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've had perfect games before because I have a program that flips all the opponents card so you can see what is in their hand. That is how I know this game can and does cheat you.

Hate to be THAT guy, but a 'perfect' game consists of only 4 consecutive moon shots.  26 x 4 = 104 which is end of game.  Have also done this - don't expect to repeat.

I don't think many people have said that the deals are biased, Garrett, that's not the issue - and I think most people would agree that the deals are more or less random (although I know some would disagree). The issues are far more about things like the 3 cards which are passed on, and the game play itself, which all too often reveals that the bot players know what's in your hand before gameplay could possibly have given them any clue.

One great example is when you pass low hearts, or other low cards,  because you are going for "shooting the moon". So often you will get low hearts passed back to you, completely messing up the plan before gameplay has even begun. This would never happen in a "real" game. If you have a lot of very high cards, including some high hearts, enabling you to try for "shooting the moon", then this by definition means that the other hands have lower cards and they would naturally seek to offload their higher cards or to try to clear a suit. Normally your opponents could only conclude that a player is shooting the moon once gameplay has begun and then take countermeasures.  But they would never get rid of very valuable low hearts in advance in that situation - it would be suicidal in a real game. They would only pass on low hearts in that situation if they knew what cards you had passed over, thereby indicating that you are going for the lot.

I think what most people find so frustrating about Microsoft Hearts is that the bot players are just plain dumb - it's so easy to beat them most of the time - and then Microsoft's coding compensates for this by cheating, especially once your win percentage goes much above 60%. With all the coding power at their disposal, why couldn't Microsoft just program this game so that the bot players are just a bit more clever, so giving us a real (and fair) test ?

I have played Hearts on a few platforms, and some of them are even more frustrating, not because they cheat, but because the bot players are just too damned clever - it's like playing Deep Blue at Chess. I haven't found one which faithfully simulates a real game against real people yet. They are all either too difficult, too easy, or they cheat.

This thread has been going for while now, and I am surprised there is still interest in it. I think the fact that Microsoft Hearts cheats is now pretty well established !

Hello.  As many people have explained here and elsewhere, it's not about how often one loses.  Of course, all things being equal the human player should win 25 per cent of the time.  The thing that makes people mad is the way you lose.  I'm not going to repeat everything that has been said but here are a few.

I played over 100 games of the XP version of MS Hearts with the cards face up.  Even with knowing, my win percentage topped out at 60-65 percent.  Some hands you can plot it out beforehand, if I play this, they will play this etc.  You can see how you're going to get hammered and there's nothing you can do to avoid it.  

One face-up game was memorable.  I had 21 or 22 points, the three bots each had over 70.  Cruising to an easy victory, right?  Nope!   I did not win that game.  

One fellow over at Mrs B's Blog actually kept a record of how many times each of the 52 cards was dealt as a singleton in it's suit.  Guess which card was the winner by a wide margin.  That's right, Herself.

These days my PC at home has Windows 10 with no Hearts game.  My Ubuntu PC has Hearts and it plays OK.  At work I have Windows 7 on my employer's laptop and I sometimes play Hearts on my lunch.  To make it interesting I cancel a game when it gets out of hand and it doesn't count as a loss.  Why?  Because if you have a winning percentage of 100 the game will fight back the only way it can.  What do you think the odds are for getting dealt A-K-Q of Spades in consecutive hands in two consecutive games?  

Have a great day.

Will Shank

Etobicoke