Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Yesterday, I pushed all in with KK. I got called by some idiot fish with TT. He got a T on the flop and beat me. Has anything like this ever happened to anyone else before? If so, please post about it here. If we can get enough examples like this one maybe we can prove something.

[/ QUOTE ]

Proved you're a moron pretty quick.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

It's funny that all these "sites are rigged" claims ignore the same thing. Sites pay accounting firms to do attestation services to test their claims that the cards are dealt randomly. There was only one site I saw that did not have a letter from (usually) Price Waterhouse attesting to the sites being random and fair.

So the next argument against this is probably going to be that the site paid the firm just to say this. If you think that, go ask Arthur Anderson what happens when you do that. Ask Enron what happens when you do that.

The next argument is that accountants aren't qualified. One of the areas in accounting is auditing. Auditors examine claims to see if they are accurate. This particular type of an audit is an attestation (testify to the truthfulness of a claim). What the audit firm will do is consult persons knowledgeable about the area they are attesting. So, maybe they'd consult someone such as Sklansky as to the odds of a certain hand being dealt, and the odds of it winning. Of course, this is purely probabilities, so there isn't a real need for knowlege on gambling, but only a background in statistics, which accountants will study.

So what would an audit firm do to test the randomness? First, determine the extent to which they need to be accurate. Then, they determine mathematically how large of a sample they need to be confident that the sample will be that accurate. Then, they randomly select that # of hands from the site's database. Next, they test the sample to see if the hands were dealt as often as should be expected. For example, you expect to be dealt AA approximately 1 out of 222 hands. If you only see them 1 per 1000, then something's not right. They can also test how often the hands hold up and compare to how often they should hold up.

The bottom line is, this attestation is a professional service. No accounting firm is going to risk their reputation and a lawsuit to fudge an attestation, especially if the site is publicly traded, investors can sue them if they are found to be at fault.

I would go so far as to say that most people who say online poker is rigged have no understanding of probabilities. I agree that it's mostly bad players who argue that it's rigged. I remember someone saying that site's CS will tell you that when they get an e-mail saying it's rigged, they pull up the person's history, and they play like half their hands to showdown.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yesterday, I pushed all in with KK. I got called by some idiot fish with TT. He got a T on the flop and beat me. Has anything like this ever happened to anyone else before? If so, please post about it here. If we can get enough examples like this one maybe we can prove something.

[/ QUOTE ]

Proved you're a moron pretty quick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Yesterday, I pushed all in with KK. I got called by some idiot fish with TT. He got a T on the flop and beat me. Has anything like this ever happened to anyone else before? If so, please post about it here. If we can get enough examples like this one maybe we can prove something.

[/ QUOTE ]

Proved you're a moron pretty quick.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow

[/ QUOTE ]

http://img114.imageshack.us/img114/1...edtrurlga0.gif

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

lol, OP did u hear that 9/11 was a conspiracy to, u should look into that, genius.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

I strongly believe that the online poker rooms are NOT rigged by the operators. The usual logic applies here. They are making so much from the rake it would really be stupid for them to cheat. Aswell people like those who frequent this forum would eventually figure it out.

However the players are a different matter. We already know that collusion is an on going problem. Hackers have from time to time figured out ways to gain an advantage. If your computer is compromised by spyware it is possible for another player to see your hole cards. In the past some people have figured out how to take advantage of online poker rooms that used poor shuffles to predict coming cards with up to 100% accuracy. People are working on this kind of thing all the time, and once in a while they find a way to cheat.

I hope I am not offending anyone by saying this, but I think most of us would cheat if we knew how. Lets say I gave you a program that showed you your opponents hole cards, or the turn/river cards before they are dealt, and you know you couldn't be caught. I think most of us would find it hard to resist.

A few years back many people were advertising programs for Party Poker that they claimed would show you other players hole cards. There were many people claiming this could be done, and I had a few people tell me they saw it work with their own eyes. Can anyone confirm this?

Also on a recent circuit radio show (available at cardplayer.com) there was mention of a software flaw at UB that went unpatched for quite some time. They said it would "cause players to lose confidence in the site", but did not give any further details. Does anyone have any first hand knowledge about this?

