Hello, i have been on this site a couple times before but never signed up for an account, so be nice!

Now i have been playing online poker for a couple of years and initially i thought that these poker sites were legitimate and fair to the players. However i started to notice that the flops, turns and rivers on Stars and FTP were showing a lot more action than when i was playing live at a casino.

Although being mathematically minded, in the first few months of playing i wasnt thinking about the % of my hands (if they would hold or the chance for me to hit one of my outs when being in an all in situation). I have a friend who does really well at live poker and (just) OK at online poker. He said to do my research, read some books and work out the odds of my hands and other players HU or AI.

However after doing this i found that the way i was losing and sometimes winning did not at all coincide and or correlate with the statistics (% of winning). In fact after doing this research and working out the hands i should be playing, what the chances of my cards winning in a heads up situation and having a good idea of the % of my hand against someone else's in all in, i found that i was actually losing more (arguably being a better player!).

The more i played these sites (mainly FTP and PStars) sometimes 10 hours a day or more, i could see that a hand that is 70-80% likely to win is only winning 40-50% of the time and so on. The stats and the odds simply did not add up, players would just shove all in and hit two outs like they had 40 outs, it just didn't make sense at all.

When i racked up well over 10k hands it really became obvious that a live shuffle and deal is in no way similar to an online RNG. In fact you could even see the subtle differences in the RNG at PStars and at FullTiltPoker (if playing often enough), an example being Pstars pocket 'pair v pocket pair' and FTP being 'AK v AQ v AJ' . Now if you can clearly see patterns, then something is not random, its like when you put an I-Pod on shuffle and it keeps playing the same f**king tunes. Except Pstars is an I-Pod and FTP is Sony Walkman, they both have the same library except they are repeating different songs.

And then i thought, well why would these sites want to rig the deck? However after only a few seconds and a couple of brain cells worth of thought and you can easily see why a company would want to increase their revenue through rake (could they do this by rigging the deck? if so how could the rig it?).

> By increasing action cards (pre-flop, on flop, on turn and on river), the sites are much more likely to have players playing the hands. The more the likelyhood of action and players playing the more the Rake (in cash games) and bust outs (in tourneys).

> Pre-determined rounds. As soon as the RNG is on to a new hand, the hole cards, the flop, turn and river is allready decided. If out of the million/billion hand combinations, they could cut it down to 1 million, 1 million action (or more action) rounds. It is inevitable that players with premium hands are more likely to play than with trash. Cut down the trash, give em more premium and hey presto we got em raking it in.

And so on, there are many possible and probable ways to rig the deck, it is definately programmable, nothing a couple of MT Grads couldn't do 'cough cough'.

If you have more premium hands and more action, then players are more likely to get all their chips in and more likely to get called, then add in the unpredictability of hands (where the %'s mean nothing) and you are going to have players with massive pots. Someone is going to bust out (of a tourney) and the site is going to get more rake (cash game).

- If someone busts out they are likely to buy into a new tournament (RAKE)

- Players will play bigger pots with action (from fake RNG) (RAKE)

- Players will be rebuying more frequently on the cash games, inducing more playing (player 1 wants money back, player 2 wants more money off player 1) (RAKE)

- Players will be more likely on Tilt after bad beats (its called Full TILT for a reason!). A player on tilt is like a diamond in a turd for these sites. A player steaming will make less logical moves, and is more likely to be wild like a rabbid dog, believe me i've been bitten, action. (RAKE).

-- Everyone knows a player on tilt can lose a lot of money in little time.

But then how can they get away with it? "Oh you got one outed again, UNLUCKY". Well in the sense of the game 'Poker' itself, its consists of cards and luck. They can hide behind this and dress it up and say that it's just down to luck and randomness and that they "are giving you a fair deal". Except some people have had a sneak up that dress and seen the fishy c**t.

It is very hard to prove that something is rigged or not rigged when talking about something that is random to a point, IE. Millions > possible combinations of cards. Some combinations would repeat more than others (if it were truly random, out of the law of averages) but if it was the premium hands that seemed to be repeating more than 'trash' hands, could we put this down to just coincidence?

We would need to see millions if not billions of logged hands in order to see if a pattern was occurring with the cards being dealt. Thereafter any re-occurring patterns that showed a high frequency could be easily identified and analysed, another example could be AA v KK two players heads up (X). You would then take samples (S) from the millions/billions of hands logged and search out the AA v KK (X).
S /(divided by) X = Y
Y = probability of AA v KK in heads up situation from Poker Site.

You could then compare Y to what the probability of AA v KK (HU) happening with algebra from a 52 card deck and see what the figures looked like when compared.

