Solitaire collection events cheating

And there you have it...words of "wisdom" from one of the top "players" in the world...the inimitable JoanPesh.

"One of the most common methods of doing this is to open a second account, playing the games on the second account, writing down the moves and then playing the game on the first account. Then a 30-game-event will take about an hour."

Aha!!!  Just as I thought. Play out each game on one account, record the best moves, then replay on a second account.  Now...if that is all you do, then the second account game play will go fast. However, I've seen other players seemingly start and then not finish for several hours, then come back to finish fast. That makes me think they don't bother to do this for every game, just the harder games. So they run all the easy and medium games and maybe some hard games, but then go to another account to run the expert games and come back later to finish the initial game. Or maybe they just split the time to throw off anyone watching. 

So, yes...I too could do this...and it would move me up into the top 3 of my local board. I did the last Solitaire World Tour in 90 minutes and was in 2nd place on my local board...and the previous World tour in 85 minutes and was in 3rd place on my local board.  Those places held for an hour or two, but I've ended up in 5th place in both contests. The winners in my local 100 were around 60 minutes. It's funny that there are only a handful of people doing this, but it's pretty consistent, so I'm guessing around 5% of the people playing world wide are doing at least this level of "tricking".  5% of 400,000 equals 20,000.  And since they would have at least 2 accounts, that's 40,000.  

I will admit that it's quite interesting that JoanPesh did not mention macro's but did mention bots...and droids. Yeah, I kind of thought there was another level to the game...where the top 100 players were competing at bot tweaking more than competing at solving solitaire puzzles.

Oh...I think I mentioned before...once recently my local 100 had JoanPesh playing in it. You shouldn't be surprised to learn that was well ahead of everyone else. 

Too bad JoanPesh did not discuss the recent player that won with a time of 1 min and 36 seconds.  Hey Joan...what happened there?

Hi Daniel and all,

I was interested in your comment about the "5%" .  I have actually finished nearly every recent tournament in the top 5%.  I have now won 7 times (if my time is under 1 hour 15 minutes I have a good chance of winning my own group  -  I have never run into the world leaders luckily).  I actually think it's a much smaller percentage of people who...how shall I say...play a different tournament than the straight-forward one we play.  I think anyone over the hour mark is playing the regular tournament.  It's when you start to get under 1 hour that I think people are using "alternative" ways of winning.  The hour and a few minutes means you're playing fast and always allows for the one game I will inevitably make a big mistake in!

I know no matter how fast I play that I will never break the top 100 playing my way.  I am happy to improve my own times and like seeing what percentile I fall under under with the usual 400,000 people who play.

Although my fastest time for a World Tour 5000 is still over 1 hr 10 minutes, I have been a few times in the top percentile of the whole tournament (once landed at .56% of the tournament).   So I guess I just wanted to say that great majority of the "5%" are probably playing straight- forward tournaments but it's a much smaller percentile (like .1%) who actually play "alternative" ways...

Hi,

I have given up trying to compete with these cheats, I notice now that some people in my local group are getting low times. I just play it each day and not care about my time, just that I finish it.

" If you have only made it once to to third or fifth place and you'd like to score higher, just keep playing..."

Well, I have kept playing. On vaction now, so i'll have to skip it. Played last week and was in 1st place in my local group when I finished....unfortunately, I sank to 4th by the time the game ended the next day. So...I'll keep playing and hoping either I improve or I hit a slow local group.  By local group, I mean the 100 players starting around the same time I did. 

I'm still just playing...no tricks. I did notice that if you quit before finishing a game...and come back to that game...your time will include all the time from the minute you first started. Even when you are out of the game, Microsoft doesn't care and keeps counting your time if you come back and restart the game much later and finish it. 

I've had a few games where I finished in less than a minute...including some freecell games where it only took seconds.

About a month ago, I had PaltryAmoeba564 in my local group. He/she was playing along and scoring more than I was...obviously, but in the time it took me to accumulate 60 minutes of game time...he only had 25 minutes of game time. So....she is taking long periods between games...maybe to set up his bot? I kept checking the scoreboard...PaltyAmoeba did not score all at once but piece by piece with breaks between each game. Kind of like me, but getting more games done in less time, but playing only 25 minutes over the course of just over an hour.

I wanted to respectfully disagree with both gossamer tea85 and rusty wheelchar because I think their posts are discouraging to especially newer players.   I think the mistake would be to assume that your approach to solving problems is the standard for everyone else--we're all different, with different approaches to problem solving.  It's a good thing in the real world.  The good news for playing solitaire is that application specific problem solving is a skill that can be developed by everyone.  When I started, it would take me a long time to work through the expert puzzles--no kidding, sometimes days.  But now I have almost 100 expert dash badges and when I have the time to get that far in a tournament, I collect them almost like clockwork (except on spider--that's hard).  If you have only made it once to to third or fifth place and you'd like to score higher, just keep playing, especially the dailies and the star club.  It's great practice, and for me, when I was going through cancer treatments, it was a nice quiet and immobile activity to keep me entertained while I was recovering.  Hopefully the fun and relaxation you get out of it isn't adversely affected by where you score in your grouping.

(And it is absolutely possible to finish a free cell game in well under 10 seconds--not if you have to clear the board, but if you have to clear the 5 of clubs, for example, you can occasionally do that with just a few clicks.  The key is paying attention to the objective of each game and playing to that objective, rather than playing the same way you would to clear the board.  Good luck!)

The clock does not run between completed games. Verify for yourself by keeping track of each game's time and comparing to your total score.  There are/was issues with the timer continuing to run if you quit a game without finishing it.

If the clock doesn't run after you quit a game without finishing...that allows you time to go on youtube and attempt to find the game and a solution. Or go to a separate account and try to win just that one game.  Once found, you can come back hours later and restart the game and finish with a much better time than if you had sat there and tried to get figure it out by yourself the first time. 

On yesterday's Hard Road, there were some really tough games...actually the whole thing was pretty rough for me. I was way back in the pack early on but slogged my way through some particularly tough Spider and Freecell games...maybe rated "hard", but tougher than many expert level games I've played in previous tournaments. Finally, I finished with a pathetic time, slower than my typical World Tour time, and checked the local leader board....I had crawled up to 5th. There were lot's of people just below me with scores of 3750...one game short of finishing and much better times. I was sure that my position would drop like a rock as they finished. One hour later, still in 5th...two hours, still in 5th, 6 hours later, still in 5th, 10 hours later, still in 5th....and at the close of the contest, I finished 6th. One person had passed everyone to take 1st. I have to wonder if they did exactly as I suggested above...got to a really tough game they couldn't do and quit...went to youtube or a second account...got the answer to the puzzle, came back late in the contest to restart the one bad game and take the win.  

Wow...aren't they clever. 

I also noticed that JoanPesh played near the end of the 24 hrs....and won....again...with an insane time. 

I take pleasure from the fact that I can do all the puzzles...even if they take me a lllooooonnnnngggg time.