So to wrap it up, I don't think the sites will cheat you. I do think the players will if they can. I am an overall winner at online poker, but I know I have been cheated before, at least by collusion. My best advice is that when you play online you need to use some common sense. If you are a good player and things don't "feel" right to you, use extreme caution. Chances are you won't be able to prove it when you are cheated, so your best defense may be to follow your gut instinct. I have played long enough that I know what it feels like to lose and run bad. You don't hit many flushes or sets, while the rest of the table seems to be running well. It's when the guy with 83o caps it preflop, caps it on the flop, hits the gutshot on the turn and calls three bets cold, then makes a straight on the river that I get worried. Especially when he proceeds to fold the next 8 hands after that.

Good Luck Everyone,

Guy.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I hope I am not offending anyone by saying this, but I think most of us would cheat if we knew how.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
... I don't think the sites will cheat you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who do you think is running these sites?

You have issues. Good luck in the new year.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I hope I am not offending anyone by saying this, but I think most of us would cheat if we knew how.

[/ QUOTE ]

You might be right. I would think probably 50/50 split between the people who would cheat and those that would not.

I for one would not use the aforementioned program for the same reason when I don't steal or take things that aren't mine. This is not to say I'm better or worse than the others. Some people just don't feel it is wrong to cheat. That is a fact. They were taught that way or learned that way just as I learned not to steal or cheat.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I hope I am not offending anyone by saying this, but I think most of us would cheat if we knew how.

[/ QUOTE ]

You might be right. I would think probably 50/50 split between the people who would cheat and those that would not.

I for one would not use the aforementioned program for the same reason when I don't steal or take things that aren't mine. This is not to say I'm better or worse than the others. Some people just don't feel it is wrong to cheat. That is a fact. They were taught that way or learned that way just as I learned not to steal or cheat.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the honest 50% knew the dishonest 50% was cheating it wouldn't be long before everyone was cheating.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

I've been posting about this subject on my blog for some time now. In fact, I'm the guy behind the Proof Online Poker is Rigged parody where you can see cards being dealt from the bottom of the deck on Party.

On my blog, the posts with the most comments are those about online poker being rigged. People always stumble across one of my posts on the subject and, typically, tell me that I'm a liar and/or an idiot. Their arguments fall into the following categories:

1. Online poker is rigged for action flops to create more rake.

2. Online poker is rigged to let poor players win.

There are, obviously, some variations like the cashout curse and so on but the above are the two major ones.

The best argument I have for #1 is that if you actually do the math on dealing action flops vs. playing more hands per hour, the house makes more rake by having players play more hands. I can post a link to the math/assumptions if you want but I don't want to be seen as pimping my own site here. In a nutshell, the house can only rig a certain percentage of hands without getting caught. If they rig 10% of the hands and the net difference between action flops vs. non action flops is 5 hands per hour, the house comes out ahead with the 5 extra hands. Dealing action hands takes way to long and if the average rake is $2 on a particular game and the rake caps at $3, the house doesn't get enough value of pumping up the pots for an extra $1 to overcome the loss of 5 extra hands at a full $2.

The second argument is just silly. Why would good players play on a site that was rigged against them? Additionally, let's assume this argument even makes sense. Only 1 person can win a hand but poor players get into way too many pots so at a 9 handed table, if only 2 people are good players and the other 7 are bad players, how do you distribute the "luck" around to the other 7 players? Better yet, if the 2 good players are only playing 15% of the hands dealt to them, how are you determining the luck on the other 85% of the hands where only bad players are in the pot?

Lastly, the most important factor in being able to rig games would be to predict how I'm going to play a hand. Not only that, you have to predict how the other 8 players at the table are going to play their hand. I might ram and jam my pocket aces against some opponents and play them carefully against another. On one table of opponents I might open raise KJ from MP but if I might fold it (or just limp) against a different table. If the house is actively plotting against me they must be able to predict how I'll play and how my opponents will play.

Bottom line is that as others have pointed out, you cannot prove that online poker isn't rigged. I've even seen people claim that Poker Tracker is rigged (seriously). They claim the major online poker sites pay off Pat to hide the statistical anomalies. No matter what proof you present, they'll find a way to believe what they want to believe.

