wtg man - that's sick

josem, how is the "shuffled deck" object treated in the code? Is it a black box, available to only a few senior programmers? Or is every programmer able to see and compile the code, and therefore know how it operates? I've asked you this before. I said that if you poked your head over into the programming side, then came back and told me you were 100% sure it was not a black box, I would trust you and drop my .001% chance of rigged claim. At that point you said to not make this personal and basically told me to drop that line of request. I don't think there's any chance that you could have a conspiracy of every programmer that's every worked on the code. But if you had a few senior guys who handled the shuffled deck object, maybe a small group could keep the secret.


Another item that would satisfy me 100% is a real code audit by a respected, well-known 3rd party auditor. I'm sorry but I don't intrinsically trust the Isle of Mann Gambling Supervision Commission to have 100% certified the code here. In fact I would bet a lot that they haven't even looked into the code. If this were code that ran a slot machine in Nevada, I can rest assured that every line of code, and their methods of delivery, has been poured over by experts in their field at the NGC. They also run periodic spot checks to make sure the code actually running is the code they certified. In almost any other walk of life where code is mission critical to either money, life, public safety, etc., multiple code audits and certifications by national regulatory bodies are required.

Yes there are still other ways to cheat, but that's a big barrier. If this were a regulated industry there would be much more safeguards in place than just the Isle of Mann Gambling Supervision Commission. We've seen how good a job the Kawanahake Gaming Commission does. Yet we're supposed to just take it on faith that the Isle of Mann Gambling Supervision Commission is competent and thorough to do this kind of programmatic gaming audit/certification?

http://www.pokerstars.com/iom/

"The Gambling Supervision Commission is an independent corporate body initially established in 1962 and consists of a Chairman and four members.

In addition to the licensing and regulation of terrestrial gambling operations as the Casino, amusement or slot machines, betting and lotteries the Commission is also charged with the regulation of all online gambling activities."

You really think these guys have kept up with the times and now how to do a proper code audit? Nowhere on the PS site does it even mention a code audit. Just financial paper trails. Again, I still don't think PS is cheating, but the regulation argument is a complete non-starter with me. I know how easy it would be to hide rigging from something called the Isle of Mann Gambling Supervision Commission.


And the third thing that would satisfy me is a giant DB of showdowns combined with player demographic data, as I have described. Then we can run multiple regression analyses on it to see if anything pops out. If I come up with the big DB of showdowns, and players - do you think PS would be willing to provide the player's location and join date, in the name of science? Obviously there's more info. I'd like to know about their BR, but that's too sensitive. I can't see where location and join date would be all that intrusive. And don't say the giant DB just showing board card distribution is random is good enough. If a site was to somehow rig a deal it would be trivially easy to simply swap out board cards later in a meaningless spot so that randomness is maintained. If you were going to rig, it would be easy enough to hide it from just a pure card-randomness analysis. That's why I want showdowns with equity and some player demographic data. No kind of systemic player favoring could hide from that.


Does any of this mean PS is cheating? No. If I had to bet I would want something like 1000 to 1 odds at best. But in the real world, when an industry isn't regulated or is poorly regulated, crazier things can and do happen. See AP/UB. See Pitbull Poker. See Bernie Madoff. You think you'd have gotten far at a cocktail party entertaining the idea that he was running a ponzi scheme? (Yeah the SEC sucked it big time on that one. Another red flag was Bernie Madoffs auditor was some little guy that no one ever heard of and Madoff was his only client.)

I believe that PS is loaded with integrity. They hired you. I would bet the farm that they aren't cheating. But I still think it's worth trying to prove to the same degree that all other monetary critical systems are proven in the real world. I have listed 2 imminently doable ways this could be achieved (and one way that would satisfy me only since I know and trust you). So don't say it's impossible to prove to a reasonable person. But the arguments "integrity, RNG is certified, Isle of Mann Gambling Supervision Commission" are not sufficient all by themselves imo.


