For the guy who is trying to verbalize "alternative rigs" here is something I posted on P5s several years ago (disclaimer: I don't care if online poker is rigged or not as long as I'm profitable This post is mostly for the entertainment of the guy looking to describe ways it could be rigged in a logical fashion. I'm also sure these statistics wizards can shoot these 4 year old "theories" i had back then full of holes...but chew on them anyway for your own amusement. Also I got very badly flamed in this thread and its a pretty funny read, so I'll post the link at bottom. )

Stolen equity theory:

1) Bad players get coolers too...my assertion is that they occur at a more natural frequency for bad players while good players run into them slightly more often that they should vs bad players ala my stolen equity theory that I described above. Basically you run into the top of the bad players range more often than you should. Now the last part of your question is VERY interesting and further defines my point.

The most interesting part of NLH is the "leveling" that takes place when good players tangle with each other, especially when there's history involved OR there is an expected future metagame dynamic between the players in question. Im going to give you my blanket opinion first and then give a rather detailed/long description of what I mean: When a good player "coolers" you 5 times in a row chances are you are not getting "coolered" at all but are rather getting outplayed. Good players adjust thier ranges constantly given hard information such as recent hands that have been played and past knowledge about opponent tendencies as well as percieved info such as how their opponents are currently playing, gameflow, how moneypressure might affect opponent decisions, etc. Bad players dont do this. Lets look at "restealing" as a spot where a good player can outplay you in a way that looks like you are getting "coolered". You have TT in the cutoff with 35bbs near the bubble of a $55 freezeout. You have raised 4 times in the last few orbits. You open to 3bbs and a good player WHO KNOWS THAT YOU ARE GOOD TOO shoves 19bbs from the big blind. Pause for a minute right here: This is "standard" snap call high five the monitor in todays state of online poker vs other good regs. Lets look at a restealing range for him ( this may not be optimal we are just doing an exercise) You need 41.6% equity or more to show a proft on a call. Lets say he is reshoving 77+, A9s+, AJo+, KJs+, KQo, and 98s-76s. Your TT has 55% equity vs that range. You can profitably call with 77+, ATs+, barely not KQs, AJo+. Now lets say you call: you will dominate 30 combos(77-99 and 76s-89s) be dominated by 24 combos (JJ-AA) tie the 1 TT combo, be 3:1 or so against 7 combos (A9s-ATs) and be flipping vs 68 combos (all the rest). The good player knows that you know to call his resteal with pretty much your whole value open range, and he also knows that you know not to open light as much bc of his prime resteal stack size, and he knows that if you call him with anything reasonable he wont be inducing much of a mistake from you if any. So lets imagine that instead of just riding the variance dragon with you he decided to adjust his strategy to exploit you. If he trims his "resteal" range down to 99+, A9s+, KJs+, AJo+ you went from being a 55/45 favorite to being a 48/51 dog. Take him down jsut a few more pt to 99+, ATs+, AQo+, KQs and now he's the 55/45 favorite. Notice its still a call even if he told you the new range, but you will now dominate 4 combos (99) tie 1 (TT) be dominated by 24 combos (JJ-AA) be 3:1 vs 2 combos (ATs) and flipping vs 40 combos (all the rest). You went from being crushed 24/130 hands and having him crushed 37/130 to..............crushing him 6/71 combos and being crushed by him 24/71 combos. you are dominated 34% of the time now vs 18.5% simply because the other good player knew what you thought about how he would play the situation and played differently to exploit it. He may have given up some successful resteal spots when you had ****all but in exchange he pwns your soul because you "run into the top of his range" or "get coolered" when you have a "standard" snap call hand a full 83.7% more often here. But you didnt get coolered. You got outplayed by him.

Now the bad players dont know about resteals, dont know about ranges, and even if they had an idea what it was they certainly arent going to adjust to anyone by playing TIGHTER. So when you run into coolers by bad players logically they really are coolers. The original resteal range given above is reasonable for a TIGHT shove range from any fish who seen poker on tv. He will actually mostly shove wider including worse suited aces, KTo and **** like that , plus more suited connectors. So when you run TT or AJs etc into his QQ+ and AK more often than expected you must assume a) you really are on the extreme end of bad variance or b) his range has been artificially strengthened by the site in that he will still shove any of the hands in the original resteal range and maybe more.....but he wont get DEALT the weaker end of that range as often which protects him from your correctly wide raise/calling range and punishes you because though your call is hugely profitable vs the range he intends to be shoving it is marginal at best if he is being dealt the higher end of his range more.