However these sites don't want to give the average joe (and or researcher) this information, or if they did it would likely be edited prior to hand over, only a raid or really random sample taking would suffice. Although some independent audits have brought up some interesting information (Daily Mail audit). And even then the 'adjudicators' the sites do willingly send their logged hands to audit (in relatively small samples) hardly have the reputations (in size, location and or history) to be given enough credit for us the players to really believe these poker sites are given us a fairly dealt deck.

Now they say that their sites are regulated, but regulated by whom? Regulated by a company who are unregulated themselves!? Look at the 'locations' of where these sites reside; Costa Rica, Isle of Mann (its odd that places that are surrounded by sea smell so fishy), Gibraltar, Antigua and Barbuda, Cyprus and the Kahnawake Mohawk Nation.

Look at who owns these sites; Scheinberg being one example, follow the road that leads to zion or the off-shore tax haven. These people are greedy money hungry so and so's, with 'interesting' histories, do you think they stop for one second to think about us the players when they have banked another $10k in the time it has taken read this post?

Look at their minions wearing their badge to advertise their companies. I mean the 'Pro' players with big Full Tilt or Pokerstars emblems emblazoned across their wad-filled breast pockets. They would never accuse their sponsors of rigging the online poker game, and why would they when they pay them a fortune. Although there are some who say online poker is a scam, and one of them is very high profile indeed. They give the impression that they add legitimacy to the sites they advertise, when infact the ones who do not advertise the poker sites (by CHOICE) only add credence to the argument that these sites are not legitimate. Another interesting thing to note is these players are playing LIVE and also their online bankroll is likely funded by the sites in the first place, free money for them, Aces cracked to 2 7 oh well, nothing lost.

These sites will not do anything to jeopardize their profit margin and everything to keep it that way. Why should they have to stick to legislations and regulations that they don't have to? Now answer that morally and then financially and consider which approach these sites are taking. Look at many profit models around the world, you will find its the people (us the players in this case) who fund and are most vital to the profits that are treated with the least respect and have the roughest deal of all.

For those that say its impossible; "You can send a man to the moon but you can't rig a deck of 52 cards?"

The sun circled the earth, The world was flat, Man could never fly, We went to war in Iraq for 'liberation' and They said Online Poker was legitimate.

RoiZilch


PS: THE VERY LAST HAND i played on Pokerstars and online poker, just because you need some sort of data;

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to MEEEE [Jd Jh]
Oli_Tess: folds
KINGZFULLKKK: folds
rui secundin: folds
S N M 040904: calls 150
captainhat: folds
MR GIDDIE: folds
MEEE: raises 2500 to 2650 and is all-in
JNuno7460: calls 2575
emi2000: calls 2500
S N M 040904: raises 16302 to 18952 and is all-in
JNuno7460: folds
emi2000: calls 16302
*** FLOP *** [Ts 9c Ah]
*** TURN *** [Ts 9c Ah] [9s]
*** RIVER *** [Ts 9c Ah 9s] [7c]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
emi2000: shows [JavaScript 8s] (a straight, Seven to Jack)
S N M 040904: shows [Kc Kh] (two pair, Kings and Nines)
emi2000 collected 32604 from side pot
MEEEE: shows [Jd Jh] (two pair, Jacks and Nines)
emi2000 collected 10780 from main pot
S N M 040904 finished the tournament in 1575th place
MEEEE finished the tournament in 1576th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 43384 Main pot 10780. Side pot 32604. | Rake 0

What a brilliant unrigged pre-flop call from emi2000, nothing to see here.

But what if live play is the one that isn't random?

Live play was the foundation of the game, shuffling a deck of cards was around a long time before an un-RNG. Players want to play online like they do live, not the other way round (unless they know how the software works and can use it to their advantage). You ask any pro if he would prefer a deal from a dealer or a computer (RNG), i guarantee they would say a dealer, and i can also imagine that none of them would say well they are the same.

At least with live play you can see the dealer, the dealer can not see the cards being dealt, and then organise the flop turn and river for action (like how they do it online). I'm not saying live play has never had a cold deck, but nor am i saying that is completely random, all i have said in relation to your (missing the point) comment is that you can't compare live shuffled and dealt cards to a deal from an Random Number Generator over thousands/millions of hands, the statistics from independant (well two that i have seen) audits have confirmed over a large sample that players were hitting more pairs, trips, straights, flushes etc. on online poker than live poker over the same amount of hands.

What would you like to say about the well thought out and explained points i have made in my original post? (Not just post something that bares little relation to my overall post).

