Rigged!
The Red Sox are awesome! I could not be happier. I am almost ready to get the broom out of the closet! Unfortunately this is a –EV proposition for me. The wife and I have been watching the games together so no Poker! I wonder what odds Vegas was giving for a Red Sox comeback in the Yankees series. I think that could have been some serious +EV!
Since I am not playing Poker I figure I would contemplate on a serious issue. I have been at several tables and the conversation goes like this:
Fish1: Damn! My AA were beaten by a flush again! Party Poker is rigged! They just
put close hands together so the rake will be higher!
Fish2: yeah! I know what you mean! Damn rigged sites!
Fish1: I know man! I do not know why I play!
BB: Yeah, my friend has the secret code to let you automatically win hands!
Fish2: Can I have it!
Fish1: Me too man! Send it to my account!
I have long tried to figure out what would give people this impression. Since I have never played at a B&M I cannot compare the two but the following things come to mind.
The easiest thing is to totally dismiss these claims. The people making them are obviously losing and looking for some rhyme or reason. Instead of looking internally and asking themselves why they did not slow down when their opponent suddenly came alive when the flush appeared they blame the software. It is a common problem in IT and I think in the Online Poker world. I do think computer generated shuffling algorithms are going to be slightly different than B&M card machines however I do not think that you can say they are purposefully rigged.
The second reason that comes to mind for me is the fishiness of the sites in question. I think this has a lot more to do with the appearance of the games being rigged. If you take the average AA and put in a raise at a good table most people are going to fold and now you are up again KQ, AJs lets say. If you do the exact same thing at a “bad” table then you have 6-8 people in on the flop! DISCLAIMER: When I say bad table I refer to the skill of the players, not the amount of money I am going to make! END DISCLAIMER. When people are seeing the flop with everything under the sun I think the odds are that you will see more flushes and boats with crap cards that never would have been played if the person really wanted to make money. The more people in on a pot the more chance that something will pair up huge.
The final thing that effects people’s perception I think is the enormous number of hands you see online. I am going off of what other people have told me here, but in an average 3-5 hours of play online I probably see 500-600 hands a night! I would be willing to bet in three hours of B&M play you might see 100? One table. One slow dealer. Less hands. Less chance to see monster hands. It just makes sense if you are seeing 5X the number of hands you are going to see things like Boats and Flushes at an accelerated rate. In your mind it will appear as if the site is rigged and throwing out all kinds of weird stuff. Our minds like to link common events together and would naturally jump to the conclusion the site is rigged.
I almost forgot the other possibility: It is rigged! If so keep it going. I am winning, playing well, and feeling good and that is all that matters to me!
posted by SirFWALGMan at
7:45 AM
17 Comments:
It's 5:20 ET and there are 46,524 players on 6,049 tables. In a few hours it'll peak at 60,000 players. But let's just say that for a good 8 hours of every day, Party has 6,000 tables going. And let's say they're only making a buck per hand. So every minute they make $6000. At 60 hands an hour, they make $2.9 million in an 8 hour period. Of course, with the higher limits and the off peak hours, they're making tons more. Multiply that number by 365 and you've got them pulling in at least $105 billion. Why in the hell would you fix the games? Any loss in credibility and--POOF!--there goes your $100 billion a year. By the way, if Party were a publicly traded company, I bet their valuation would easily put them in the Fortune 500.
3:27 PM
Oh, I would encourage people to keep thinking that the games are rigged. But make them think that it's rigged in such a way that they will hit a hot streak and they just have to keep playing until they hit it. Tell them it's Party's way of moving chips between players all the time and taking a cut of it with each move. That way they keep all the players going...
3:29 PM
Ah yes, all on-line poker is rigged, don't you know? RGP is full of hand histories proving such. Speaking of which, you will love this one - http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&c2coff=1&selm=af917414.0410270913.5323ca66%40posting.google.com&rnum=5
8:02 PM
By the way, the secret code on Party is "MeNoNeMo" - enter it in while holding caps lock, alt, crtl and ~, but not so hard on the squiggley thing, if it is a week day. On the weekend, the code is "NoForkEnClu".
10:54 PM
Your comments are so right on. You have hit on the vast majority of reasons why idiots believe it's rigged. I typically agree with them as well. Why not keep them thinking it's rigged and they will get their shot in the long term!
pokerhack.blogspot.com (Shameless plug :] )
6:46 AM
The very best thing about people who really, really think online poker is rigged is that they'll say it right out loud in the room. That's almost like them handing you a gilded business card that reads, "Hello. You may feel free to bet me off any pot at any time." :)
11:52 AM
I am beginning to believe online poker is unfair as well. Didn't at first, even after several bad beats. But now, I am not so sure. The bad beats are quite ridiculous once I get a good look at hand histories. Also, why do the strange callers with eight four offsuit or something always win after calling that strong raise preflop? hmmm. Most people I know believe online poker is rigged. I'm the only one that still plays. (I love poker) If i lived near a casino with poker legalized, I'd be there, trust me.
