First off, I've created a new username for the purpose of hosting this thread. Although it will likely not matter, I do not want to risk anything because I still have a substantial amount of money on Pokerstars.

About myself, although I think it should not matter, I've been playing poker professionally for about 13-14 years and won about 1mil $ in that period of time.

I've found it very hard to win on Pokerstars in the past 2years despite playing in soft fields and despite putting hundreds of hours into poker theory. I by no means think that the reason for that is because their card shuffle is rigged. I do consider the possibility of:

1) variance
2) not being good enough anymore
3) both

However having lost over a 300k hand sample in what I would consider soft fields, I'm getting a bit wary. Now last night I googled a bit and stumbled upon a publication of someone who has examined a sample of hands in a purely analytical way and looked at the distribution of hands and flops only from a point of probability and got very disturbing results.

The study is rather long and while I do understand most of it, from a technical point of view I'm lacking the mathematical expertise to be able to tell whether its right or wrong. For that reason I decided to share it here because I know there are many mathematicians who could probably easily tell whether it needs to be taken serious or not and therefore I'm hoping some of you could take a look at it and tell me what to think of it, as I find it very worrying. Here it is:

https://issuu.com/ionutapahideanu/do...r_-_rigged_or_


Again, I'm not saying Pokerstars is rigged or it is not, I have no idea what it is, I would simply be lying if I said it was this or that, because I'm absolutely unable to tell (as are 99,99% of its users) and I do not want it to be one of these threads where people are bashing each other. I would simply like to stay on the sidelines and see how people with a mathematical background are judging it. I'd be very happy if you are such a person and if you could take a look at it and tell me what to think. Thanks!

Garbage, so much wrong with it and I've only reached page 37. I'll elaborate another time.

Thanks for your quick assessment!

Please do!

55K hand sample

There was a small number of posts in the Internet Poker forum when this first appeared.

Everyone with any statistical background or knowledge (including me) dismissed this as pretty awful.

At the end of the day the "study" ends up not being useful other than to warn players that something is not "normal" about the way that online poker RNGs deal the cards. There's not going to be any study good enough to "prove" that an RNG is rigged without having unlimited and unscheduled access to a particular platform's algorithms in live time over millions of hands. Instead of wondering whether the study's findings are true or not, ask yourself what difference it makes to you at this point. If you have made $1 million (is that in live or online poker?) and you are feeling that something is wrong, I would advise you to trust your instinct.

I found them, thanks. I'd rather believe he's wrong than right, it makes me paranoid while playing. It's a bit strange he put in the effort to write 190 pages of nonsense. Are you actually sure all of that is wrong?

Just out of curiosity: If for example Pokerstars decided to manipulate their card shuffle: How would we ever be able to tell?


@puzzlefish: I've won most of it online. I dont want to quit yet, I will put in more hours into poker theory and try to play better and see if the tides will turn. I also want to play at least 500k hands, if by then I'm still down I'll get hands against all fish in my database, put them on one alias and see how I performed against them as a whole:

If I'm not significantly up against the worst (people who play absurd frequencies), I'm either extremly unlucky or something is wrong, which would be the time for me to quit.

A better question is: How will you be able to tell if they start or stop manipulating the card shuffle? There's nothing guaranteeing that the shuffle is in one constant state (manipulated or not manipulated).

Here's a simple exercise for you. Play a full ring MTT at low or micro stakes for some StarsCoins and try to survive as long as you can. This is where you'll see the most boards play out because people are willing to see the flop with almost any trash that they are dealt and often take it to the river (maximum variance). Take a look at the boards that you get. Now take a deck of cards and deal the same number of hands and see if it is anything at all like what you will see on Stars.

If you've been consistently making money with online poker, try to back track and see if something changed at some point in the way that you have been playing.

Please stop.

Ah yes, the classic "it's impossible to detect but also it's completely obvious"

Actually, the point was that OP will find results that will reassure him either way. But that is the closest you can get to raw dealing of cards-up play on Stars with most boards going to the river.

or you can simply accumulate a lot of hand histories and analyze them, or find a company that sells them (they are still around) and buy a few million hands. Plenty will go to showdown.

There are tons of people with massive databases of hands. Of them, many do very detailed analyses on these hands. If something so obvious that you could see it in a single starcoins tournament existed, then it would have been easily discovered and proven by now.

OP, if you need to continue to be paranoid over a study that every person with ability in that area dismisses, then do so. You can even build on it by believing that those that dismiss that "study" are doing so to protect the industry or something. Your choice in the end how much you let that mental block impact you.

For the people without any profound knowledge of statistical analysis: Please dont post in here. I do not care what you believe online-poker is or isnt (rigged or not rigged). I know there are many people who think it is either this or that, in the end that is all just belief and the reason I've posted it in here is simple: This place isnt a religious place. So please dont post in here if you have nothing to prove ( in either direction ). I would rather get no replies than those.

