Vista hearts definitely captures many human traits than XP before, nonetheless the programming is not perfect. PS I have recently acquired a Vista pc and find it much more difficult to win, which seems to indicate that a bias was written in to one or both versions. I have never played Hearts against human opponents and would be very interested to learn of the experiences of those who have. That, however, only compares me with the "players" that the softies created and I suspect that if I were to play with three competent humans my rating would take a big tumble. The question that remains for me is this: how good a player am I? Based on results alone, using the XP version over thousands of games, it seems that I am reasonably good, with a win percentage of over 60% calculated over the last 150 or so games. that success in playing the game does not depend solely on what should be the only two criteria: the human player's expertise, and the luck of the draw. Most of those who have replied seem to agree that the softwriters have included a degree of bias, whether by design or accident, and this reinforces what I have long suspected, i.e. I have not shot the moon four times in a row, which I manage in XP on a few occasions. I think Vista hearts is more difficult than the XP version. It prevents you from switching strategies after you are burnt by the program. Keeping low hearts can be the worst thing you can do when you have a bad hand. This is only because I have figured out that chances of shooting the moon are actually increased when the program is "out to get you". I am maintaining a 60% win rate after 220 games. In general I have noticed that the computer players aggressively lead spades any time that I hold the queen, otherwise they use low card leads in long suits. I got stuck with the queen five times (!) and shot the moon twice to squeak out a win. I just finished a game where I was passed or had the queen of spades in every hand but one (the one was a keeper). I suspect that it is the programmers are cheating Vista Hearts players. You're never out of contention until someone goes over 100.Ĭheating is something that only humans can do. I've come back from being in last place by over 50 points to win games. Don't pass the queen of spades (and higher ones) with four or more spades in your hand. Just play safe if you can and if you don't have a virtual lock on the shoot. The single biggest factor in my raising my win percentage from an original 50% to above 60% is that I don't try as much to shoot the moon, both on the pass and in the play. 6) Some tips: - Don't play angry at the game. Don't trust paranoid explanations for what is more likely just to be statistics in action. 5) Runs of good and bad luck can look like cheating. I don't think it's good strategy, but it isn't cheating. In my experience, this has been on hands where the computer has a reasonable chance to shoot the moon and is keeping the option open. 4) I too have had a computer player refuse to drop a queen of spades on me. If card counting strikes you as cheating, you are just a very poor card player and should never try bridge unless you want your partner to divorce or strangle you. Of course the comnputer player will "know" when the only unplayed spade that it doesn't hold is an ace or king, and will lead out the queen. 3) The one thing the computer does well is count cards that have been played. My computer opponents frequently pass low spades that's just stupid strategy. If I'm winning most of the time against three computer players, and microsoft cheats, then the programmers are so bad that Vista would never even boot up, no matter how bad the program is at hearts. 2) The computer stinks as a hearts player. I can't get above 61% (nearly 800 games so far), but I attribute this mostly to chance and my shortcomings as a player. 1) I don't believe that the program cheats in the normal sense of the term.
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