Here is the whole Ed Miller article btw: http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/a...ine-poker.html Yes he brings up a bunch of baseless possibilities. But I think like me he would just like to be sure there is no rigging going on to the same degree we know in non-Wild West industries. Here's what he says about the triple draw reshuffle, where it checks to see if the player is getting their previous card:

"I see no reason to manipulate the deal in this way or any other for any reason. Making players happier is a terrible reason to manipulate the deal. Indeed, the rule change itself bothers me less than the justification of it. The same justification could be made to support other deal manipulations that could have effects the PokerStars people don’t fully comprehend… or that they do comprehend and benefit from. In my opinion it’s best not to open that can of worms at all."

I strongly agree with him on that point. I think it was a bad decision by PS. Why change the game from the way it's played in the real world? Why even put the programmatic mechanisms in place to deal different cards based on some previous condition? Combine that with a rules engine (which could be periodically tweaked by management) and you have everything you need to rig the deck in favor of certain types of players.

Good luck in wcoop today everyone

I'm unfamliar with this day called Labor day. I'm quessing this not a good day to head to Orlando? Does it "calm" down by tuesday?

My base camp is in Lantana. Do you (or someone else) happen to know what's the best mall for clothes around here

I've been playing online fulltime for 6 years now dave. If your leaving pokerstars for that reason you should leave online poker. There isn't another site out there right now that has more integrity than stars. I say that with lots of other experiences at lots of other sites.

Suzzer, your letting your brain get cluttered up with lots of random crap that does you no good whatsoever and keeps you from focusing on and thinking about the things you really need to think about to play well.

voice of reason!

Lacky, this is 100% true. But I still think the showdown analysis is worth doing. I will work on it as soon as I can. Maybe PS will help me a little with player location info. (the same info you can see about the player on the site, so nothing private). That would be awesome.

labor day pretty much means nothing as a holiday as it's not something that is celibrated. It was set up as a national holiday 100+ years ago as a day of rest for workers. so all it means is most people are off work that day so places will be more crowded

Yo don't listen to Lacky Karp. He old. Labor Day is off the hizzeee!!!

hey, everyone needs a hobby. just understand this. you already suffer from problems with emotional stability while playing poker. having these thoughts rataling around in your brain is only gonna make it worse.

FYP + QFT

I am never drinking again in my entire life. That is all.


"Dear God"

I've yet to have these issues at FTP. Like I said, I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. I didn't bitch about it, I found another option that I prefer and went with it. I respect your decision to stay at Stars, and I'd appreciate it if you returned the favor and didn't tell me to leave on-line poker.

Suzzer - your suggestion that some old beardy chairman and 4 other Manxmen actually audit the Pokerstars code is kinda lol. The IoM Gambling Supervision Commission is the regulatory body. PriceWaterhouse Coopers do the actual auditing (or at least they did last time I checked).

http://www.pwc.co.uk/eng/services/as...assurance.html



PwC’s independent controls & process assurance services include
Risk management
Corporate governance
Production of process flow diagrams and documentation
Design, implementation and testing of controls
Shared service centres / process reviews
Due diligence on systems and controls
Third party reports / opinions e.g. internet gaming, web seals
Independent SAS 70 reviews
Systems – pre- and post-implementation reviews
Assistance on Turnbull and Sarbanes-Oxley 404 requirements.

Update: checking Pokerstars.com it would seem that they're now using BMM and cigital. Either way, the point is that we have qualified testing companoes checking the code, which is a world away from your implicit suggestion that 5 underqualified guys based in the IoM are doing the hardcore number crunching.

On labor day places will be more busy, alot of people are off from work.

By Lantana do you mean Lantana road? in Lake Worth? If so then the Boynton Beach mall is going to be the closest place to you. Your other choices are the Palm Beach mall (which is terrible, don't go there), the mall at Wellington green (decent mall, nicer/more expensive than boynton beach mall with alot of stores surrounding the mall itself) or you could drive down to sawgrass mills, which I'm not really familiar with but I always here good things. Siq might know that place better.

http://www.simon.com/mall/default.aspx?id=136

I'm very familiar with this area, if you need any directions or places to ahng out just shoot me a pm, I won't be back on here until later tonight or tomorrow.