The only thing these people are good for is making fun of, which is what I do.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

I have no doubt that there are some small sites that are conducting themselves unethically. There is too much of an incentive to. There are few repurcussions because they often have a negligable chance of lasting over the long haul, and therefor maintaining a reputation means little to them.

It seems very unlikely that any of the major sites do anything sketchy, and certainly not something so ridiculous as rigging, even before all of the evidence has been shown. If any of the major sites is pulling a fast one, i'd say it would be party and it would most likely be bot related.

Im with jackson though.

If it's rigged, it's rigged in my favor. And i dont care to investigate it any further.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
If your computer is compromised by spyware it is possible for another player to see your hole cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is next to impossible, but thanks for your novel.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
The second argument is just silly. Why would good players play on a site that was rigged against them? Additionally, let's assume this argument even makes sense. Only 1 person can win a hand but poor players get into way too many pots so at a 9 handed table, if only 2 people are good players and the other 7 are bad players, how do you distribute the "luck" around to the other 7 players? Better yet, if the 2 good players are only playing 15% of the hands dealt to them, how are you determining the luck on the other 85% of the hands where only bad players are in the pot?

Lastly, the most important factor in being able to rig games would be to predict how I'm going to play a hand. Not only that, you have to predict how the other 8 players at the table are going to play their hand. I might ram and jam my pocket aces against some opponents and play them carefully against another. On one table of opponents I might open raise KJ from MP but if I might fold it (or just limp) against a different table. If the house is actively plotting against me they must be able to predict how I'll play and how my opponents will play.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is a very entertaining line of argument. I'd paraphrase it as "I can't figure out how to do this so no one else can figure it out either." Maybe works if you're Al Einstein but otherwise, not so much.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

Life is rigged.

Poker, on the other hand, is fair.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]

This is a very entertaining line of argument. I'd paraphrase it as "I can't figure out how to do this so no one else can figure it out either." Maybe works if you're Al Einstein but otherwise, not so much.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, it's not a "I can't figure it out so nobody else can either" sort of argument. I'm saying that it's absurdly complex. As someone who has worked in software engineering for 14 years I can say that the task would probably take more effort than building the entire rest of the product. The client/server are simple. Player profiling and predictive modeling are not trivial tasks (and yes, I know what I'm taking about as I architected the fraud predictive analysis system for a company that was the third largest ecommerce site). Add to that the complexity of doing it in realtime and you really have a very interesting challenge on your hands. I don't doubt it *could* be accomplished by some very talented people given a long enough period of time but I find it highly unlikely.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

looks like we've found ourselves in a bit of a quandry then. but if we are proven long term winning players (most of us, anyway), then we are making money regardless, no?

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm saying that it's absurdly complex.

[/ QUOTE ]

As a programmer/manager of software for >22 years I would agree that the complexity of cheating to keep fish alive or to favor specific individuals would be expensive, difficult to do properly, and extremely risky (programmers might talk about it, bugs might make it obvious what was going on, how to analyze additional costs vs. extra rake generated by fish that are "thrown back" would be speculative at best, etc.). While I was playing online at Party Poker (I am US so I have stopped for now) I never gave it a thought that the game was fixed in that way.

A much easier and more lucrative way to "cheat" for poker sites would be to purchase or develop bots that more than break even and sprinkle them around their tables. Then only management needs to know about the sites illegal activities (presuming bot developers don't know they are working for the poker site).

Or, even easier, the sites can say they are actively scanning to eliminate bots - but then do nothing (until the bots are publicly exposed). They would save money two ways: by hiring fewer people and by increasing their rake.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]

A much easier and more lucrative way to "cheat" for poker sites would be to purchase or develop bots that more than break even and sprinkle them around their tables. Then only management needs to know about the sites illegal activities (presuming bot developers don't know they are working for the poker site).


[/ QUOTE ]

Bots are only lucrative to sites that need to fill up tables. I mean, come on, let's say you were Stars; if bots can only expect to make 0.50 - 1BB per 100 how many would you have to sprinkle around to make any sort of serious dough?