10:45 AM
One more comment. In the U.S. where celebrities adore the game, and where many people enjoy weekly kitchen games, why is online poker still illegal??? Poker is becoming legal in more and more states, especially tournament texas hold em. (as is the case in Minnesota) Yet people in the U.S. criticize online poker quite severly. Maxim magazine published an article that largely cast suspicion on the fairness of online poker and it's negative, addicting effects on young male players, most notably. Also, why the Malta, Costa Rica jurisdictions? And Kahnawahke gaming commission?? Only a fool believes the Kahnawahke commission is a real, bonifide regulatory body. Furthermore, no bonifide initiative has been led to legalize online poker in the U.S. even though its a tremendous industry. Why?? Why not by the poker sites themselves??? Would they NOT benefit?
Lastly, players ranting about the complainers, and the finger pointers shouting "rigged!" should ease up. I know extremely great players who refuse to play online because they disagree with the alleged fairness. They aren't loser players, and they aren't fools. I am undecided concerning the fairness, but from a business stand point, the sites have much more to gain from an unfair game than from a legitimate one. (hello, cigarrettes anyone?)
10:56 AM
Why would a site rig the games in say a tourny. They already have your money right? Party Poker made 78.6 billion dollars last year. Why would they rigg a 10 dollar sit&go. Its bullshit they dont. You know how much time and money it would cost to rig every table and for what. If you lose all the time just quit or learn to play and if you have pocket queens and the flop hits akq just fold.
9:32 PM
Rigged, What is rigged? These days three different people have completly different meaning of the same word.Spelled the same. So remember that a person or persons wrote the programs that run the pokersites( speaking in basic terms). What is random, and who is telling who what random is? The fact is the same people win most of the time.They play the same cards loosing people play,but win always.Ok maybe there a better player,if thats all you think it takes well than go study.The same people winning all the time,still have to play the all inn's,the reraises,and win.Online Poker is Rigged and you know its Rigged or you wouldn't be here.Have fun play a little if you want but don't get cought up in all the people defending how "NO WAY" Online Poker could ever be Rigged.
8:43 PM
You said it... Does everyone realize that online poker is a computer program? A computer program that was originally designed to take people's money. If you deny this then you know nothing about business. Sure they make tons of money, however no business has ever made too much money. This is the exact reasoning why they would rig the program to make more profits. Why not... who's going to sue an off-shore company. You? I think not.
9:04 PM
They have to hit for the fish, otherwise they would get wiped out by the better players, and then leave the site. The site would then lose a lot of money.
There is absolutely NO WAY people hit the flop like they do online. You have four hands, the flop catches a part of every hand. Every single flop, heads up or ten in the hand, there is a hit. It does NOT work that way. I could care less about the audited shuffle. Show me flops, (there are about 4 different online flops. There is NEVER any variance in the flops at all). Show me how often the two pairs gets four card rivered by the straight, with some idiot calling huge bets for NO reason. Show me how they flop the straight, turn the flush, and river the full house over and over again to create lots of action.
Watch ONE hour of ANY online poker room, and see each and every one of them produce the same types of flops, bad beats, and incredible two outer rivers.
If you cannot see the RNG is either rigged, or completely faulty, then that is your problem. And believe me, I am a WINNING online player.
12:43 AM
Yes its completely rigged like that str8, 4card f;ush, full house on same hand. It doesn't matter if the cards you are dealt are within the odds because the cards on the board sure as anything are not.
I could give tons of examples, but then the online poker shills, will start spouting about something nooone is even talking about such as AA is not invincible, even thought noone ever claimed it was.
Though it's pretty odd how it loses heads up to any 2 random cards 75% of the time or more.
You can win playing online, poker but you sure as heck can't do it by playing actual poker odds.
4:33 AM
There is no doubt PP is not legitmate. Playing the blackjack game even drives the point home even more. The count of the deck or that so called RNG is so tilted againtst you. Low cards are so prevelant its a joke and anybody that knows anything about BJ knows low cards favor the house not the player, as for this "you see more hands than you do live" argument that is total BS, all that does it show you that much more the percentages are off, when you see the dealer coverting a 6 almost 80% of the time you know you are being ripped off, I even have a screenshot of a 9 card 18 the dealer drew, probability of this is in the bilions, if you think PP is as fair as live play you are misguided, as for the credibility issue PP doesn't care! They are offshore and are basically untouchable by any governing body or law enforcement, most poker and card players are degenerates and can't stop playing so you think they are going to stop? And even if this was true for every person that leaves there are 3 that will sign up. PP is not legitimate and has so intention of being so, remember one thing about gambling, no matter how nice a place or a website is to you, there one goal is to take your money. Period.
