Pokerstars Is Fixed

[tom10167]

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Alright. I'm gonna preface this bold statement by saying that I'm a first time poster here and this is going to be long and semi detailed. I realize that the vast majority of people who view these posts are quite antagonistic to anyone who think that online poker is fixed, assuming that they are just ignorant morons and are thus easily dismissed. I also have no statistical data to back up my claim, making it even more ludicrous to the number crunching bunch that frequent this site. So go ahead and berate me if you wish, or preach to me about variance, I've heard it all before. I've had this discussion many many times with fellow friends and poker players, but I just thought it would be interesting to get my perspective out there to an international forum and see the kinds of responses I get from serious players.

A little about me: I'm a 20 year-old college student who has been playing online poker consistently for 3 years, primarily at Pokerstars. Since then I've profited an estimated 4-5 thousand dollars playing low stake SNG's and cash tables anywhere from .25/.50 to 3/6.

I want very much to believe that variance can account for the ridiculous swings I see while playing at Pokerstars but I simply can't get past certain "coincidences" that keep occurring again and again.

My main beef with Pokerstars are the ridiculous swings. Both good and bad. At first I would just complain about how absurd it was, and spout the platitude that the best hand always seems to get sucked out on by the idiot, they make the good players lose to the fish so that the fish don't go broke and they can keep getting action on their site, etc. While the underdog "seems to" win in unbelievable ways, especially when they're the chip leader, more than I think they should, I no longer argue this as my main point.

I eventually revised my belief to something along the lines of, "Pokerstars, in particular, or any other site for that matter, sends people on extremely hot streaks or extremely cold streaks that last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. These streaks are predetermined to occur and there is no way to avoid them no matter how you play your hands. You have to just wait them out if they're bad, or take advantage of them while you can if they're good."

Now all this seems like pretty much common sense. Either you're doing really well, or you're doing really poorly. It's gotta be one or the other right. My opinion is that these highs are so high to almost be unbelievable and the lows are equally as ridiculous.

I also believe that there are telltale signs that a good or bad streak is coming on that you should be attentive to so that you can prepare yourself for what will come next. I won't go into detail about them here, if you are interested you can read my blog at ZakKoeske.blogspot.com.

In any case, these streaks frequently occur suddenly, and are not independent of multitabling. What I mean is that, they carry over between tables if you are playing, say 4-5 tables at once. You will get astoundingly bad beats or have extremely good luck at all of your tables simultaneously even though they should be independent of one another.

When the bad streak hits, there is really nothing you can do. I play a tight aggressive style and have gotten so accustomed to terrible beats that I don't go on tilt. I originally would try to alter my play when I was running bad, but it always had the same effect, I'd lose. I either used an extremely aggressive approach, or an extremely tight and pasive approach. When playing aggressively, I might raise 20 times the big blind with AA, or even push all in pre flop even if blinds are 25/50 and i have 2000 chips in a SNG. Or overbet a flop an enormous amount when i flop top trips, never slowplaying because of the fear that something awful is about to happen and I will get sucked out on so I have to push everyone out of the pot. Unbelievably, this strategy seems to have the opposite effect. Someone always seems to call preflop with a low pocket pair, or AK, or QJ, whatever they do, it never fails to somehow outdraw my far superior hand. I'm not saying this happens 100% of the time. But when you're running really bad, i'd estimate its easily upwards of 75-80%. My other approach, was to play extremely passively when I'm running bad because I know that no matter what I have , it will lose. This approach often leads to you being blinded away, and at best finishing 2nd or 3rd, but never winning any tournaments. Plus, its extremely boring and you feel like a pussy. The only time I ever resort to this approach is when there is a particular player that I notice to be on an extremely hot streak at my table, for instance some idiot who has just won like 4 straight all ins with inferior hands who obviously doesn't know how to play. I will fold literally any hand in a situation where one player is dominating a SNG like that because challenging him is suicide. Your best bet is just waiting and hoping he takes everyone else out can squeak into the money somehow. I'm speaking strictly of online play of course. I wouldn't be afraid to challenge him in a live game. None of the things I am saying apply to live games.

Anyways, because neither strategy seems to do any good when youre running bad, I just play my normal game now. I just play tight/aggressive like I always do. However, if on the other hand I am running very hot, I do change up my style to some extent. Before I elaborate, let me explain what I say when I mean running really hot. I mean that you are the person who wins every hand at your SNG. If you raise pre flop, you always hit your pair(always meaning 75-80%) , or your trips. Everytime(meaning 75-80%) you have a draw, it hits. Also, during these streaks, you notice that even when you fold trashy hands like 3 7 offsuit, they will have made you full houses, or you drop pocket 5's because there are multiple reraises pre flop, it turns out you woulda flopped trips and quadrupled up. When I am on one of these unbelievable tears, I play much looser, will call extremely large bets on draws, and sometimes call with nothing simply under the assumption that the turn and river will win me the hand somehow. Now I don't play stupidly or extremely recklessly, I just take more chances. I do this at times because I have noticed certain patterns that emerge after playing for so long. For more detailed explanation of the patterns check my blog, but what I mean is that there are certain flops that become familiar after awhile. It's like you've seen them so many times before that you can predict what the turn and river will be with relative certainty. I no longer play cash tables(too risky to do without an enormous bankroll if youre on a cold streak), but when I did, i would often make calls with bottom pair on flops that I sensed were familiar because I had the predilection that the turn would make me 3 of a kind or two pair. More often than not I would be paid off by making these "crazy" moves. I can't explain it other than that my brain had grown accustomed to seeing certain flops in some innate way that I can't explain, but whatever it was, I would sense familiarity and could guess the next cards with decent accuracy.