I mean, if you're a poker room and want to make a little extra money:

Speed up the games.
** Don't offer any 9 or 10 handed games. Six max only.
** Shaving 5 seconds off the time to act
** Don't allow anybody to connect to the site who's connection is too slow or drops too many packets

Charge what the market will bear
** Most low limit folks don't even know what rake is. Hike it up on the micro limit games
** Charge juice on rebuys in your low buy-in tournaments

These are all completely legitimate (and mind numblingly simple) ways a site *could* add hundreds of thousands if not millions (depending on the existing size of the site) in revenue per year if they were as greedy as many people claim. If a site could increase the average number of hands dealt per hour across their entire site by just 1, they would make far, far, far more than they could trying to manage a bot network or fixing games.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Player profiling and predictive modeling are not trivial tasks (and yes, I know what I'm taking about as I architected the fraud predictive analysis system for a company that was the third largest ecommerce site).

[/ QUOTE ]

You seem anxious to overthink this. Losers are regular depositers. That's not too hard to ID, is it? WInners tend to cash. The cashier keeps such history, no? New player tend to have just opened accounts.

Honestly, if this small project keeps top flight IT guy burning the midnight oil, we're doomed. Heck, we should have starved thanks to Y2K. I haven't done much coding this century and it sure looks easy to me. And it doesn't need to be perfect. Simply slinging a few pseudo-random turn and river cards will be enough.

Now keeping it secret ... that's another story.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

It's hard to prove anything because of fluctuations. If I beat my limit e.g. three big bets (limit holdem) per 100 hands (have done that 100K hands at different sites) but then start (always) running bad everywhere at some point for a long time; how many hands do I need to run bad there before it's reliable (and it's so funny that one always keeps running bad there while winning elsewhere at the same time), it's a tough one.

One could post "before and after" pictures but then people would say that it's not enough hands, and some would say they have won this and that much during a longer time and even post screen captures of Poker Tracker. One though can't know for sure any one of them being real but I think one could believe them.

I am aware of many cases that are sure two big bets (at limit holdem) per 100 winners for 50K or more hands but then start running bad for a very long time. One case wasn't running bad before 100K hands so he was lucky, while the opposite will happen to some players and I am sure they must think the site is rigged.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

im sure there might be somthing but there would be millions of people pissed off if it was really true.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

When you run bad for that long why would you think you are still playing a winning game?

Perhaps you are not adjusting to the game/opponents on the site you are losing on and GASP...maybe that's really the reason why you're losing.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

Running bad and playing bad are two different things. It's not about the site either when one is the superior player, it not taking long to find the right way and 20K, 50K hands of winning play there is enough of a fact. There comes a time at every site when one is not winning for thousands of hands. The question just is how long it's reasonable. When I am running bad 5000 hands I am not all worried but when I have been running bad for 10K hands and not making any money, maybe losing some, I am getting worried.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

You should be more worried about no longer playing a winning game.
Skills deteriorate. It can be very subtle to the player himself and difficult to evaluate.
Do not assume that you are always making good plays and that the reason you are losing is just due to luck.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]

You seem anxious to overthink this. Losers are regular depositers. That's not too hard to ID, is it? WInners tend to cash. The cashier keeps such history, no? New player tend to have just opened accounts.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not anxious for anything :-)

In fact, I assumed that they already had a target. So, all you've done is figure out the part on how to ID him. You took the easy job. You do understand that picking a target and actually executing a fix on the game are two completely different tasks with spectacularly different levels of complexity, yeah? Much in the same was as picking a bank to rob and robbing the bank without getting caught are two completely different tasks.

So, what you need to figure out is how to screw him and how not to get caught.

And if you go back to what I previously posted, that is the difficult part because if they want to screw you they have to know how you're going to react. I mean, they can only deal set over set so many times before the place starts reeking to high heaven. If you're the winning type of player they're trying to take down a notch, you're not going to be losing a lot of hands with Axo. Your losses are going to come from big hands that go south. You're going to be losing with A high flush against a full house. If you're getting whacked a stastically significant number of times with powerhouse hands, that's going to show up when someone starts analyzing hands. If you only do it now and then, well, it's not really distinguishable from regular variance and . . . doesn't make a damn bit of difference anyway so why go to all the trouble to do it?

