.

Play begins when one player lays down a card and the other players must then play a card of the same suit. The high card takes the trick.

As the name of the game implies, Spades are a trump suit. They can only be played when Spades are the lead suit or when the player has no cards of the lead suit. A Spade beats any other card, except a higher Spade, and takes the trick.

After all tricks are played, the teams count and score accordingly, and the next round begins. A game with a similar mechanic is Hearts.

Hearts

In most games, points are good–but that’s not the case in Hearts. The goal of Hearts is to be the player with the lowest number of points at the end of the game. A Heart card equals one point, and the Queen of Spades is worth thirteen.

Players play tricks just as they do in Spades. Hearts are not a trump suit, but may be played only after someone has ‘broken Hearts.’ This means another player could not follow suit, so they threw a Heart into the middle.

The winner of the trick is the player with the highest card of the lead suit. The player who wins the trick takes all the cards, including any Hearts. The same applies to the Queen of Spades.

At the end of the round, points are tallied and the next game begins. This continues until a player reaches a pre-set score, such as one hundred. For an even simpler game, Solitaire is a great way to learn how to play cards.

Solitaire

The name is not a coincidence, as this game is played alone. Players have seven stacks of cards laid out side by side. The first stack holds one card, the second two, and so on, until the last stack with seven.

The goal is to arrange columns of cards beneath these stacks. Players must alternate colors and place cards in descending order from King down to two. New columns can be made by moving a King onto an empty stack space.

A player wins if all cards of all stacks are revealed and have been placed in the correct order. Not all games of Solitaire are winnable, and a player may find a point where they are stuck. This is part of the challenge, but it's estimated that 70% to 90% of games can be won if played perfectly.

Practice Makes Perfect

Playing these games with actual playing cards takes time. Fortunately, sites like Hearts.co and Spades.co allow players to play instantly–and for free! Opponents are automated and play quickly, and the rapid pace allows players to see many games in the same amount of time as one real-life game. This makes Spades and Hearts the perfect online games for when you're feeling bored!