While these "familiar" flops can help make you money, they can also help you avoid money if you can detect them when you'll lose, (like when you have the best hand). For instance, a common occurrence is holding AA or KK.. going all in pre flop and getting called.. You flop trips. Let's say you hold AA and your opponent has KQ..The flop is A 10 3. I would be hard pressed to find a time when a J doesn't hit on the turn or river to make your opponent a straight. Or how about the times when you have AA vs A6 and the flop i something like 3 4 5. You can bet your ass that you're gonna see a 2 or a 7 coming there. These hands I just mentioned are hard to avoid losing money on if you're all in pre flop obviously. But when it can come in handy is before all your chips are in. Let's say you know you've had 4 really terrible beats in the last 5 minutes at all of your tables and you hold AA. You raise pre flop 5 times the big blind and get one caller. If the flop has an obvious flush or straight draw, or if the board pairs, be very wary. You'd think that when you've raised a lot pre flop and there is only one caller, he wouldn't be in there with 5 6 or 10 7 suited, or he wouldnt have called with A3 off suit. However, if you know pokerstars like I do, you better think again. The unthinkable is commonplace on this site. I can't even count the number of times I've had KK , raised pre flop, had one caller, and the flop was like J 4 4. And the guy had A4. Or maybe you have QQ, you raise and get called by 7 8 hearts and the flop is Q 5 3. 2 hearts. They invariably will call all in and hit their flush too. A lot of these hands I speak of are almost absurd to the point where it's as if they're rubbing it right in your face. Like in the hand I just described, where not only do you hold QQ, but you flop trips, and you still manage to lose to 7 8. Or the hand I mentioned earlier with AA flopping trips only to lose to a runner runner straight. So just in case you thought you were gonna play super tight and only push when you had an extremely strong hand and it couldn't possibly lose, think again. It will lose. When you're running terrible, the better your hand looks, all it means is that the bad beat youre gonna take will be that much more outrageous. Honestly, like I said before, I've tried playing it every way you can, and you just aren't gonna be able to win. The only solution is time time time. You have to wait it out and hope that it doesn't last too long.

Ok so on to my conclusion:

While beats like the ones I've mentioned are obviously possible, and over a large sample size extremely probable to occur from time to time. The frequency at which they happen, where you can continually predict what is coming next seems a bit absurd and unbelievable to me. I'm not a superstitious person in any respect. I've always loved keeping statistics and analyzing statistics of all kinds. My dad is a college research methods and statistics professor, so its clearly something I respect and attempt to understand. I'm definitely not any kind of authority or anything like that on statistics, but I'm just trying to explain that I'm not ignorant to them either and I am not into luck. However, despite all of this, I can't get past the absurdities I see on pokerstars. It just seems as if there is no in between. Either you are winning like crazy, or you can't win to save your life and at all 5 tables at once you take 10 beats within a 20 minute span that you would be hard pressed to see happen once in 50 hours of playing.

So many people ask me, why do I keep playing when I am so sure it's fixed? It's because I am making a profit, and I know that as long as i maximize the hot streaks when they come, and just deal with the cold streak and let them pass, accepting that I will lose with AA to AJ 4/5 times, then I still am making money.

So why would poker sites want to do something like this? Why hasn't anyone caught them? Your guess is as good as mine. My only explanation for why they havent been caught is that people haven't been looking at the right aspects of hands and testing them for statistical significance. Over a large sample size, the good and bad streaks average out and are not significant in and of themselves, but when viewed in succession, for instance the fact that you'll see 20 really bad beats in an hour.. do really well for a while and then see extremely similar bad beats occuring to you again 20 times in a row again. I wouldn't know how to test for something like this because I have no background in statistics. But it just seems like the continual occurrence of these unnatural streaks, and the fact that these streaks contain the same kinds of hands can't be legit. To answer my other question, I think sites might do something like this to create addicts. People who know they are good players but keep losing in horrendous ways are more likely to come back and keep playing because they "know" it can't last forever and that they should be winning, so they addictively keep playing and waiting for their "luck" to turn around. It also creates addicts out of bad players because they see their underdogs winning much more often than they should so they keep taking in money and betting increasingly stupidly in hopes that it will continue to pay off. When it does, they do great. When they hit a bad streak and start losing everything, they just want to keep playing in hope that they will hit that hot streak again. More often than not, that hot streak seems to take over from the bad streak just as the bankroll is about to hit 0. And the whole process repeats itself. People keep playing, the sites make bigger and bigger profits. Just an educated guess.