And, of couse, I haven't even touched on the financial models that would need to be assumed to even make the above moderately profitable. I mean, is losing a $10,000 a year (in rake) player who you've screwed too many times so you can distribute a BB/100 across 8 or 9 other guys who donk off $500 or $1000 and never come back really a long term gain (I don't know, but it's just one question you would have to answer for this argument to even make sense).

Like I said, it's not impossible, but your constant hand waving and calling it easy is quite naive. If you're going to post again, please do enlighten us with some real detail on how you would do it. If you present a compelling case and demonstrate the simplicity you proclaim I'm sure not only I but others would be in your debt.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]

I am aware of many cases that are sure two big bets (at limit holdem) per 100 winners for 50K or more hands but then start running bad for a very long time. One case wasn't running bad before 100K hands so he was lucky, while the opposite will happen to some players and I am sure they must think the site is rigged.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I fist started playing, I started on Paradise and it was a rock garden. When I made it up to $3/$6 I couldn't even find 4 full tables so game selection was zero. Now, my entire online experience was at Paradise and I had heard all the fish tales about Party. I went on Party and immediately got whacked for about 50BB. I jumpted down to $2/4 thinking maybe stepping down would help. Boom! I get hit for another big loss. I went back to Paradise, licked my wounds and repaired my bankroll and took another shot at Party a month later. I did better but I was still getting killed. Again I went back to Paradise and regrouped.

Now, it's very easy to argue that since I could beat the $3/$6 the fact I was getting murdered at Party $2/4 was clearly evidence the fix was on. But the funny part is, it was when I adjusted my game to adapt to the aggressiveness and looseness of the Party games, I started to win. Soon I was killing Party games.

And when I went and tried out Full Tilt which, back in the day, used to be a complete rock garden, I got killed. I was overplaying my hands when I was obviously beat. I wasn't giving my opponent's proper respect because I was so used to Party donkeys who would bet top pair into a four flush board.

Adjusting my game to Full Tilt came a lot easier and a lot more quickly than my intial Paradise to Party transition but it just goes to show that being a winner against one type of opponent doesn't mean you can beat the game.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

I've gone into significant detail on the method required in many past posts, one in this thread. The upside of repeating it here is tiny.

You are also confusing rocket scientists with poker site operaters. I promise you most sites would content themselves with crude means. Put yourself in their shoes, looking at all these marketing expenses to attract fish. You would be interested in most any out.

Lastly, take a look at the attitude on this board toward site cheating. Nearly everyone is content to trust them 100%. What standard of proof will sway the believers? Likely none. The sites have no worries even if they're seriously suspected.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
Lastly, take a look at the attitude on this board toward site cheating. Nearly everyone is content to trust them 100%. What standard of proof will sway the believers? Likely none. The sites have no worries even if they're seriously suspected.

[/ QUOTE ]

How did I know your next post in this thread would be completely absent of the information I requested? :-) I mean, come on, I'll post links to what I've written previously on the subject:

[Edit/MH: Links to your blog deleted. Please feel free to post your previous writings.]

No, people trust them because nobody has been able to demonstrate otherwise and their win rates tend to reflect what they would expect. People who claim online poker is rigged are almost universally experiencing win rates they don't expect and have never, ever, produced even a shred of statistically relevant data to support their calims (read Motivations from the above list).

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

I have to strongly disagree with the person who said it would take a long time to rig a poker site. No one in the IT field can seriously say that to rig the software is 'very complex'. As a programmer, I have done a similar 'manipulation' in about a month. Essentially, I programmed a website which would present the user with a series of questions that were picked randomly from a database. However, the user's answer would influence what the next question would be. The questions themselves had many attributes like topic, difficulty etc. So if the question was say rated at a high difficulty and the test taker got it right, then the next question too would be of high difficulty. In other words, the system would re-adjust the random processs of picking a question. )If anyone is interested I would give more details on the above.)