You seem to conveniently skip those, now we just need a couple more 'disinfo' agents to post on here, telling me "im talking blah blah" and 'debunked' so you can all go onto the next person and tell them they are crazy or dillusional for saying that online poker is rigged (which it quite obviously is).

If you've seen any of my previous posts, I don't call people crazy or delusional. I do ask for statistical facts and well presented points. While your post feels a bit long winded, there are a lot of valid points. Also, since you're not actually attacking a specific site, I'm more fine with your post.

People playing online should understand that the above may occur. Each player should weigh whether or not if the risk is worth the reward.

I'm not skipping points with my post, I just wanted to hear your thoughts and opinions about live shuffles and how they compare to online shuffles.

Welcome to the discussion disinfo agent numero uno. You're points are thin to say the least but i'll bite.

Originally Posted by Ipokergood

Most of the regs here are consistent winners online, so you're not going to convince us that online poker is rigged.

Just because you win doesn't mean that it isn't rigged. In fact if you were winning you would claim to the high heavens that it wasn't rigged because it was your 'skill' and 'tactics' that won you the money.

Originally Posted by Ipokergood

If it is rigged, then the people who consistantly beat the system must be that much better then you "great poker players" who can't seem to win online because it's rigged. So all the people who are online poker winners must be poker geniuses, since we profit playing a rigged game set up for failure.

That is exactly what you are doing, you are playing the system, not poker, you are missing the point i'm making by saying you can't compare live deals with online deals, you are only set up for failure if you play online poker as you do live (using %'s, as they don't correlate).

Originally Posted by Ipokergood

Also on the hand you posted, are you suggesting that somehow he knew to call 16000 preflop holding J8s?

I'm not suggesting anything, i've simply showed the VERY last hand i played online as others have done the same. Interesting how he called 90% of his stack with two all ins (one showing great strength, i'm not implying me! lol). Now are you telling me that players that do that on a consistent basis and win are making the right calls? If so then the odds and %'s simply don't relate online as how they should do live or just how they should do.

Originally Posted by Ipokergood

Oh and I guess the rigged poker room must have known he was going to make a godawful call there. Since his hand was rigged to win somehow the software knew he would call 16000 preflop to bust KK and JJ with J8s. Yeah that must be it. How could I have missed that when it's so obvious. Lol, my bad.

Well in this case maybe the software is impartial, it didn't know he would call, it's him the player knowing that the software would give it to him, like when you're a short stack and you know you're going to suck out on some one. However it could be either the player knowing he will hit this time, or the software acitvely giving him the cards, maybe both. I do not know exactly how but it most likely one or the other, see the points i made in my original post.

Originally Posted by RoiZilch

> By increasing action cards (pre-flop, on flop, on turn and on river), the sites are much more likely to have players playing the hands. The more the likelyhood of action and players playing the more the Rake (in cash games) and bust outs (in tourneys).

> Pre-determined rounds. As soon as the RNG is on to a new hand, the hole cards, the flop, turn and river is allready decided. If out of the million/billion hand combinations, they could cut it down to 1 million, 1 million action (or more action) rounds. It is inevitable that players with premium hands are more likely to play than with trash. Cut down the trash, give em more premium and hey presto we got em raking it in.

They do give out hand history on request, that's the only reason they busted the super user accounts on AP/UB (log information , admin observer , etc) . Don't know the Stars/FT policy with that, You can also buy millions of hands nowadays both cash and tournaments if you are after data . Somebody on this forum did that with huge chunk of data (can't remember the exact number , but he linked to his blog) to find deviations from random and it just wasn't there (On Stars) .

Looked up the J8s player , he's -16% ROI on tournaments and losing 3-4 BB/100 on FL 200-1000 (Actually winning 1.17/100 on the highest , but down overall) , I can only guess he plays the small/medium buy-ins for fun/really loose . I can assure you he didn't know the hand as if he knew he'd do that all the time and end up a huge overall winner like POTRIPPER . Everybody get's lucky once in a while . As for getting unlucky , the better you play the more beats you'll take as you're getting in with the best hand most of the time .

As for the location , let's say you have the funds to open a poker site , isn't your best choice a tax haven country ?

Are the 10K hands for tournaments ? That's like ~100 tournaments ? Even coaches or the best players on sharkscope's leaderboard have 5K game break even runs or 1K downswings and it's safe to say they are more experienced with less leaks than most of us.

There are a ton of players who are crushing online poker day-by-day and really doubt that's due to pattern recognition or finding RNG flaws . As long as I feel that I have an edge over enough players at the table I'll keep playing . Feel free to post more details with the results of your research on the statistics deviation from the norm

You saying my points are thin is a matter of opinion. I happen to think without any proof, your points are pretty thin.

