If I get what you're saying, I think it's safe to assume the other fellas who are more math-inclined (read: nerds) understand your point too.
Their point is some of these huge databases contain all the hole cards and others contain enough to analyze for flaws such as the one you are suggesting.

The thing with your theory (and don't get me wrong, I think it's more plausible than many and certainly presented better than most...) is it's like the example I've used before where the gas station sells you .98 gallons of gas instead of a full gallon. That would be very hard to detect, even for the folks who come out and inspect occasionally (and I suspect their schedule isn't terribly random...) and wouldn't be noticed by consumers ever. Common among rigtards is the belief that if anyone can rip you off at any time, they will. So by that reasoning, all gas stations are doing this to all their customers. Are we going to stop buying gas? No, I doubt it. But if someone proves a local station is guilty of this station, I'll go elsewhere. Until then, I'm gonna just assume I'm getting what I pay for as long as my car goes the expected amount of miles (or pretty darned close to it) on a full tank. Ya dig?

Thanks, but how is that possible, since I wasn't aware that any site allowed folded hands to be observed.

Defintely dig. Even if true, it's a cost of doing business. And it's not MY theory per se, so much as I think it's a possibility. Kind of like how a multi-verse is a possibility. Unfortunately, your example does little to ease the mind of rigtards, since cheating gas station owners are anything but rare.

Peace.

They don't, but the site itself provided the hands for that particular study, including all hole cards.

What you are really saying is that all of our opponents as a group will average 2% higher over time on flush draws. So the site will "help" them hit their flush card 2 times out of every hundred matchups where we are against an opponent on a flush draw. Do I have that right so far?

We know that 25% of hands go to the showdown, so we would just have a smaller sample to observe this pattern from, but it would not be hidden. Of those hands that are shown down, in a large enough sample we would notice a population of players who are skewed to complete flush draws 2% higher than the other half of players. Their bell curve would be offset from the expected one, which would be noticed in a large sample if the right analysis were done to look for this discrepancy.


A 2% shift in the distribution, at a sample size of say, 1 billion hands, would absolutely jump out and shout. At a sample size of only 1000 flush draws, 98% of trials (1000-draw trials) are expected to hit between 31% and 39% (see this post). When you get to a billion hands, it gets much much closer, but I didn't do the exact math.

Again, 25% of all holdem hands go to showdown, so those are observable. It just means you need 4x as many observed hands to get an equal sample size if hole cards are needed for the analysis.

This idea of a 2% advantage on flush draws, if it were done in isolation, could probably go undetected for a long time since someone would have to look for it in a large pooled hand database, or notice it somehow. However, this tiny skew alone isn't going to benefit the site any. Letting losing players win 2% more on a hand they might be playing 2% of the time, gives them a tiny extension on their bankroll, but not enough to matter to the site's profits at all. You would have to combine many such fixes and then it becomes more and more obvious to analysis.

You shoot yourself in the foot a little here Mark. The price of Oil plummeted from 150$ a barrel to around 50$ a barrel but did we see the price of fuel fall?No not really.Certainly not anywhere near 2 thirds drop. So gas petrol customers are certainly being ripped off.

one recent example...
I've said before that I believe there is a possibility of rigging, super-users and any other type of shenanigans people can dream up in the Online Poker world. I'm not opposed to investigating such things. What I am not terribly fond of is baseless accusations without any credible evidence to back them up.

I also think it's rather silly to come to the INTERNET POKER FORUM and repeatedly tell the regulars (you know, folks one could reasonably assume are Online Poker Enthusiasts...) that a hobby/job/whatever of theirs is cheating them. Personally, I believe that's kind of rude, and I can't understand what rigtards hope to gain from it. I don't stop by their local PTA meetings and insist Evolution stop being taught in their children's schools.* Why? Because it doesn't affect me. It wouldn't be worth my time to insert my 2 Cents (and over time, several rigtards have contributed many, many dollars) into a discussion about an issue which doesn't concern a man without children, much less in their school districts.

What we're left with is a bunch of sore losers making wild claims and getting angry when no one believes them. It frequently degenerates into name-calling and silly picture flooding. That doesn't benefit the rigtard cause at all, whatever their goal might be.

Rigtards have a platform to voice their opinion that Online Poker is rigged, that's cool. But what they seem to be having trouble with is nobody takes their theories seriously without data to back it up. Many "Shills" have offered to take their HH's and look them over for anomalies or help them do it themselves. To my recollection, that offer has not been accepted by anyone yet.

Would I like to know if I'm being cheated? Of course! But I don't feel I have been over a few years and nobody else (most of whom play WAY more than me) has shown me I'm wrong yet either. Until then, I'm really just pointing out how to go about doing such a thing and how pointless it is to keep ranting about these beliefs without evidence to back it up.

There are two routes I'd suggest to rigtards convinced they aren't having the success they deserve, first one is use these forums to find leaks in their game and then improve. That's what I did, although I was pretty sure I had room to improve 'cause I was brand new. The other suggestion would be to start a forum for like-minded individuals and complain to each other 'til they're blue in the face. Perhaps they'll get bored eventually of that and find the smoking gun which can break this case wide open.




* Just a random example. Personally, I think Evolution is fine for teaching to children, but I understand there are others, even without children, who are very opposed to this idea. People like that have a stated agenda though, and their motives are quite clear: theologically, they feel it is their duty to keep secular society from replacing a fundamental belief of theirs with some "scientific nonsense." I can respect that to a degree. But even they show up with Bible in hand as evidence and make no bones about why they're there and who sent them. However, I can't support their position, as it denies the existence of dinosaurs, which are the very cornerstone of the Shill Movement.