In a poker app it would be similar. A newbie would have a higher rating (meaning he should get better cards on average) than a player who has made a lot of money (and who is not a site sponser like a pro). Assign a rating to each player and then pick out cards that would help the player with the highest rating. Note that the RNG itself is not modified, and the team that worked on that part of the app would not know anything of the 'rigging' software. The rigging software then is just another module that has to be executed before the cards are shown.
The hardest part is not rigging it but making it appear legit. Even before the site is anywhere near production this part will have to be tested thoroughly. Also, there are tweaking settings that probably control how often the cards get manipulated and certain tables can be exempt. I suspect that this is why we see things like AA getting cracked a bit more than it should be. As a programmer I would ensure that AA is given to the newbie a few times so he can win. However, the AA is used on these sites as a trap to winning players.

As for proving it - this is how it can be done : get 10-15 poker players who are good enough to beat almost any online players - obviously they have to be pros. Regsiter at different locations at a poker sites and keep a history. Make a partial witdrawal of funds and soon all 15 players will start losing - quite simple really.
We could also start a website that records all new players hand history as they play, but if they are not good players - we cannot prove anything.
Note: It is not rigged to favor the worse hand, just the bad player (who a lot of times does play the worst hand) .
Another thing I noticed, newbies who play freerolls get a lot of good flops consistently - I should know - I keep flopping fullhouses etc on a consistent basis. This 'luck' only runs out if I am on a table with other 'favored' players.
A good program will also 'reward' players who consistently generate rake even if they are winning players . For example if you are quite an aggressive player - you are probably a bit more favored than a tight conservative player.
And - Poker admin people, don't bother track me - I don't work for any poker site - I'm just an experienced programmer who knows how to do this sort of thing.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I have to strongly disagree with the person who said it would take a long time to rig a poker site. No one in the IT field can seriously say that to rig the software is 'very complex'. As a programmer, I have done a similar 'manipulation' in about a month. Essentially, I programmed a website which would present the user with a series of questions that were picked randomly from a database. However, the user's answer would influence what the next question would be. The questions themselves had many attributes like topic, difficulty etc. So if the question was say rated at a high difficulty and the test taker got it right, then the next question too would be of high difficulty. In other words, the system would re-adjust the random processs of picking a question. )If anyone is interested I would give more details on the above.)


[/ QUOTE ]

This really is nothing like rigging a poker game as I'll demonstrate below.

[ QUOTE ]

In a poker app it would be similar. A newbie would have a higher rating (meaning he should get better cards on average) than a player who has made a lot of money (and who is not a site sponser like a pro). Assign a rating to each player and then pick out cards that would help the player with the highest rating. Note that the RNG itself is not modified, and the team that worked on that part of the app would not know anything of the 'rigging' software. The rigging software then is just another module that has to be executed before the cards are shown.


[/ QUOTE ]

And you don't think someone isn't going to notice that his pocket aces have -EV? The method you describe would be easy to catch using the most basic tools.

Also, you say the RNG is not modified but you purposely deal different cards than are randomly served up by the RNG so . . . you are modifying the RNG by bypassing it. Why even have an RNG if your'e going to bypass it anyway?

[ QUOTE ]

The hardest part is not rigging it but making it appear legit. Even before the site is anywhere near production this part will have to be tested thoroughly. Also, there are tweaking settings that probably control how often the cards get manipulated and certain tables can be exempt. I suspect that this is why we see things like AA getting cracked a bit more than it should be. As a programmer I would ensure that AA is given to the newbie a few times so he can win. However, the AA is used on these sites as a trap to winning players.


[/ QUOTE ]

Again, stuff that is easly discoverable by anyone using PokerTracker.

[ QUOTE ]

As for proving it - this is how it can be done : get 10-15 poker players who are good enough to beat almost any online players - obviously they have to be pros. Regsiter at different locations at a poker sites and keep a history. Make a partial witdrawal of funds and soon all 15 players will start losing - quite simple really.
We could also start a website that records all new players hand history as they play, but if they are not good players - we cannot prove anything.
Note: It is not rigged to favor the worse hand, just the bad player (who a lot of times does play the worst hand) .
Another thing I noticed, newbies who play freerolls get a lot of good flops consistently - I should know - I keep flopping fullhouses etc on a consistent basis. This 'luck' only runs out if I am on a table with other 'favored' players.
A good program will also 'reward' players who consistently generate rake even if they are winning players . For example if you are quite an aggressive player - you are probably a bit more favored than a tight conservative player.
And - Poker admin people, don't bother track me - I don't work for any poker site - I'm just an experienced programmer who knows how to do this sort of thing.