5:35 AM
I’m really getting sick of so-called poker superstars and experts putting people down and getting outright sarcastic or preachy simply because others want to question the legitamacy of online poker. I am getting increasingly miffed at the insistence that the work involved to rig online poker would outweigh the benefits of trying to do so. I admit that I have no idea what it would take to code poker deck shuffling to predetermine outcomes ahead of time, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. I am telling you that the following is absolutely true; I used a program called “My Screen Recorder Pro 2.3″ to capture the evidence. You can do so too if you don’t believe me. I encourage you to google the program name and download a trial copy of the software and record your online poker sessions. The program is free for a 30 day trial period, and I don’t think you even have to give a credit card number ahead of time.
If you were to play in a 2/4 cent limit game in an online poker room, it would take approximately 2-3 hours to play 100 hands. If we were to give the benefit of the doubt concerning an unusual fast pace of hands, it would take a minimum of 20 hours of play to complete 1000 hands. Now let’s suppose, that you played 1000 hands per day for one year straight. That would be 365,000 hands in a year. Now let’s suppose you did that for 50 years continuously. That would be 18,250,000 hands. That’s no small number indeed, but it pails by comparison to the actual number of shuffles possible with a REAL deck of cards. In real life, the actual number of shuffles possible is 2^256 power. If you do this on a calculator, that’s 1.157×10^77 possible deck combinations. Therefore, if you played those 18,250,000 hands, you would only be playing 1.577×10^-70 POSSIBLE number of decks. This number assumes that no particular deck or shuffle ever came up twice. This 18,250,000 is so small, that you would actually be playing far, far less than even .000000000001% the total number possible. What I’m telling you is that even if it was somehow possible to play as many poker hands per hour in a REAL casino that you would online, you could play poker in a REAL casino 20 hours a day for 50 years, and not only is it conceivable that you would never see any one particular shuffle or deck more than once, it is extremely and overwhelmingly likely that you would NEVER see the same one twice. To understand this in much more detail, I encourage you to visit the following address online: http://www.cigital.com/papers/download/developer_gambling.php.
Now, just about every online poker room in the world in some way addresses the legitimacy of their software in some fashion. They use all sorts of high tech jargon to convey that the shuffles produced are random and presented with even distribution. However, reality tells us something much different.
Suppose you are playing in an online poker room with 9 other players. While you are facing your monitor, let’s say the dealer is at the top of the screen in the center position at the table. Now let’s say you are sitting immediately to the dealer’s left. This is to the immediate right as you look at the table. Ok, let’s say that is seat 1, and the rest of the seats are numbered couterclockwise proceeding around the table, so that the last seat is seat 10, and appears immediately to the dealer’s right, or to the left as we look at the table on our monitor. This is the most common arrangement seen in an online poker room.
Using the program I mentioned in the first paragraph, “My Screen Recorder Pro 2.3″, I have recorded the evidence to my hard drive that proves the proceeding I am about to point out. If you play poker online long enough, it doesn’t matter what poker room you use, you will see the same shuffles (decks) used over and over again. This itself would not be so alarming, but it actually gets worse. Not only are the same shuffles used again and again, but certain SETS of shuffles ranging in various sizes and produced in an exact order, and used again and again. This, while disconcerting, also might not be so bad. However, here comes the KICKER!! Not only are the same shuffles and sets of decks used in the same order again and again, they are used in these specific orders AS THE BUTTON IS LOCATED AT AN EXACT POSITION.
