[ZKoeske]

[ QUOTE ]
"I would not at all be surprised that over 100k hands the win % of any given hand would be close to their theoretical values. However, this does not prove in any way that the sites are not rigged. "

--When I read this, I had to laugh. I am sorry, normally I am not patronizing in my replies to posts. But a dismissave refusal to accept ANY statistical evidence answering your worries about the legitimacy of the online poker game, makes you come across as a person who is simply too stubborn to even consider the possibility that you may be wrong.

You ask for proof of the online games legitimacy. Someone offers to show you statistical proof of the online games legitimacy. And before you have even seen the proof, you accept that it is correct, then you disregard it as being completely irrelavent.


"My main contention was that the streaks are so extreme that it would be more beneficial to do an analysis of short runs of streaks, even though this would obviously be more difficult to prove statistically significant."

--- So, in your opinion, the ONLY WAY to prove that poker is not rigged, is if there were never any winning or losing streaks more extreme than say, 100BB to around 150BB?!? Whether online or offline, poker players go on streaks of 150+BB (and in the extreme 300BB+) all the time. And your bankroll has to be around 200-300BB to be able to absorb those swings, (did you think poker pros just threw out the 300BB number for laughs and giggles!?).

What you need to try and understand is that there are two key facts that make online poker different from live poker... 1) More hands are played, and 2) When you play bad, you play bad over more hands.

Too many people on two plus two, who play online, fool themselves into thinking they are the Doyle Brunson of the online game, and ridiculously over-estimate the profitable edge that they have over their opponents (myself included).

Its like they read a couple of poker books, and suddenly they don't need to study the game anymore because they're are beating the $2/$4 game for 3BB/100 over 10K hands?!?

But the truth is, they are nowhere near as good at poker as they think they are. Just because you can outsmart a donkey, doesn't mean you aren't one as well.

And with the amount of hands that you play online, if you are making a mistake in your game, such as you are playing scared or you are playing too tight or too passive... you are going to be making that mistake up 10 times more often online than if you were playing offline (online 300 hands per hour/offline 30 hands per hour). When this happens, downstreaks (or winning streaks) seem to last longer, and your bankroll ends up weathering an El Nino type poker storm as it gets tossed and turned about by your own glaringly incompetant understanding of the game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok dude,feel free to criticize me all you want, but before you go ahead and do that I would appreciate it if you'd stop misunderstanding everything I've said. It's fine if you choose to skim what I wrote because it's long but then don't make comments like you know what I'm saying when you clearly don't.

1. I am not dismissive of any statistical evidence at all. In fact, I previously asked people to offer any statistical data they knew of. My belief is that over 100K hands, any given hand will approach the theoretical value it should have of winning. Thus a broad analysis will show nothing out of the ordinary. My contention was that over a large amount of hands there are continual spurts where hands with 1-10% chances of winning will infact win approximantely 90/100 times. Now, the chances of something liek this occurring once over a thousand hands is certainly likely, but my point is that for every 300 hands where the expected winning hand prevails possibly even more than it should, there are then 100 more hands where the expected winner loses 90 of the 100 times. This cycle repeats itself again and again on pokerstars, and other online sites.

Thus, a broad largescale analysis of thousands of hands won't answer my question. What I want to know is what is the statistical likelihood that a huge underdog of less than 10% wins greater then 75/100 hands, not just once, but repeteadly in spurts over a large sample.

Secondly, you comment that I seem to believe there is no possibility I could be wrong. Again, I previously stated that I am up in the air about whether online poker is fixed and I have just noticed many peculiarities that I wanted to address. I am willing to listen to any explanation people have and have no qualms about changing my stance if I think someone gives me a good enough explanation. What I don't appreciate is you coming in and acting like I'm ultra stubborn when you aren't up to date with what I've been saying.

Lastly, I have said absolutely nothing about the length of winning or losing streaks. I haven't found that any winnig or losing streak I have experienced over my 3 years of playing has been particularly long. Like I stated earlier, I just think that there are continual spurts where good hands lose 90% of the time to huge underdogs over a few 100 hands..and this happens over and over again. For instance. 200 hands where the best hand wins more than it should...followed by 200 hands where the best hand wins less than 20% of the time.Followed by 150 hands where the best hand wins more than it should. Followed by 150 hands where the best hand wins less than 20% of the time, etc.

I'm sure I know far less about statistics than most people on this site, but I would imagine that something like this is unlikely to keep occurring repeatedly over thousands of hands, and that has been my experience with online poker.

So yea, I'm not a moron. I never said I was the Doyle Brunson of the online game. I'm just a college student who plays a lot of poker and wanted to get some people's opinions about it.