Be careful!

We don't want them to suspect the truth.

That all those who decry baseless allegations are actually shills in the employ of

So you think that the costs for providing gas are close to 100% made up by the oil price? I think YOU shoot yourself in the foot here.

AFAIK, Oil Companies can charge what they like to retail customers. If you feel the mark-up is too high, that's fine. Perhaps it's gouging, but it isn't dishonest.

However, my point was about the actual pump and its accuracy. In my example, I pull my car up and fill the tank - let's say it rings up as 15 gallons. I actually got 14.7 though, so I paid $33 (@ $2.20/gal) instead of the correct price of $32.34. I'd never know that my tank didn't really get 15 gallons of gas, I'd only notice if I didn't go about 320 miles 'til my next fill-up. But since my needle is on "F" there'd be no reason to question it.

Your response to my example doesn't apply at all.

I did not know this! This all but eliminates the possibility of what I'm talking about. Why didn't someone just say this right off the bat?

Maybe my fault. I haven't read through this whole thread yet. Thanks.

The rigtard response to Poker Stars providing a full month of cash game history including all hole cards, for a poker study, is that they simply turned off the rigging for that month. Several people actually said that. :-)

There's always a way to make the conspiracy work.

gas station managers sell full gallons of gas when the inspector is coming too.

Spadebigger,

You answered everything when you informed me that sites DO in fact allow blocks of their data to be analyzed including hole cards. That pretty much eliminates my little thought up hypothesis. But just for fun...


No ALL of our opponents. Just the ones profiled as having less edge than we do. The beauty of such a system is that WE would benefit from this skewering against opponents who have a slight edge over us! This is what got me thinking about this in the first place. The end effect would be that results are smoothed in all different directions, even over large sample sizes.



I'll just have to take your word for it. I'm not smart enough to intelligently discuss this beyond the simple way I'm thinking about it. If I'm hitting flush draws 10% more than I should against you, you might intuitively realize that you're getting sucked out on too much, but I still don't see how you could prove it without seeing my hole cards to know what I had those times I fold the river. You can't know if I missed a 9 out flush draw, or a 4 out gutshot. But if you say it's possible, I'll believe you. I'm probably being too stupid to think about it right. Oh, and just one other thing as long as I'm having fun with this...

Don't forget under my idea everything is STILL random! Even if I did have 10% more equity than I should against you, I can still run bad and you good! I could still go through periods where I'll miss 70% of my flush draws against you even though I'm being given 10% of your equity. In the same way I could be up on you through 100 coin flips even if I were giving you 6 to 5 odds.

Anyway, it was just something fun to think about. I honestly think it could be pulled off (assuming all folded hands remained unknown). At the very least, I think they could get away with it for a very long time before some super stat whiz figured it out (and then wouldn't they just say, whoops, faulty RNG?). The question is, why would such a whiz take the time? As I said, they'll most likely still be beating the games and playing online would still be worth their time. They just wouldn't be making quite what they should be. I doubt anyone making decent money online would take the time to go through such analysis.

I don't want to be known as a "rigtard" so I'll leave this alone for now. My own feeling is that even if I am being cheated slightly, online is still very much worth my time. I play full well knowing that at the very least, people could be colluding. But as long as I'm making what I feel is worth my time, I simply consider it a cost of doing business. I appreciate that I finally got to ask people much smarter than me what they thought of this.

Peace.

Markusgc, is this your post?

http://www.highstakesdb.com/forum/Topic335038-27-1.aspx

How does it feel when you literally live in a forum thread?

No sir, it isn't me. That dude has fairly poor writing skills. I'd like to think I at least have basic grammar and punctuation down.

And I don't feel I "live" in a forum thread. I am at my computer for basically 40 hrs a week working. If I chime in to this (or any other discussion) while working, it feels I like I'm taking a break.

I have a satisfactory social life and various hobbies which fulfill my needs. Who the **** are you to judge what I do with my time anyway?

Does it make you feel like a winner to be such a douche?

Just amusing myself.

it's a natural cause and a comfort zone there in your head

Would you ever have thought persistence could prevail against the almost
unbearable weight of the system?

'Literally' - I don't think that word merans what you think it means.

Slip?

I get called Spadedigger and Spacebidder a lot, but this is a first.

Before I played poker online, I was an expert online spades player back in the day and I've kept the name. One day maybe I'll be expert at poker.

what happened, did you realize it was rigged?

Just typed in a rush. Nothing meant.

I used to think I was "decent" at spades, but haven't played for years. Two weeks ago, this girl I met talked me into being her partner on this online site. I figured I'd impress her with my card savvy. I wound up making a fool of myself! -lol She was so much better than me it was sick. We lost the match due to my idiotic bids and play.

What about hearts? I hear that can be a big money game. I know it's similar to spades, but I never learned it.

sounds like shill talk to me!

do you work for RealHearts.com ?

I've never played hearts. Even though they both derive from Whist, Hearts strategy is a lot different and you want to evade getting stuck with certain tricks. Spades is more like Bridge for dummies, and optimal strategy is relatively easy to learn (compared to poker or Bridge). To win consistently you need to be on the same page as your partner, ideally by playing together a lot. A smart couple can master spades in a few hundred sessions if they work at it.

online poker is rigged.