I have seen this over and over repeatedly on numerous online poker sites. I will give you one such example. I was playing online at one of the biggest and most well known poker sites in the world (believe me, you have all heard of it or played there)and was at seat 1 with seat 5 having the button, and I am dealt As,9h with the flop coming Ah,7d,9c. In this particular shuffle I have made top two pair, and I played my hand strong. The player in seat 4 has As,Kc. Since he had made top pair with top kicker, he played his hand strong. My hand held up to the river and I won a big pot. The next hand seat 6 had the button. On this shuffle in the shuffle set sequence, I was dealt Qh,Qs. The flop came Js,8s,3h. Seat 9 went all in after the flop. I called because all I thought all he had was top pair with top kicker, and my pair of queens held up. I won another big pot. I seemed to be reasoning out on a conscious level that two days prior I saw this same progression of hands in the exact sequence. At that time I was also situated at seat 1 and the button position rotation seemed as if it too was strangely exact. I thought to myself, “this all seems like deja vu. I remember being in this spot and being dealt the red aces and something bad happened.” The button moved to seat 7 on the next hand, the pocket cards came out and unbelievably I saw AdAh. Seat 6 bet 5 times the big blind. Seat 9 had hardly any chips and moved all in. I thought my mind was just screwing with me and I re-raised going all in with about 5000 in chips. At the start of the game all players had 1500. Player 6 called and has KhKs. I think to myself immediately I’m going to lose. The flop comes Js,Kc,5c. I can’t catch on the turn or river. I lost all my chips. The important thing to realize here is not only that all 3 shuffles occurred in succession ON 2 SEPARATE OCCASIONS, but that all 3 shuffles occurred in succession with the button being at the exact same location in all 3 hands ON 2 SEPARATE OCCASIONS. I felt I had remembered being in that spot before at an earlier time, but disregarded the notion. To think that these shuffles could happen randomly in the exact same sequence, with the button being in the exact same location on all 3 hands, ON 2 SEPARATE OCCASIONS, is totally preposterous. It could not happen; would not happen. Telling you I am Jesus Christ himself would be less ludicrous than thinking this occurrence could happen with randomness. The second paragraph of this posting clearly addresses this.
What I think is important to realize is that most players play their cards more than they play their opponents in online poker. World class players learn to play their opponents more than the cards, but online play is different. Most of the players play surprisingly similar, especially when the cards are good. Rarely will players lay down two pair, a set, or straight no matter what the circumstances. And Kings in the hole, well that’s worthy of an all-in call or raise pre-flop no matter what. It is my belief that ALL online poker sites take advantage of this reality. By reusing the same SETS of shuffles in a predetermined manner with the button specified at a particular location in each shuffle SET sequence, the site can determine with a HIGH degree of certainty what SEAT at the table has the highest chance of winning. By virtue of this, the poker site could in theory, based on particular seat locations and lengthy patterns of shuffle SET sequences, predetermine the winning and losing of players in games. In reality, I believe this is a little more than just theory. They are, in fact, doing it. I don’t give a damn what the skeptics say. Primaily, what traspires is a process by which a great majority of players are insured BY THE SITE to have a taste of victory, but overall in the long run most players make little profit. If you think about it, it is to the advantage of every online poker room to give as many players as possible a little taste of winning because it keeps the largest percentage of players coming back to play. This makes online poker rooms the most money possible. Is internet gambling rigged? Well I guess many of you will want to turn a blind eye to all of this. For those of you who can still see, I think the answer is clear as day.
9:41 PM
Your tinfoil hat is cutting off the blood supply to your brain.
5:18 AM
This is a letter I have recently sent to a poker site and I am waiting for a response. The facts in this letter are 100% accurate!
Hello,
This is obviously my first time playing at your site, but let me just say I have played at many other ones that gave me free bonus money as you did, some more some less. I would say in total I have recieved about 30 free money bonus offers in poker and much more from casinos.
Now here is the really funny part. Every single time I get a bonus from a site such as yours, and I mean EVERY time, I seem to at least quadruple my money to start. At your site I was able to make 5 and a half times the money up to 56$! Wow, but now, I don't have enough points to cash out right? So I keep playing and lose all the money on a miracle run of bad bad beats! Hmmmm, wierd how every single time a site gives me free money, I'm always able to make a lot off of it, then lose it before I am permitted to cash out. I do not think this is a coinsidence. How can it happen exactly that way over 30 times? It is not statistically possible!
So then I got to thinking... How does this benefit you as the poker site? Quite simple... you give me a taste of real money play, show me how easy it is to win, then take it all away. Now I believe that I can deposit my own money and make money like the last time, except this time I can cash it out right? Wrong! Because when I deposit my own money, I lose after winning a small amount, and lose my deposit. Very clever I must admit!
So now I get to thinking that if your poker programs are smart enough or programmed well enough to permit the bonus money players to win at the start of their bonus and lose later on, then how safe are the players actually depositing their own money?
This is not to mention the Absolute Poker scam, and the recent news about Ultimate Bet where in both cases, hole card information was given away to players.
Now please remind me why I should deposit money at your poker site?
I do appreciate the bonus because it is fun to play, but we both know I'm not getting anything out of it. Been there, done that. So in closing I would appreciate if you would give me a response to this e-mail regarding my concerns WITHOUT, I repeat WITHOUT ANY crap about a random number generator or anything along the lines of randomness, because anyone who knows anything about computers knows that it is impossible for them to generate random numbers.
Thank You
6:25 AM
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