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Actually, what you are is someone who thinks he knows about how poker software works. You don't.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

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>>Actually, what you are is someone who thinks he knows >>about how poker software works. You don't.


[/ QUOTE ]
And you do? I am an experienced programmer and have

developed many complex applications that involve a master administrator changing settings that control the app.
In fact you have totally missed my point. I did not say the RNG is bypassed completely. It is a vital part of the program. When the 'rigging' module kicks in - it will reduce the set of cards available e.g. 2 H, JH will not affect the outcome but any club or a AS will change the outcome so out of this set a card is randomly picked. The most important part is for this to happen at certain intervals - Like every five hands or so but this can be set in the admin part of the app. You can set it to not happen at all in which case the game will be fair.

A lot of people have shown that their pocket aces have -EV..

However, their sample size was always said to be too small - it was not .. Most of these 'losing' players have their pocket A's cracked consistently. However, there are other players who win as expected with pocket A's. Like I said, this is what the software is programmed to do. Affect the people who are not favored at this momment. Poker tracker will not discover this because a losing player (after he has lost most of his money and redeposits ) will win again. This is why the hands must be tracked for new users only (and also above average players).
If an independent survey of new unbiased players is done - we can easily prove it..

Show me an INDEPENDENT survey with about 15 above average players recently joined up.
I for one do not discount the bad experiences of the so called 'losing' players.. they are getting outdrawn consistently when they are 90% favorite- they are not getting outplayed.
Why as a newbie player in many sites I keep getting long runs of unblievable good cards? So as to entice me to put money in and play.
One thing any decent programmer knows 100% - the site can be rigged at a negligible cost. So at the very least we know that they CAN do it and it will NOT be expensive.
And btw this can be done by 1 programmer not a massive team. Additionally this module can then be packaged with the system and resold to other companies who want a similar 'edge'.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

bystander,

You miss my point completely. Ask any consistantly winning player for his EV on a large variety of hands (and over a large sample size). Chances are they fall within expectations. Even when they have bad runs, those bad runs fall within statistical norms. People have demonstrated it here, on RGP, and several other places. What you've explained is normal variance which poker sites don't need to rig into the game because it happens normally.

But, what we have here with your argument, is conjecture and speculation. And that is always the problem with people who make your type of argument. They can always speculate all sorts of fantastic scenarios because they never have to actually prove them. You'll disappear off this thread and never do this analysis to determine if the sites are rigged or not. You'll be content to know that because you're a software engineer and you've designed complex systems before that the problem (rigging the game) must be fairly simple to accomplish and you'll continue to pop into threads here and there making the same unproven claims.

So, really, you've contributed nothing to this discussion. There are 50 guys just like you who can generally describe how it can be done but always seem just lazy enough not to actually test their hypothosis. But as Lou Krieger said on his blog once, if the sites are rigged what kind of idiot are you to keep playing on them?

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

You know what the problem is? All the logical arguments against rigging make sense to me - the complexity, the fact that it would have been exposed by now, the fact that the sites wouldn't risk it... but darn it, I am just seeing WAY too many bad beats and juiced flops/hands to really feel comfortable at the site I'm playing at. It's not just happening to me (and sometimes it has been in my favor when a bluff went bad and the river saved me), it also seems to happen a LOT to other players at the table. Aside from all the flushes beating straights on the river, boats beating flushes, and straights beating trips on the last card, I was dealt AA twice in a row on one table, and then got it again 4 hands later... on this same site, I played in a tournament where on the first table AA appeared in someone's hand 3 times in the first 10 hands, and each time another player also had something like JJ, QQ, or KK. AA appearing 3 times in 10 hands is pretty rare, but when you also see another huge hand or two in the same deal every time, it starts to be suspicious to me. I got beat by one guy who had AA against my AK, and the very next hand it dealt me AA and gave him AK (which I proceeded to beat him with). Again, each of these in and of themselves is not exactly evidence of anything, but cumulatively over time when you see this type of thing on a pretty regular basis it starts to make you think.