"Just because you win doesn't mean that it isn't rigged. In fact if you were winning you would claim to the high heavens that it wasn't rigged because it was your 'skill' and 'tactics' that won you the money."

"That is exactly what you are doing, you are playing the system, not poker"

I win because I have put a lot of time and effort into learning to play the game. I win because I look over my mistakes and do whatever I can to improve my game. I win because I make fewer mistakes then my opponents at the tables. And I win because I'm a skilled poker player who has learned to beat the game of poker, not a set up system. I'm a successful poker player both live and online. So it doesn't make much sense to suggest that I win online because I figured out how to beat a rigged system, but I win live because I'm a winning POKER player.

"you are missing the point i'm making by saying you can't compare live deals with online deals, you are only set up for failure if you play online poker as you do live (using %'s, as they don't correlate)."

Do you have any proof of this? No. Infact, I challenge you to play 50K hands online, then play 50K hands live. Record everything that happens in said hands, then send them to a math major who can do a real study on the results to compare and contrast the hands and all the different %'s that go with them.

"I'm not suggesting anything, i've simply showed the VERY last hand i played online as others have done the same. Interesting how he called 90% of his stack with two all ins (one showing great strength, i'm not implying me! lol). Now are you telling me that players that do that on a consistent basis and win are making the right calls? If so then the odds and %'s simply don't relate online as how they should do live or just how they should do."

No. Players that do that on a consistent basis are not making the right calls. They are also not winning players. I guarantee that if this guy is making -EV calls like that consistently, he isn't getting very far in the long run. This is a classic case of someone who doesn't know the odds of the game and is just playing to play. He thinks it's all luck, made a horrible call, and got lucky. It happens. But that doesn't mean it's rigged.

"Well in this case maybe the software is impartial, it didn't know he would call, it's him the player knowing that the software would give it to him, like when you're a short stack and you know you're going to suck out on some one. However it could be either the player knowing he will hit this time, or the software acitvely giving him the cards, maybe both. I do not know exactly how but it most likely one or the other, see the points i made in my original post."

This is taking the whole conspiracy a little far. The fact that you're suggesting he knew he was going to win that hand is beyond ridiculous. Again, he made a horrible call, and got lucky. I can understand you thinking that the software maybe gave him the cards after the money was in, but I think this too, is a little silly. That would mean the software is somewhat conscious in a way. It would mean that the cards that fall on the board are not shuffled into a random order but infact the RNG is now looking at what cards are left in the deck and picking out which ones he needs to win. Since the software had no idea he would even be in the hand, it now has to recognize what hands are left and pick out what cards in the deck will make him win. Software like that sounds like it would be pretty pricey to maintain with the updates and all.

Now I can also take your points on rake and turn them around on you.

You say that it would make sense to rig the software to make people bust out of tournaments just so they will buy into another tourney faster to increase the rake. Well I could say that people who have busted time and time again on what looks like fishy or rigged hands would be less likely to want to play anymore. So if they are consistently losing buy ins as a reslut of 1-2 outers and horrible badbeats, they would eventually want to quit playing on that site all together. (less rake)

You say it's rigged so that players play bigger pots to increase the action and size of a pot. This is poker! The pots are going to get big and have pleanty of action regardless. They are going to rake a buttload of money regardless. And again my point stands that if people are constantly taking horrible, "unreal" badbeats, they are eventually going to stop playing on that site. (less rake in the long run)

Players being on tilt is only going to help the rake slightly. Yes they are going to buy into cash tables and lose the money faster, but again, people are not just going to keep depositing over and over and over. Eventually they are going to stop playing. Also, you don't need to rig a poker table just to make players tilt. Players are going to tilt regardless. Badbeats happen and people tilt. It happens live all day too, but you wont hear anyone saying the "so and so casino" rigged the card room to make "so and so" tilt his bankroll away.

IMO online poker rooms would risk a lot more by rigging the tables. Logically, they would lose more money in the long run because the average person isn't just going to keep losing over and over and over. Eventually the people who keep getting screwed are going to find a game somewhere eles. Rigging the game might increase the rake a little bit, but once the good players who should be winning are tired of getting screwed and leave the site, no more rake from them. It would make more sense to just let the winners win and keep them playing on the site. Becasue in the long run, 20 years of any rake, is going to be better then 2 years of tilted and rigged rake.

You can have your opinion and I can have mine, but until you have some solid proof, you're not going to convince the winning online poker players that it's rigged. If you really think it's rigged, simple solution, don't play. No need to try and start an anti online poker community, just don't play.