The great "Poker is rigged" debate - Collected threads edition

[Siegmund]

If this is true, Bodog is about to get a whole lot of new customers. I've always won a LOT more there than on Stars

[Username^^]

i feel the same on ipoker vs cake vs fulltilt ..

[otatop]

Originally Posted by repcorpus24

Maybe I am a rigtard but for those who are not you have no proof either.

You can't prove a negative.

[tk1133]

spade what poker site do you work for again?

[Wiki]

Originally Posted by tk1133

spade what poker site do you work for again?

This has to be about the lamest of your 'tactics' (I don't even like to dignify such a feeble ploy with the epithet: 'tactic').

[spadebidder]

Originally Posted by tk1133

spade what poker site do you work for again?

What post prompted that? I don't work in the poker business at all. Furthermore, after playing regularly close to a year (not counting some time on Party years ago), I'm a ~20% net loser in online tourney play, and I believe the game is honest. I'm up a little in online cash play, and I'm up in live play (mostly tourneys and I play in a league). But I blame my online tourney record on my own play, not on a nefarious doomswitch. I'm working on getting better rather than looking for excuses. I recognize that online plays different from live, and it is tougher to beat at similar stakes.

[solucky]

Originally Posted by spadebidder

What post prompted that? I don't work in the poker business at all. Furthermore, after playing regularly close to a year (not counting some time on Party years ago), I'm a ~20% net loser in online tourney play, and I believe the game is honest. I'm up a little in online cash play, and I'm up in live play (mostly tourneys and I play in a league). But I blame my online tourney record on my own play, not on a nefarious doomswitch. I'm working on getting better rather than looking for excuses.

I am up 30-40 K, and i am sure that the games are not random.

For myself its proofed that they create action for higher rake, exspecially the blinds are hot online.

But who cares as long you can make money, anytime better than livetourneys with 40% RAKE (incl.travelling) like WSOP, EPT...

[spadebidder]

Originally Posted by solucky

....i am sure that the games are not random
...
For myself its proofed that they create action for higher rake, exspecially the blinds are hot online.

We've seen some pretty convincing statistics lately that this isn't the case. One study showed that the flop cards come in the expected distribution when looking at ~175 million flops on major sites. Another analysis of about 102 million hands showed that preflop all-ins win at the amount they should, at all preflop equity ranges. There will be more coming, as there are a couple groups now studying billion+ hand databases they've accumulated.

[PeaceFr0g]

Originally Posted by spadebidder

There will be more coming, as there are a couple groups now studying billion+ hand databases they've accumulated.

I would feel much more comfortable if I knew they were including folded hands in their sample size/study. I'm not sure if you ever answered that question. How are they viewing folded hands? Because of what we previously discussed, no sample size is big enough if they don't include folded hands in the equation. I'm not at all concerned about doom switches, that flops are not random, hole cards are not random, or that AA does not hold up what it statistically should overall. I'm simply concerned that I might be missing equity.

[otatop]

Originally Posted by PeaceFr0g

I would feel much more comfortable if I knew they were including folded hands in their sample size/study. I'm not sure if you ever answered that question. How are they viewing folded hands? Because of what we previously discussed, no sample size is big enough if they don't include folded hands in the equation. I'm not at all concerned about doom switches, that flops are not random, hole cards are not random, or that AA does not hold up what it statistically should overall. I'm simply concerned that I might be missing equity.

The Cigital study got every cash hand played on Stars at 25NL and above for all of December 2008 with all the hole cards. They "only" got 100 million hands, but they had the complete hole card information for every player at the table for all the hands.

[River Flush]

Originally Posted by Siegmund

If this is true, Bodog is about to get a whole lot of new customers. I've always won a LOT more there than on Stars

sigh, bodog.

[spadebidder]

Originally Posted by PeaceFr0g

How are they viewing folded hands? Because of what we previously discussed, no sample size is big enough if they don't include folded hands in the equation.

I don't agree with that last statement. Nobody has all hole cards but the poker sites (and Cigital in that case, but those aren't public). The databases I speak of have only the cards that went to showdown, plus the community cards, plus the hole cards of the player gathering the data in some cases. However, with a large enough sample of hands that include 2 or more player's hole cards, you end up with enough hole cards to do some very useful analysis, including many queries that would show skew in the randomness of the deal.

Sure, there are some things you can't analyse with this kind of sample. But you don't have to see hole cards to prove that the community cards are random, or to prove that all-ins win at the expected rates. Both of those things have been analysed already in some large samples without any sign of rigging. And there's a lot more you can tell with this kind of samples.

[qpw]

Originally Posted by tk1133

spade what poker site do you work for again?

tk1133, which court is hearing a child molesting case against you again?

[BitterChris]

zOMG - it's RIGGED!!!!

... but in my favor, to the tune of +.16BB/all-in hand.





Regardless, I'm still not convinced, since this is pretty much the only thing that can be analyzed statistically and excludes other aspects of rigging, such as cold-decks, hole-card readers, board-card predictors, and other forms of cheating such as collusion or bots. Also, since I play tournaments almost exclusively online (to minimize the chances of collusion) whenever it really counts I can never seem to win a pot, such as on the money or FT bubble, or the hand that would put me among the chipleaders.

Although my local poker room has an automated shuffler that seems to deal out big pairs more often than is called for (shudder), I'd rather play there and make decent money.

- Bitterness is joy with a bad attitude

[BitterChris]

For some reason the images arent coming out above and I get a javascript error when I try to edit, so here they are...

http://yfrog.com/06bbgraphj

http://yfrog.com/06tgraphj