I could say a lot more and go into much more detail, and I may add an appendage to this later, but I'd like to see if anyone has actually read through this long ass post and has any comment to make about it. I look forward to the criticism.

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I didn't read any of that.

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Thank you for providing the opportunity to not read it twice.

chez

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i didn't read it either.

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I read all the quotes, I even read mine twice, but I still didn't read anything else.

Microbob is cool.

[Psycho Boy Jack]

i agree whith you PokerPlan, i don't think online poker is rigged. But your proof is not sufficient anyway. here is a counterexmaple:
in france, there is a national company which organize the "lotery" and manages all other "luck games" to scratch ...each week they gain thousands millions euros. they don't need to rig anything. but they recently have been condamned by a tribunal because they actually rigged one of their games (where u have to sratch a piece of peper to discover "you win" or "you loose") and it didn't appear until someone proved it. they rigged it. a so respectable "institution" which plays whith ppl money all year long rigged their games.it is possible.
just wanted to point it happens sometimes.

very sorry for the so bad english i am speaking, but i hope you understood me a bit.

[FeNeF]

Do you have even the tinest hint of evidence, or are you just spewing meaningless anecdotes?

[Basilvdk]

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I expected criticism and sarcasm, but I was hoping to spark a worthwhile discussion, not just smart remarks. I don't want to believe online poker is fixed, but time and time again I feel like I am left with no other choice but to question the validity of poker sites. Can someone who doesn't feel the need to be a smartass have this discussion with me? Enough people have their doubts about this that I feel like its a legitimate thing to discuss.

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Well, if you start by stating that you have no statistical data, we must presume this is just selective memory. Do you have PokerTracker? If so, post your info for AA. How many times, and what percentage are you winning with. The more times you get it, the closer that percentage will approach 80%. If not, show us a large sample of hands where you're at 20% or something like that, and we'll have something to discuss. Until that time, sounds like selective memory.

[Poker Plan]

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very sorry for the so bad english i am speaking, but i hope you understood me a bit.

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Your English is fine- well understood.

Interesting to hear about the lottery company that rigged the scratch cards. But the underlying question still has to be "For what reason"- there has to be a big reward to justify the huge risk of "loss of reputation".

The fact that poker sites readily offer you hand history files to obleviate fears of "rigging"- should demonstrate the importance they place on providing a fair game.

Thinks of the hug amount of money an employee could make if they could sell their story of "online poker site rigging", or if it is rigged- I am sure some "insider" would have tried to expoliot their finding. But it just hasn't happened.

Ian

[cardcounter0]

Go to a casino and play live. If you think Pokerstars is bad, you will come away from casino play screaming ...

ZOMG!!! B&M IZ SOOO RIGGED!!!!1!!one1!.

[Psycho Boy Jack]

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The fact that poker sites readily offer you hand history files to obleviate fears of "rigging"- should demonstrate the importance they place on providing a fair game.

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i find this more relevant, and i agree.

[DING-DONG YO]

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The fact that poker sites readily offer you hand history files to obleviate fears of "rigging"- should demonstrate the importance they place on providing a fair game.

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i find this more relevant, and i agree.

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This is such a ridiculous statement. So, dr. Statistics, have you ran an analysis on these hand histories and can say with X percent confidence that everything is on the level?

I am not in the "poker is rigged crowd". I just think the arguments you guys use to dismiss "rigging" are silly.

1) Why would they rig it, they're making a ton of money anyway. because rigging it makes you more money!!

2) They are audited/would get caught you have no idea how thorough the audit is plus it isn't that hard to fool auditors, ever hear of Enron, Worldcom, etc? Those frauds were 100 times less complex than rigging and the most prestigous accounting firms in the world didn't catch on

3) They give you had histories, the numbers don't lie. I have yet to ever see a true statistical analysis from someone who is qualified to do one.

Again, not saying I agree with OP, but these arguments blow hard.

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Thinks of the hug amount of money an employee could make if they could sell their story of "online poker site rigging", or if it is rigged- I am sure some "insider" would have tried to expoliot their finding. But it just hasn't happened.

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Sorry, another bad point. If this person did exist, they would be very highly compensating and incented to keep their mouth shut. Again, think of Enron and Worldcom and Healthsouth.

[Psycho Boy Jack]

i didn't say hand histories were a proof, i said i agreed this was a little more relevant than the "they already make money, why would they cheat" argument. anyway this is still far from making any proof that cheating don't exist.
if u have a valid argument, give it. i don't have one at the moment, but i'll think about it a bit.

[bqtrain]

This reminds me of when my friends would play 4 player, same team Madden football, and we'd have a lead but then the computer would rig the game in the fourth quarter so it would make some unbelievable plays to win the game and we titled this phenomenon "bukkake." Does anyone here think Poker Stars might be working with EA sports to bring this phenomenon over to poker? I say we get Carl Monday on the case. If he can bust a genius like The Ohio State University's own Mike Cooper, he'll get to the bottom of the poker-bukakee phenomenon. Bad beats like flopping top two pair and losing to a straight draw (check out this guy's blog titled "My White Boy Pain" linked to in chapter 3) just shouldn't happen.