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...

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... 

Yeah...my 5% estimate was too much. I typically land in the top 5% and I don't cheat....and I'm not that good. I complete all the puzzles, but with times of 90 minutes (range from 85 on up), I haven't made the top 3 in my local groups. 4th several times. So...more likely the cheaters are concentrated in the top 2%. And not every cheater is good at it. I'm also sure there are non cheaters who can finish close to 1 hour. 

I do not play with a group of "friends". If I did, and if I wanted to beat them bad enough, I might be tempted to open two accounts to gain that advantage.  So...just because normal cheating will never let you beat the likes of JoanPesh doesn't mean that people have no incentive to cheat at the lower level if it means beating the others in their Friends group.

I also usually end up in the top 5% unless I run into a game that just stumps me.  I feel good if my time is about 50% longer than the 100th score in the world ranking.  I wish Microsoft would allow us to see all of the scores/times rather than restrict us us to seeing just our group times.  I do have second account, which I use occasionally and replay a few games in an event.  From this I have learned that the vast majority of players do not even come remotely close to finishing an event.

Seems pointless to cheat at this, not like you get a tangible prize

I'ts not a question of cheating because there is nothing to win, you only get the bracelets for achievements within your group and not for being in the top hundred. To understand what's going on here you should make a list of the top twenty and their times over the past two or three months, also visite the FaceBook Site for Microsoft Solitair Collection because there you will find the answer.