HeeHaww: If you still find the time to point out a few errors I'd be very happy to hear. No, not because I think you're wrong and because I desperately want to believe that Pokerstars is rigged. Only because I find it interesting

Since you desperately want to believe it is rigged then the best resource for you will be this list. You can choose among the theories and pick the ones that will help you get to the belief you need. Enjoy!

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...h#post53299504

All the best.

I've said this initially and kept saying it.

How is that scientific. Now please stay out of this thread, you have nothing to contribute.

Amusing you think anything you are talking about is scientific in any way, shape or form, but you did say

and "believing" is not really science, it is more faith, so I gave you a list of people who already have variants of the faith you seek. I don't particularly care what you choose to do with it, and in the end nobody takes your posts seriously. That you can believe.

All the best.

I'm not sure whats wrong with you, apparently you cant even read. I'm done talking to you.

@Mod: Please delete my entire conversation with Mr. Monteroy. At no point did I want to turn this thread into one of these debates. My only intention of positing this in the probability forum, was to hear skilled people discuss it.

Now obviously for the most part the discussion has been dismissed as most of you think that the analysis is statistically flawed. I totally respect that. If however HeeHaw wants to elaborate on it I would be very happy and therefore I wouldnt mind keeping the thread open.

Also from a scientific point of view my question remains: If a cardroom was rigged, how would we be able to tell with statistical data accessible to public?


Now since I do not have anything to contribute myself ( which also I've stated in my initial post) and therefore return to the side lines. I'll watch this thread and it will either go nowehere or happily a few clever people will enlighten the rest of us (no, sadly not you, Mr. Monteroy).


Thanks


Edit: Nice, nice Mr. Monteroy, now you edited your post quickly, so my answere to you makes less sense. You're truly an idiot.

Because analysis would show it to be. Think up a possible rig and a test will show if true.

I can read. Perhaps you can read (although you somehow quoted me saying something I did not - which is interesting), however you don't write particularly well.

No real loss to me, as I said - nobody takes your concerns that seriously. You brought up a LOLuseless "study" others have seen before, and asked what people with expertise thought. People with expertise said the study was a heaping pile of dung. The talk should have ended with you saying "Thank you, I am no longer concerned." It did not (as expected), because those were not the answers you wanted to hear. You want to hear more just to be sure etc.

Create a theory and test it with the hand histories. Very straight forward "science." There are programs that allow you to save all of your hand histories and do as many studies as you can imagine with them. Test whatever you are worried about.

The mods will not delete our posts, why would they. Remember to keep your promise and do not reply to me.

All the best.

Just to make this clear: He responds to me, puts words in my mouth I've never said. I reply to it and he quickly edits his post so my answere doesnt make sense anymore.

Mods, please delete my conversation with him and if possible, block him from posting here, thanks.

Seriously, what are you babbling about? If I changed any of my posts you would see a notation at the bottom indicating they had been edited ( I will do it with this post so you can see), and why would I bother changing anything, its not like your concerns are worth this much effort.

If you cannot handle some people saying things you do not agree with then the internet may not be for you.

All the best.

Threat filled PMs are forbidden. If this is true, please contact an admin (Bobo, Mike etc....not a green) to look through Wee_Hoo_Huu's PM history.

Unless there is a compelling reason to do so, mods are not in the habit of deleting posts, even if requested by the person who originally made the post.

Mods are definitely not in the habit of deleting a series of posts made by two or more people.

And, generally speaking, everyone who follows forum rules is welcome to post in any thread.


Edit to add: I just saw the notation at the bottom of post #21 and I wholeheartedly agree with what King Spew just posted.

Admittedly a few years old, but this site is often mentioned when players worry that online poker's RNGs might be rigged: http://www.spadebidder.com/about/

Still worth a read.

The question is so broad it's impossible to answer concisely other than: it depends. There are so many different ways to rig a card room, where do you start? Pick one. Some would be easier to tell than others. The one possibility I am struggling with is if the deal is truly random (the way the cards are dealt over time), but the winning and losing players are chosen to hold their hole cards non-randomly based on some other programmed criteria. There's no way to prove this kind of rig conventionally through hand analysis since everything would look more or less normal. Effectively the proof of such a rig would only be in the form a successful cryptographic attack on the RNG, which would reveal when a given player's hole cards win and when they lose based on some predictable properties of the RNG.

Nobody wants to hear these kinds of discussions because they go nowhere. If you have some money to spare, do hire an actual statistician to provide you with the answers that you seek. Time is the ultimate currency and there are few people that will want to put in the time to entertain your questions on here.