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!

I have observed cheating, too.  I think the goal of the program and the reason for the cheating is to keep the home player at roughly 25% of the wins.  I can confirm/have experienced every example you quoted. 

In addition - if you quit a game, you can expect a really punishing hand in your next one or several uses of the game.

I have noticed that with a regular frequency, each player is given a hand that's so good, it is impossible to lose the game.  I suspect that it happens when someone's average is slipping lower than the programmer wants it to.

I have also noticed that East almost always has low card value hearts.

I almost never have tricks taken by West, which would give Home an advantage.

My husband says that if you play erratically, it makes it more difficult for the system to sport a pattern and use it against you.  I can't confirm this, because he is too annoyed to play it very often, but he does win a higher percentage of games than I do, so I suspect he may be right.

If anyone knows of a Hearts game where the shuffle and deal are random rather than controlled, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks!

I found no Hearts in Applets, just Paint, Regedit, SysTray, and Wordpad.

Sorry Jim, but it's bad enough having a free game that takes the p**s. Why on earth would anyone want to pay for the same game from an online website?

If you think MS Hearts cheats, try Hoyle Hearts. It deals the same hands over and over and loads you worse than MS does. Also cheats by reneging and changing passes. When will these software developers, as well as their bosses, learn that this is not logical for people will spread the word and save their money by not purchasing such junk.