Organizing a project to determine which sites are legit or rigged

nineinchal · #1 09-25-2007, 03:11 PM

My thoughts are that there must be enough data collected to determine the legitimacy of poker sites.

I am interested in organizing the effort. However, I need your help, since we have to start collecting and analyzing data, and reaching a conclusion.

Preferably, I would like to leave it up to the mathmeticians, statisticians and computer geeks to make this determination. I have spent the last twenty five years as a financial and operational auditor; so perhaps I can contribute in some form to this.

So let's chat on here to discuss its feasibility.

Please don't start with the sarcastic comments. I am a winning player too, so I believe that most sites are legit, if they want to stay in business. However, I have my suspicions about this industry as well, so I think this sort of study may produce some surprising results.

Any thoughts? We have some of the most intelligent people here, so let's hear it...

Bobo Fett · #2 09-25-2007, 03:22 PM

I like the idea to a certain extent. It would be nice to put together all of the numbers and either shut up the naysayers (although sadly this probably wouldn't work), or discover if there is anything odd going on anywhere.

The big hurdle, though, would be that people won't want to give up their HHs. The only thing I could see working would be to decide on some key stats, and have players submit just those stats.

ryanj247 · #3 09-25-2007, 03:28 PM

don't forget there are a lot of people out there with a lot of datamined hands. no reason for people to be worried about submitting those to the project. i have a couple million or so i can send.

Bobo Fett · #4 09-25-2007, 03:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
don't forget there are a lot of people out there with a lot of datamined hands. no reason for people to be worried about submitting those to the project. i have a couple million or so i can send.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, but there's still the issue of one person now having in their possession the data of tens (hundreds?) of millions of hands. If we all have datamined hands on one another, are we excited about one person having all that data? Plus, if the project were to become that huge, would PT be able to handle a big enough database?

nineinchal · #5 09-25-2007, 03:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
don't forget there are a lot of people out there with a lot of datamined hands. no reason for people to be worried about submitting those to the project. i have a couple million or so i can send.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, but there's still the issue of one person now having in their possession the data of tens (hundreds?) of millions of hands. If we all have datamined hands on one another, are we excited about one person having all that data? Plus, if the project were to become that huge, would PT be able to handle a big enough database?

[/ QUOTE ]

I can still only multi table five games at a time, so I figure I can't get too much info about how to play better from your hands, I am just too damn busy...

Bobo Fett · #6 09-25-2007, 03:40 PM

Well, let's see what the general reaction here is (if there is one). I could be wrong, but I suspect the majority of posters will not want to be sending their hand histories in to just anybody. At the very least, this will likely be the case more often with the big winners (no I'm not one of them [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]), which will skew your data somewhat.

nineinchal · #7 09-25-2007, 03:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I like the idea to a certain extent. It would be nice to put together all of the numbers and either shut up the naysayers (although sadly this probably wouldn't work), or discover if there is anything odd going on anywhere.

The big hurdle, though, would be that people won't want to give up their HHs. The only thing I could see working would be to decide on some key stats, and have players submit just those stats.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do not think the hand histories would be the problem at this stage.I think the problem is to estimate the scope of the work. The sample size would have to run into hundred of millions of hands, from all of the poker sites. However, I am not a statistician, so I could be off a few google hands or so...

Sciolist · #8 09-26-2007, 10:23 AM

[ QUOTE ]
The big hurdle, though, would be that people won't want to give up their HHs. The only thing I could see working would be to decide on some key stats, and have players submit just those stats.

[/ QUOTE ]
You would also need a way to trust whoever datamined the hands. If my agenda was to show that site ABC was rigged, I would datamine that site for a couple million hands, then remove all the times AA held up (or whatever) and purposely bias the sample.

sheshbeshon · #9 09-26-2007, 07:37 AM

You are all way way way out of focus here...

there is no way to know if a site is rigged or not from
the hand history. You are all thinking in one direction which is viewing a persons hole cards. this is not the only way to rigg a site.

how about - open the source code ? let you compile the source code yourself ... and have a 3'rd party company check the server side of the software....???
and have the clients decide which comapny will check it ...

NANONUTS · #10 09-26-2007, 07:59 AM

It's like with God. There is no proof that he does exist, but there is no proof he doesn't either. Basically it's down to your own personal opinion/beliefs. Although unlike with God you could actually prove that the poker sites are fair/unfair by through compiling and analysing the evidence that is out there in people's databases.