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March 23, 2015

Hearts Marathon

Well, it took a long time, but I finally managed to complete my 1000-game Hearts marathon.  I regret I didn't note the date I started, but it was over a year ago. (I checked past Hearts posts to estimate,but couldn't find anything)

Going into the last 100 games, I had a winning percentage of 54%, but I had an extremely bad run and wound up, as you can see, at 52%. I tried to play at least one game each day but found myself playing 3-4 or even more once I reached 500 games and started wanting it to just be over.

There were times when I'd start a new game, then catch the Queen of Spades a couple of times in a row or have my quest to Shoot the Moon ruined and be so far behind, I'd just exit and give up on the game.  What was especially maddening was trying to Shoot the Moon and playing the Queen on the very last hand and have two of the other players lay down the Ace and King and spoiling my hand. 

Which leads me to the firm belief that the game "cheats".  Oh, I know it's just a program, but I do think the code for the game has the computer players "collaborating" and it seems the better I'm doing, that's when "they" do it.  As in my example above, it seems most human players would slough off their Ace and King of Spades when they could earlier in the game as so to not catch the Queen. 

Anyway...I think I'm done with Hearts for a while, but I don't think I'll delete the results and start anew.  No, I believe that when I get over my being fed-up with the game, I'll start again from where I left off, maybe extend the marathon to 2500 games!

Bet you can't wait for THAT post, huh?

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