There is a study about the PokerStars shuffle, and it says that half of the time the worst starting hand won when there was a showdown. I think the better starting hand should win more often, even when the hands that could have won folded earlier. So, is PokerStars rigged? The study is here: http://www.cigital.com/resources/gaming/poker/

Of course it is rigged? Haven't you been following the idiotic posts all over the internet about this?

PokerStars gave hole card data to the researchers, who published it. Although hand and user ID's were masked, anyone who saves poker hands can match those back up. Some hands might be ambiguous, such as those folded to one player preflop, but most should be unique. This is a direct violation of PokerStars clear promise, "No private data, such as pocket cards, is ever transferred to other players."

As to your question, I'm pulling some data out of the report to analyze it. But 50% strikes me as reasonable, for a moderate number of players (say average four or five). Remember, they're not saying the best starting hand wins 50% of the time, they're saying when there's a showdown the winning hand was the best of all the hands, in other words, the winning hand at showdown would have won half the time if everyone had stayed in to the river.

It's often the case that a bad starting hand is folded preflop, but would have picked up two pair or a set, or a straight.

The report is not saying this at all. It is saying that when there is a showdown 50% of the time the player who would have won has already folded.

This. OP, I think you may need to read the article again.

People don't understand this...there isn't an incentive for pokerstars to rig it so one player wins more than another player...they don't gain.

And there are some things that u don't understand and many people who laugh this off don't understand either.

Of course these sites aren't rigged so one player wins more than another, you are completely correct that there is no incentive. (Except maybe in the rare cases when an individual is pulling some sort of insider scam like the Absolute and FT things.)

What you and others are overlooking however is the fact that hand distributions and the "RNG's" are absolutely not random. There are many reasons and incentives for these sites to make the shuffle un-random.

Let's me give you a couple examples of hypothetical hands, their scenarios, and the possible benefits to the site based on the players thought processes.

Hand 1:
Player A is a recreational player who plays poker for an hr or so after his wife and kids go to bed a few times a week. Player A has been playing poker for 6 months and has just recently deposited money on Pstars for the first time. He had been playing for free on UB and Absolute poker and had deposited money on Tilt once before. So w/o getting into specific hand details player A makes a Royal Flush shortly after his first deposit on Pstars. When player A thinks about Pstars he gets excited thinking about his Royal Flush and can't wait to fire up his computer and try to chase that high of seeing a Royal Flush(huge hand.) Like a drug addict chasing that first high, and best believe this recreational player is gonna remember exactly where he took his first hit of crack (Royal Flush) from.

I'm gonna allow you to stew on this first example for a little. I have 2 other scenarios that I'll be back to post later, I'm tired right now.

jesus op, obv this

can you not figure that out by reading the article, or are you just trying to start another rigtard thread?

Some people like to argue that there is an incentive for the online poker room to rig it in favour of the underdog as opposed to a specific person. However the obvious strategy for that instance is to get your money in as a dog!

+1 from now on my standard for 27o UTG is open ship for 200bb's.

pfffft...hahahaha! good one.

but i'm going to go with the fact that even a rec player would know that the chances of getting dealt a royal flush ANYWHERE are extremely slim.

hell i've gotten a couple of Royals at FT but doesn't mean I'm trying to play any two suited Broadways in any circumstance in hopes of catching it again!

I really think there's too many players (new ones at that) for the servers/software to track exactly what to give them and what to put on the board to maximize rake.
(AND do this randomly enough to avoid suspicion)

However, I DO believe that the RNGs online are a bit skewed...not in anyone's favor, mind you, but skewed. Randomness in real-life is a little better spread out.
(But then again, some of the bad beats you see at the WSOP really feel like online bad beats, even worse)

that all being said, I still don't like the way FTP deals hands with a continuous shuffle. The method that everyone else including Stars follows with their deals is the correct way at least.

Im so sick of hearing this argument and the idiotic theories people come up with. There is no incentive and no, they do not give out a royal flush just so someone will keep throwing money into the site. The cold truth is that you can literally play millions more hands online than you could in a lifetime in person. They (poker professionals) say that many up and coming internet players have played thousands more hands than doyle brunson. also the site is running thousands of tables at once so it is even more likely that one of those tables at any given time is going to turn up big, big hands. People think they see a lot more big hands online because, you do. and if you see more hands you are more likely to hit four of a kind, straight flushes and have incredible beats with four of a kind against four of a kind and the like. It is not rigged it's that beauty of playing online

Is Pokerstars rigged? NO! Is pokerstars full of retards? NO! Just half full.
PS gives alot of free money away then these guys go to a table and play like its play chips and donk a few people. Then you got your 12 yr olds and your people who don't care about the money and your drunk having fun people. All this plus the fact you see 60 hands per table per hr just can seem a bit fishy. I don't see why pokerstars would cheat and risk it. Especially when their optimal business strategy is to have everyone stay at about even and rake them into bankruptcy.

This is the probability forum? Does that mean that we have to use math when explaining how the RNGs are not skewed and how the distributions of cards with FTP's method and Stars' method are identical?

In other words, even with the information of the entire preceding sequence of cards, you can not predict the next card to come out at better than random chance regardless of whether you are on FTP or Stars.

But do they really avoid suspicion?