Solitaire collection events cheating

I have been doing the challenges both as a regular member and premium member, and haven't seen any difference, so don't think premium members are being given any advantage.  I have played 136 games, with 16 firsts, 21 seconds, and 22 thirds, and I do not do any cheating.  I am by nature a very analytical person, and have seen patterns in the cards that have helped me over time get faster. Some of my observations are:

I am not positive this is right, but it appears to me that the clock does not start until you click on the first card, so I can look at the cards in games like FreeCell or Pyramid and get a strategy before I start. Even in TriPeaks planning ahead can help.

Going back can be smart, even if it takes a little extra time.  Like in TriPeaks, you may try one combination and think it worked well. But you may find if you take fewer cards on the first play, the second play has allowed you to take a lot more cards off the board. Or you are getting toward the end and you could pick one of two cards at the end of a string.  If both will expose another card, I will often try both.  Just remember if you are doing a game to beat a score, you need to go back to the start of the run to get the full score.

In Pyramid, I almost never play two cards from the deck to make a match.  I leave them for use later.  Sometimes I find that after playing a card from the deck to make a match on the pyramid, doing a match from the deck helps open up a card that was not available to be before. For example, I play a 5 on an 8, and it exposes a 7.  Although no six is available, the two cards showing are a match and there was a 6 one card back, so I play the match on the deck and use the 6 to play on the 7.  Usually I only do that late in the game.  And before I start any Pyramid I look for the two cards in the second row from the top.  I know those cards will need a match, so I try to preserve the matches and avoid playing a match earlier from the deck if a match is available later from the cards on the pyramid.

That being said, there has to be cheating or AI going on.  My time for tonight's game is 49:06 which puts me in second place thus far.  The first place time is someone who has 3-4 times as many high scores as I do and has a time of 33:39.  That player had done twice as many events as I have, and perhaps by the time I have done twice as many as now, I will be faster.  So I don't think he/she was cheating.  But that 33:39 is 7 minutes out of the top 100, and the best time in the top 100 is 10:44.  That means about 30 seconds per challenge.  FreeCell for me is quite easy most of the time (you can see all the cards before you start) and some challenges aren't very hard, even the medium ones.  One FreeCell challenge tonight I did in 6 seconds.  But Spider gives you no such advantages unless it is a "finish the deck" game where all cards are showing.  If no cards are showing in Spider, I find it hard to believe those, along with others where few or no cards are showing, can be done fast enough to get the times that are being achieved.

Sorry for the long rambling but I wanted to share that some people can get relatively good times without cheating. Hopefully some of the ideas I mentioned above will be helpful to others to get their times down.  Practice doesn't make perfect, but you can learn from it.

I appreciate your good and honest words to me, thank you.  When I receive my final scores the following day, I always go to the Leaderboards all the way to the beginning.  Let's say there were 30 challenges divided between all card games.  For a person to have 1st place and to have finished all 30 challenges in less than 25 minutes is quite suspicious to me.  Our family has been premium members in several games and we all work the challenges associated to our likings.  The issue of cheating is the strongest in the solitaire collection.  We are well aware that some of the games require a simple card movement to win the game, but those are generally not during the challenge time frames.  We enjoy playing honestly and thought we had found it here. Thank you again for your compassion and understanding.

At the end, go to the leaderboards the day after the tournament and see the top players.  Some have 30 games in under 25 minutes.  The person you are speaking about is not one of the cheaters we are speaking about.

Hi Dianne,  I agree entirely but I fail to see what Microsoft can do if it's an open competition. I paid for premium long before the events started just to stop annoying adverts. Of course it's bots or nerds whatever that can write a proramme to solve games. 'Oh! well done, I can know be #1 without even playing'.  Recently I was away from home without my computer. I had my Samsung tablet and played on that. I was faster on the touch screen but not fast enough to improve my position, usually in the  12-20 range. I'm resigned to the fact that I will never be #1 because of the cheats.  I just play to exercise my brain. Today I'm #12 with over 10 hours to go. There are at least five cheats below me now. One has done 29 games in 53 mins.

Gossamer Tea85, you have the right idea that playing is to have fun and exercise your brain. Microsoft probably isn't interested in investing much (if any) time in dealing with the cheats.  But, as someone else said, the "cheats" are playing a different game and they can compete in their version of the game.   I think each person should decide what they want to get out of it and if it stops being fun, don't play any more.

At the same time, it is possible to finish all the challenges in less than an hour without cheating. It takes practice, learning the strategies, having a certain type of mathematical/analytical mind, and some luck.  I have occasionally done the challenges in under an hour and tonight was just over an hour (one hour and five minutes).  My luck tonight came from only getting stuck on one challenge for a short time, and finishing all the expert challenges in under five minutes. The other part of the luck is that I didn't get anyone in my group of 100 who almost always comes in first or second place. Because of the huge number of people that play the game on any day, there are lots of "Groups" going on. Tonight there were over 3,000 groups.  I am currently in first place and may stay there although there are a few people who haven't finished who might pass me.  And I guarantee you that there was no cheating on my part.  

It may not be realistic that you will be #1, but it won't be just because of the cheats.  Maybe as you play more, you will get better.  Or maybe your mind doesn't work in a way that makes these games easy to do in a short time.  I know I will never be a great artist or musician no matter how much I try because my brain doesn't work that way. I will never be a professional athlete because my body isn't built that way.  But, going back to what you said in your post, just enjoy it and aim for the top of your 12-20 range.  If you succeed in that, set your sights higher, or just have fun and do your best.

You guys should google "Microsoft Solitaire Collection Events" cheats, codes and hacks. There are even videos on youtube for every single one of the games an today's event.  Yep, there is definitely some cheating going on.