"You guys have been drilled with this "just get your money in good, you'll get all the $$$ in the longrun" and " you want him to make those ****ty plays" **** from these poker sites for so long because if you buy it, which you obv do, then they can keep ****** you out of equity to keep the degenerate fish happy with an occasional big score or the thrill of that miracle runner runner or miraculous comeback after they donk off almost thier whole stack....and you the good player will keep coming back thinking eventually the odds will even out. How many of you has it "evened out" for?
It doesnt bc there are more donks than winners so you keep getting shuffled back into the pool of equity donors over and over and it detracts from your winrate enough to keep you a modest winner. Winning players still win, jsut not as much (becuase the losers have played more games on theier deposit than they would if left to their own ability so have paid rake more times) and not as fast (because it takes longer for the collection of sharks to eat the fish) as you would if the deal were random. Likewise losers still lose ...and they do lose the whole amount (some to the site and some to the winners) of their deposits but they last longer than they would if they didnt recieve a handicap. And thats why midstakes grinders seem to run so bad at high stakes tourneys. We take shots or sattys into them so we dont have the volume (bc of bankroll considerations) to ride out the variance on them, and when we do get to play them we seem to constantly get hosed by the fish who have $200 in thier acct. Thats bc those people will use $200 to try to satty into a $130 instead of grinding up a roll. So the site favors them over us hoping htat if gifted an instaroll that palyer will become another regular customer instead of a 2 bullet chump depositing $200 here and there (he binks off $1300 and then hopefully plays several $20-$55 buyins with it...meanwhile you bust with set vs his flush draw 3 levels in, and go back to grinding those same stakes anyway, the site gains nothing by a midstakes grinder succeeding in higher buyins...if anything they risk losing money bc if you run good in a couple highstakes games you may cut out several of the lower buyins on your schedule that arent worth your time anymore, and play fewer tourneys, at higher stakes which = less rake. You are also more likely to move money off the site because as a midstakes grinder you probalby have 5k-10k on the site and you dont need any more than that on a site at any time really as long as you could put it back if needed. So you win 8k and put 4k on stars and 4k on tilt and start subbing out your $15 and $3r on UB for $26-$75 buyins on the other two sites. UB loses. so keeping your midstakes grinders at that level, using the highstakes tourneys to keep the elite high buyin players and wealthy fish happy + instarolling degenerate low account balance irregular players in hope of creating more midstakes regulars = profit. "

"1. They steal a little equity here and there from winning players by making your hands where you "get it in ahead" not quite as big a favorite as you think you are. Now "getting it in ahead" doesnt necessarily mean having the best hand but being ahead of villains range (this is the reason folding KK is theoretically bad because regardless of the times he has AA, KK is crushingly ahead of even the tightest players allin range for 15bbs) Poker tracking software monitors your allin equity based on your actual hand vs their actual hand from the point when all the money goes in. In addition when we are talking about MTTs all that can be tracked efficiently is cEV, not $EV. So getting your bad luck in key spots a little more than your fair share while running good when it doesnt matter much will make your stats look legit (and likewise they can let the fish run good in the big spots just a little more often each to decrease their lossrate) So when you look at your pokertracker your AA held up within 2-3% of the times it should. But if fish flop sets when NOT allin preflop just a shade more often than they should on 3 8 T twoflushed flops, you are still way ahead of the range he's willing to get allin with on that flop, but not AS FAR AHEAD as you should be because you will run into the top of his range (the sets) more than you mathematically should (imagine on a 38T 2flushed flop the fact that there are only 9 combos that beat you out of all the other combos he will get allin with. The math vs the fish can be more like there are 4 tens left in the deck instead of 3, so there are an extra 3 combos of TT making you 25% more likely to run into the top of his range....NOTE IM NOT SAYING THERE IS AN EXTRA TEN IN THE VIRTUAL DECK IM TRYING TO CLEARLY EXPLAIN THE CONCEPT OF NOT BEING AS FAR AHEAD OF HIS RANGE AS YOU THINK) That is stolen equity and it wont hurt your "allin equity" stats with AA because you get it in way behind so you expect to lose. Imagine having JJ, 3betting an open raiser, and getting shoved on. Imagine his 4bet shoving range is like AJs+, AQ+ 88+. Obviously JJ is way ahead of that range. Now if you were playing a tighter player and he only 4bet shoved AJs+, AK+, and TT+ you wont be as far ahead of that range as you would have the first one (you may not be ahead at all, i havent run it but you get the point) So imagine now you are against a fish who has the first 4bet shoving range, except the site has replaced a T and a 9 from the deck with an extra deuce and a trey. Now the fish is still shoving the same range and there are still 52 cards in the deck but the fish's range will be artifically strengthened against your hand due to the fact that there will be 6 less combos of hands you are a 4:1 favorite against. That is stolen equity. You'll still be ahead of his range and your allin equity vs his actual hands will be correct over the long run with no further "rigging" but you will not be winning as much money from the fish as you normally would. And no stats will ever give this away.

Sorry i got off on a long explanation of 'stolen equity" but the gist is the sites steal a little equity from winners here and there to keep fish losing slower thus the fish are happy.

2) the fish lose slower thus play more games thus pay more rake thus the site is happy.

3) winners still win longterm so they are happy, they just grind longer to win a little less money than they would if the deal were fair.

4) the sites further convince winners that they "want him to make that bad call" etc or "you will be ahead there more than you are behind, its standard" because "thats where you make your money at" so basically they mind**** you into thinking you want these fish making bad calls etc etc etc, which would be true if they fish werent getting handicapped from the site which is actually lowering your winrate. Youd be better off if they fckng folded and you won the pot uncontested in some cases (ie marginal spots become negative EV sometimes)"

http://www.pocketfives.com/f7/sick-i...-river-511406/

I'm gonna respond to a minor part of your post:
Why do you say it's the sites that convince us of that?

Good players simply know that because it's a mathematical fact, it's basic poker theory. Your EV when an opponent makes a bad call is greater than your EV when your opponent makes a good fold. (Assuming no rigging, that is.) I mean maybe that's not always the case in tourneys (in cash games it's always true) but my point is it's not propaganda.

heehaww, I cannot believe you actually read more than one line of that post. Kudos to you.

You underestimate the power of my boredom

What magic is this?

i wrote that **** in 2009....but in hindsighe i could have made a mint if i'd wrote a book about "stolen equity" and sold it to the tin foil hat wearers of the world.