Sorry, Mack, one time back in high school I took a debate class. So when arguing about an issue, I try to stick with what can be proven, show me some evidence please. Your attacks are of a personal nature and only denegrate the conversation and in my opinion say more about you than you might like. My sarcasm is an attempt to goad you into possibly reinforcing your argument with a fact or two.

Proving a Negative

From Wikipedia

Argument from ignorance

• Something is currently unexplained or insufficiently understood or explained, so it is not (or must not be) true.
• Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven.

Argument from personal incredulity

• "I can't believe this is possible, so it can't be true." (The person is asserting that a proposition must be wrong because he or she is [or claims to be] unable or unwilling to fully consider that it might be true, or is unwilling to believe evidence which does not support her or his preferred view.)
• "That's not what people say about this; people instead agree with what I am saying." (Here the person is asserting that a proposition must be inaccurate because the opinion of "people in general" is claimed to agree with the speaker's opinion, without offering specific evidence in support of the alternative view.)

APPEAL TO IGNORANCE
Assertions based on what we do NOT know: "No one knows precisely what
would happen if a core was to melt down." And the compounding of arbitrarily
asserted possibilities.
What COULD happen is what is possible. The burden of proof is on the
skeptic to provide some specific reason to doubt a conclusion that all
available evidence supports. It is not true that "coulds" and "maybes" are
an epistemological free lunch that can be asserted gratuitously. The case
against the skeptic is that doubt must always be specific, and can only
exist in contrast to things which cannot properly be doubted.

Homily ad Hominem
Appealing to a person's feelings or prejudices, rather than his intellect, with a trite phrase designed to reinforce a subjective rather than objective view of a situation. If the homily is not accepted in answer to the situation, the next thing that will be done is to attack the person's character rather than answer his argument.

I have yet to see a 'oMgZ P$t@rZ iZ RIgg3D' argument that isn't based 100% on fallacies.

I'm surprised you missed the opportunity to point out i misspelled "intellectual" in the post you were responding to. Seemed like a gold mine of irony for you to pontificate about. Someone insulting your intelligence and then spelling "intellectual" as "itellectual" usually you bitter forum know it alls love going on and on about typos, spelling errors, grammar, etc, etc.....

Read below...

This has to be a level, you can't possibly be serious. Well done, you got me and you got me to carry on for a while. Nice job. Fun while it lasted.

You get the prize for the nuttiest comment on this thread.

I am so sorry Mack Is God. I awarded you the prize before I read this post and now I have to be an Indian giver. Please forgive me.

sklansky smackin' newbs upside the head ITT

Whether or not it's rigged can never be answered definitively with mere anecdotal bad luck experiences and theories about motivation and opportunity of stars to increase profits by cheating. But this lack of proof of rigging is not an implied proof that stars is not rigged. It is an open question with an obvious bias towards it being fair, with a true RNG (or, for the theoretically minded, something closely approaching an RNG) for obvious reasons.

It would be nice though to have one day of not getting coolered and losing pot after pot with sets, flushes and straights. I mean, just one day. Do I really run like God in every live venue I play in for years? and by chance run bad at stars? It's possible but until I stop losing big pots continually with 80+ equity all in I will keep one eyebrow raised.

And I still wonder, for the 3rd time, why the bigger games are on ftp. More fish on stars, easier money transfers, so why are the bigger games on ftp?

I never said a lack of proof was validation PS is free of corruption.

Are your last two paragraphs serious? Do you not understand how illogical and shortsighted you are being?

I welcome any proof online poker is a scam because it will help me. I will continue to scoff at people aimlessly bitching about issues which are almost certainly a result of either variance or their mistakes. But hey, keep believing online poker is a scam while you play there, and please, spread the gospel! Nothing excites me more than playing against people who follow the type of logic displayed so grossly in this thread.

Were I talking to you guys face to face I would probably not put forth my doubts about the integrity of online poker. Most who question it are nutty and believe in a lot of conspiracy theories and I don't want to be lumped in with them although that is how those who adamantly testify to the randomness of the shuffle like to characterize anyone who is the least bit skeptical.

I would just like to see somehow who defends the integrity of online poker so faithfully just admit to the possibility that there is unethical manipulation of the cards. Just admit it is possible. Not likely, just possible and easy to do.

forgiven

Yes hopefully one day I will have 3000+ posts on a poker forum like you do and i will no longer be a "newb". Because as everyone knows, the amount of posts you have is a direct reflection of someone's knowledge of the game and how good a player they are. I'm sure you are one of the "seasoned" veterans who have been playing since around 04'-05' at micro limits (maybe even later than that?) who post here so often. Perhaps i can achieve a level of skill and talent that only comes from the vast experience that you have and no longer be considered a "newb".

I wouldn't be illogical and shortsighted on purpose. Sometimes I wonder if those of you who are absolutely convinced of stars integrity actually play there or just know that there is a website called pokerstars on which people play poker.

There is a guy on this forum who made a prop bet that he could win 10K on stars in 15 days playing low buy in sit n gos. He won the bet. I looked at his sharkscope of his history at stars. He has won a decent amount though he has played a huge amount of sit'n gos. At first his graph goes up nicely, upwardly drifting to 30K in profit. Then it takes this nasty sharp turn downward and the guy appently loses 30K straight playing low buy in sitn'gos. I'm not trying to submit this as proof of tampering by stars because for one I don't know the details of bokus (the name of the guy with the prop bet) downswing and quite frankly I am not sure of the likelihood of such a downswing. I would have to assume it is not possible given constant conditions but I am not sure. But I think it is safe to assume that boku did not forget how to play poker for 30K worth of low entry fee sit n gos and then suddenly remember and hence resume the upward drift in profit. I also think it is safe to assume that boku did not go on tilt for 30K worth of cheap sit n gos. If someone reading this has any insight into that please let me in on it.

If you are a profitiable poker player your sharkscope should look like what is called in statistics a "random walk" with an upward drift. There are ups and downs but a marked drift upward. Bokus graph does this, then has a random walk markedly downward for 30K, then resumes the upward drift again. wtf?

I'd wager quite a bit that the association is in the positive direction...and that the magnitude is non-trivial.

Sherman