When every time you sit down at a table the other players are busy chatting about how ridiculous the beats are and how they are always getting sucked out, it can't make you too comfortable, because other good players are noticing the same thing. I am not using this as 100% evidence that the sites are rigged - but bad beats should happen once in a while, not 50% of the time which is what it often seems like from my observation. I am not losing money despite bad beats against me, and I am not using this as a complaint, but the number of times I have seen one very good hand just beat out another very good hand at the river makes me very uncomfortable. I don't know what to think at this point...

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

That's just what I am saying - its not as complex to 'rig' it. Give this project to a bunch of programmers - rig a game of dice so that certain players get the higher number all the time - yet at the same time make it look random. Its not that hard from a programming point of view. I don't have proof that it is rigged but I want to make a point that you CAN rig it with minimal cost and effort..
The fact that SO MANY people are complaining about the worst hand winning seems to indicate that the software was unable to completely 'mask' the rigging.
Why can't a group of honest, but good poker people (is that a contradiction!) join up a popular site and record each and every hand. They might still beat the site but could notice a series of horrible suckouts, after their initial wins. This would certain prove it is rigged. And if it doesn't happen (the suckouts could technically happen at any time and should not coincide after initial winning hands) - then maybe its not rigged..
I will not ask any 'winning' player for their EV to prove its not rigged. What about the winning players who say it is rigged then?
The experiment must be carried out by unbiased people joining up a site.


I still have a hard time believing the incredible good run of cards I keep having at certain sites (the enticement luck - I presume) -


As for me still playing - you've got me wrong. I love poker but I don't play for money at these sites. I don't get a chance to play live much so I play the free rolls .
And all I ever lost at a site was a mere $100. My first $50 was lost through bad play and one strange suck out . After winning about 10 hands in a row and being up I go all in before the flop with AA and 2 people call each with pocket Qs! I lost everything since they both made a straight. I thought it strange but only suspected rigging when I lost my second $50 through major suckouts only. I initially almost doubled it - before the madness started. What got me angry was that I would win almost every pot even when I bluffed with nothing. And then I would get some monster hand KK AA and push all in - because of another raiser..Outdrawn everytime. I am not complaining about losing at all - its just that I want to lose to someone better than me not someone sucking out everytime.
[img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

You know, another way in which things seem to be rigged is the number of times where there are 2-3 really good hands that show up at the same time on a 6 to 10 person table. I mean, come on - how many times do I have to see AA show up at the SAME TIME and the SAME HAND as AK and QQ? That should almost NEVER happen, yet it seems to happen all the friggin' time! This is something that really wouldn't be too hard to program in as a cheat in the software, and it would certainly encourage betting on the part of the players - which would increase the rake. It would also be undetectable in the hand histories, since it has nothing to do with who actually wins the hand... the site wouldn't have to care, as long as there was more betting going on...

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

go away you stupid troll...

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

If people (who are claiming that the sites are rigged) are so smart, then why are they complaining? Wouldn't you think they would have figured out a way to exploit the errors in the programming and start winning? If something is predictable, then that knowledge should give players an edge. That is, if it is more likely that a needed ace magically appears on the river more often than when it's not needed, then play Ax offsuit more often.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

[ QUOTE ]
If people (who are claiming that the sites are rigged) are so smart, then why are they complaining? Wouldn't you think they would have figured out a way to exploit the errors in the programming and start winning? If something is predictable, then that knowledge should give players an edge. That is, if it is more likely that a needed ace magically appears on the river more often than when it's not needed, then play Ax offsuit more often.

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Assume the cheat is given only to proven losing player. That's unexploitable. There are others similarly unexploitable.

Re: If poker sites are rigged, let\'s prove it.
 

You could exploit such a flaw by playing less aggressively when strong and stronger when holding a longshot.