Hearts program cheats! I've specifically caught the game cheating. Passed Ace & King Spades to the right & they ended up across the table. I think this is BULL I would expect a program to play by the rules!

This is an interesting forum. I have been playing MS Hearts off and on for years. Periodically I get tired of it for a month or two but I always come back to it. I currently win 55% of the time (694 out of 1245 since I last reinstalled Windows) and I usually shoot the moon at least once per game. In fact, shooting the moon is the only way I can consistently win. Playing defensively doesn't do it.

The AIs in the Windows 7 version seem to play better than in XP and earlier. Back then I used to shoot the moon a ridiculous amount of the time. Two or three times per game wasn't all that unusual. The game seems more difficult now. In fact, I think the AIs now cooperate somewhat against the human player. For example, very often when one AI is in the lead, another will absorb points like crazy, as if deliberately trying to reach 100 before I can regain the lead. The AIs will avoid giving points to the leader. I have to very deliberately play hearts and the queen against the leader myself because the AIs won't.

Conversely, if I have developed a solid lead, the AI scores will tend to rise slowly in tandem; they will all be in the 80s and 90s before one of them finally hits 100.

I feel like these are pretty reliable patterns, but I'm not fanatical enough about the game to keep data to prove it. I just enjoy playing. However, I will go out on a limb and say there are definitely two things that happen WAAY too often to be random:

One is the 2, 3, 4 and 5 of hearts being distributed among all four players. This perfect distribution just doesn't happen all that often in the real world.

The other thing is that it is significantly easier to shoot the moon on the first hand of a game,  especially after a day or two of not playing. I have come to think of shooting the moon almost as a standard opening to a session.

I wouldn't say MS Hearts cheats as in not letting you win. I think a reasonably good player could win 25% of the time. A better player who knows how to shoot the moon properly can do a lot better than that. But I don't think the game is entirely straight either.

Shooting the moon five times in one game is impossible because if you shoot four times you win.

You're probably right, but maybe someone will read our comments and act on them.  What I think most of us are looking for - and I am definitely looking for - is a card game that works the way playing an actual,  non-digital game does.  The shuffle is random, and your win percentage is based on a combination of intelligent play and dumb luck!  I don't want some invisible puppet master helping or hurting my odds, or manipulating the play in any way.

Me too, east usually controls the game, but whatever one does east still manages to get you, something should be done but it won't