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!

You are absolutely right. This game totally reflects the evil minds of the Microsoft company's spirits. This game likes that not you play the game but the game play you folly around.  Microsoft, what a evil company it is!

Here's something I meant to include in my earlier reply.  I believe that MSHearts examines the cards that the human player passes and then decides what it will pass to him.  I have no proof but here's why I think it.

Recently I abandoned the strategy of always trying to void myself in Clubs during the pass.  Now I try to retain low cards in every suit.  Later I noticed that I had not been passed a Club in nearly 4 complete games.  Once I started to pass Clubs I began to get them passed to me again.

Not scientific but weird, don't you think?

@ FormerMicrosoftEmployee - We get shills for Microsoft in these MSHearts forums from time to time.  They come here, explain in vague terms how there are patterns that can be learned, how flaws in the program can be exploited.  Sometimes they will claim a win rate of 85% and usually they will suggest that we complainers just don't know how to play the game.

Some of your statements are interesting.  In the final paragraph you say that "good player could win 25% of the time" but earlier you said you win 55% of the time.  I have never read where someone quoted a  figure as low as 25%.  Some people say they have hit a wall at 38% but for many people it seem to be around 55% when the program starts to fight back the only way it knows how.  Recently when I resurrected my old Athlon system so I could play MSHearts with the cards face-up I could not get past 60% even though I could see all the cards.  More about that later.  With my Win 7 laptop I was stuck at 55% until I started dumping.

You say the "cutesy play" (2-3-4-5 Hearts) happens too often.  I suspect you of being disingenuous because if you have played 1245 games then there are many other things you must have noticed by now.  Here are several examples: 

1. the holder of the QS is void in something (usually diamonds, sometimes clubs), you have the 4 and the other players have the 2 and 3;
2. singleton A or K or Q of Spades on a hold hand;
3. singleton A or K or Q on a passing hand, you pass it and you get one or both of the ones you didn't have passed to you;
4. receive A-K-Q Spades in the deal in consecutive hands.  The odds against this are astronomical but it has happened to me 3 times in the past 8 days;
5. get the Queen Spades dealt in 8 consecutive hands (some people report a higher number) but never, ever play 8 consecutive hands without getting her in the deal;
6. you have the Q Spades and 5 protectors and all of the remaining Spades are in one hand;
7. one of the bots attempts to shoot the moon, all you have are have are low cards and the other bots are sloughing off their high cards;
8. one bot busts himself so that another will win;
9. one bot busts another so the third one will win;
10. one bot hits 99 and stays there until you are no longer the low score;
11. all 3 bots team up to pound points at the human player even though he already has the high score;
12. occasionally you will be dealt a Shoot-The-Moon hand that is embarrassingly easy to win.  I mean, when was the last time you finessed the 7 of Hearts past a human player?

If you played the game with the cards face-up like I have you would see for yourself that  the bots trade cards among themselves after the play has begun.  I know this for certain because I saw it twice and suspected it many times.  Playing with the cards exposed is a real treat because you can see how the cards are placed in exactly the right place to sting you.  Frequently you can plot an escape from a jam that you could never do if you could not see the cards.  But just as often, you will see a situation that is hopeless.  

For example: a few weeks ago I was cruising to an easy victory.  I had 22 points, all of the bots were over 70.  Then after 3 consecutive 20-plus points hands it was over and I had lost.  I could see the cards and I could not defend myself.  

The complaints in this forum and others such as Mrs B's are not so much about winning and losing as they are about how you lose.  If the game had a random deal and winning & losing came down to personal skill & dumb luck no one would complain.  But the deal isn't random.  It's not even a deal.  It's a fixed apportioning of the cards to keep the human player's win rate within a certain range.   And it apparently was done this way because there isn't much AI in the program.

Since you are playing the Win 7 version now I suggest that you clear your stats and start dumping the games that are lost causes.  Since I started doing that I am at 47-0 and the fun is just starting.  The game has no way to fight back except for the fixed apportioning of cards and most games are simply a travesty.  I am seeing "deals" that never, ever happen in games played with real cards with human beings.  Getting A-K-Q of Spades in consecutive hands should never happen within a human lifetime but it happens in Win 7 Hearts.  Other people who have been dumping longer than me and are up in the range of hundreds of wins versus zero defeats have reported otherworldly "deals".  

Have fun.

The hearts game in Win 7 absolutely cheats.

It's simply not within the bounds of probability to be saddled with some permutation of A,K, or Q of spades (with little other spade support) nearly every hand. And I've never seen IRL the number of times where one suit would be completely split between two players and the other player can get under every card you have plus one of the other two players conveniently has the Queen of spades.

The other typical tactic will have one player getting excellent hands the entire game taking almost no points and even if you play perfectly, down to the wire, on one of the last hands it it will either give you the Death Spade deal/pass or have that low man shoot the moon.

When you start kissing a 52% win rate the program becomes too frustrating to enjoy as it's too obvious it's screwing you by stacking the deck against you. 

It gets to the point where every deal feels like you've seen the same thing one too many times.

The funny thing is that, programming wise, it would probably be easier to write an excellent computer player given true random deals than to to write all those different deck stacking rules and contingencies.   

Playing a more random card deal like the hearts game on vex.net feel completely different and not suspect.