And I'll post girlish "plz don't kill me" posts whenever I feel like it, which isn't very often. I'm not real concerned how it effects you.

fair enough, good response at a 12 year old level imo

I think PS is rigged towards hairy ass canadiens that golf.



Madness itt

somehow I always convince myself that I enjoy mtts and one of these days im going to ship a non bodog mtt.

wtf is wrong with me I despise these mother ****ing games more than anything in the ****ing world.

Lol - just to be a pain, changing auditors is generally considered a red flag.

OK I found what you're talking about:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/features/security/

"PokerStars shuffle verified by Cigital and BMM International

PokerStars submitted extensive information about the PokerStars random number generator (RNG) to two independent organizations. We asked these two trusted resources to perform an in-depth analysis of the randomness of the output of the RNG, and its implementation in the shuffling of the cards on PokerStars.

Both independent companies were given full access to the source code and confirmed the randomness and security of our shuffle. Visit Online Poker Random Number Generator for more details."


This is just about the RNG certification. Again, no one is saying the RNG isn't random or disputing in anyway the integrity of the RNG. The potential for manipulation would be for somewhere down the line after the deck has been shuffled. Then all you would have to do is keep track of which two cards you swapped and do a reverse swap at some point later in time in a meaningless spot.

We already know the deck is manipulated in triple draw. The card the player would have gotten is changed based on some pre-existing condition. So it's certainly possible within the structure of the code. Ideally to me there should never be a check for anything, or any alteration of the deal. It's like having a superuser account functionality in the code. It's just bad juju and potential for abuse somewhere down the line. My guess is if PS had it to do over again they would not manipulate the deal in TD.

I'm pretty sure in the blurb above they are just looking at the RNG code. I would like to see where it says the entire codebase, and the systems to deploy it are actually audited/validated - and if it's ever spot checked while in operation.


I've been a computer programmer for over 10 years. I know the way things are generally done. I used to work in the healthcare industry. The amount of auditing, validating and certifications we had to go through with any tiny programming change was insane. Banks are no different because money is at stake.

I couldn't see any mention of PwC on Pokerstars, which either means that they have in fact changed auditors, or that my initial information was incorrect.

WRT the auditing bodies currently certifying the RNG, please see http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/rng/


Maybe we have a new season of 24 in the making here: a small cell of anti-American programmers working within an international online gaming network are conspiring to undermine the US economy by manipulating their software to slowly siphon funds out of the US one pot at a time. To do so, they switch out an externally, multiply-audited RNG algorithm with their own modified code without drawing the attention of any of a number of system administrators. This modified code replaces the standard data randomisation input models of thermal noise and user-generated mouse movements with a system which analyses the texture of the current hand, and then examines the remaining deck for cards that would favour each of the active players. After geolocating each player by IP (cross referenced by hooks into the player database to ensure no overseas US players have been overlooked), a large % of cards favourable to US players are then removed from the active deck, resulting in non-American players winning a disproportionate number of pots. These Manx cyber-terrorists pose a clear and present danger to US national security, and Jack Bauer is called upon to infiltrate this despicable group, leaving in his wake a 24 hour long trail of destruction, mayhem and violence on the sleepy island of the Isle Of Man.

Yeah that's all just about random number generation. These companies just do that. PWC would make me feel a lot better because they are a true auditor. But again I'd want to know their looking at more than the financials.

To change the subject to a less angry topic:

All I want to do today is watch college football, even though I need to grind out about 50 more SNGs to stay on pace for my monthly goal

Anyone (anyone who runs better than suzzer) want to grind for me while I bask in the glory of Ohio State's craptacular performance?

I can find mention of PWC auditing Stars all over the web except for at Pokerstars.com itself.

One of about 50 examples of review sites that list PWC as the Stars auditor

http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-stars

Suzzer, I completely agree with CQ, confidence/attitude > appearance. Sure appearance helps but I know a **** ton of decent/good looking guys who can't get girls because they are pussies -- I also know some fat/generally unattractive guys who pull girls all the time.
Of course getting in better shape will always improve your odds.


lol


Also Suzzer stop being a rigtard.

If I had to hate on Stars for any reason it would be for that huge and annoying "page curl" banner ad at the top of this page.