Well, that, plus the fact that you've provided no proof of any sort, and you suggest all the sites are programmed by the same group of computer geniuses who programmed a perfect bot to keep money floating around the site.

Do you believe in David Icke's lizard people? According to Wikipedia, they're "7 foot tall, blood-drinking, shape-shifting reptilian humanoids from the star system Alpha Draconis are the force behind a worldwide conspiracy directed at humanity. He claims that the reptilians maintain their control through the generation of fear and negative emotion, which is food to these entities, by manufacturing conflicts, primarily wars. He contends that most of the world's leaders are in fact related to these reptilians. Icke's theories now have supporters in 47 countries and he frequently gives lectures to crowds of 2,500 or more."

And he's provided exactly as much proof as you have, so one would have to be a fool not to believe in lizard people.

Ok, well as the acuser, let's turn this around. Is your theory anything more than a thought experiment, or do you have anything else that has led you to this hypothesis?

If a site has been audited , their software vetted, is that an argument against this theory? Are these bots just stealing? Or redistributing: ie: winning pots from the better players then chipdumping to the pooer players? have you played against someone you suspected was one of these superbots? What is their screename? Did you report them to the site?

A few other potential factors:

- They would get caught via data analysis (despite your beliuef that the superduperbots elude it because... you say they do)

- Large, long term, often public traded companies risking their entire business for relative minimal gain with a huge risk of being caught is a bit unlikely.

Yes, I know chants of Enron will start as if they are the only company that ever existed, but what about the other 99.999% of public traded companies that are not criminal enterprises.

- Competitive forces. Unless every poker site, literally thousands of them, use superbots or superduperbots, the others will try their best to expose their competitors for being criminal as that will improve their business. Why not email the honest sites about your beliefs and try to get them on your side to expose the superduperbots of their competition. No doubt they will take your beliefs at face value because you know they may be possible in a theoretical world.

And yeah, someone would have told by now. Unless they are all in a cave somewhere. And invisible.

Are they invisible?


And it would have been caught via statistical means. So good idea giving up on that area until you have proof of something. Better to focus on genuine threats like collusion, fraud, bots etc which are an actual issue.


I seek a place where my competition utilizes above average sarcasm in a chat like this to make it more competitive, so indeed I do live in paradise nearly all of the time.


Be sure to check under the bed for superbots.

All the best.

I rest my case on this: Just look at the posts starting after qpw replied last to me.. read them carefully. Examine this entire thread even and tell me what has actually been done to prove (convincingly) that rigging cannot occur. Look at the manner in which each side has "handled its case" and you might find what I have found to be true.. there are two sides that are equally pushing on a revolving door.. and the door just keeps going 'round and 'round. Every once in a while a good "relevant" point might make it out.

|,,/, Mock on!

You can't prove rigging is impossible because it's not. Anyone who says there aren't hundreds of ways to rig poker is a liar. The problem is that any of those would be easily and quickly detected.

Every once in a while someone comes up with a new term like entropy effect or superbots that adds a bit of dimension to the paranoia, but I doubt anyone expects this thread to actually accomplish anything.

Paranoid people will remain paranoid and will say their side is true until a negative can be disproved. The other side, aka the shills, will ask for proof knowing none will ever come forth and will mock the paranoid people for being paranoid.

In other words, a fun diversion for most.

Some fun reading for you as you wait for people to somehow prove it is not rigged to those inclined to believe it is because they had a bad beat yesterday

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance






Are you invisible?

Well, Indiana and myself started a discussion about using tracker stats to analyze one's own results. I asked more experienced stats guys whether they are aware of methods by which PT3 can help us do that self-analysis. Monteroy brought up some counterpoint to toltec's most recent theory. etc. There weren't that many posts after all. But the discussion continues, and if we think its interesting why do you care? As I said, this is primarily a discussion involving critical analysis, and a little light sparring.

And again, who has said that rigging cannot occur? Of course it can! It's ludicrous to suggest that it cannot.

And the relevant points are what keep this thread interesting. I think that is true for most threads - high noise to interesting fact ratios. Plus, while it may be a revolving door, I think so far the rigtards keep getting pushed out on their asses.

I think you should look back through the thread and see the evidence that has been presented from the "non-rigged" side. Did you miss Spadebidder's analysis? Also, the fact you think that the position of the "non-rigtard" is that rigging CANNOT occur speaks volumes of how little you actually understand of the position. We just think that with all the evidence presented (or lackthereof from the other side) it is unlikely that it is going on.

Or are you just playing devils advocate here?


PS. I can't be the only one who has noticed the huge gap in grammar and spelling skills between rigtards and non-rigtards (of course there are exceptions).

Right on, ethics...

Im not saying that superbots exist and Im not even thinking about stop playing online.


Its a tought experiment, you are right. iBut if these superbots CAN exist and CANT be detected we have a problem.

The "good soul would have told us" argument didnt convince me, its too weak, people do many bad thinks in group, even mor when money is involved.

See the USA economy scandal.


If you give mea more consistent argument about the superbots I can agree with you.


But if you dont give me a good argument against superbots why would I think they dont exist? If I give you the password of my bank account I need a good argument to believe you are not going o stole my money, if I dont have a good argument I assume you are going to stole it. Simple security logic.

I've given other arguments on this one, multiple times. They have been ignored. Not a big surprise. Guess I should just stick to the muppet picture.

Several others have already pointed out your error in thinking that anyone has ever even attempted to propound the argument that rigging cannot occur.

I will just add that you still don't seem to understand that it is not for people to prove innocence unless there is some prima-facie case for guilt.

There is no such case so, as far as I am aware, no one has made any attempt to prove that on line poker is not rigged.

Apart from the affront to normally accepted principles of jurisprudence it would also be impossible according to the laws of formal logic.

Replace superbots with lizard people in your thought experiment and your post is essentially the exact same thing. Prove otherwise.



It was the lizard people. Prove otherwise.


Since you ignore the many common sense suggestions let's try...

It's not superbots, it's lizard people.

Prove otherwise.




Many say the same thing about lizard people.

At least that is what the lizard people say I have to say.


Then never leave your house ever.

The superbots and lizard people will get you.

All the best.

I think there's a reasonable point there that there's not enough HH/statistical analysis in this thread.

Would it be possible for everyone to make a list of things that should be tested, and then compile a HEM report to test these things?

I'd be happy to chip in $50 or $100 to help pay for someone to make the report, which people could then use to test their own HHs against all the rigged theories we can come up with?

I'm about to run a series of studies on about 600 million cash game hands from several major sites. Some of the studies are the ones I've been working on code for and shown previews, and some new stuff. My main focus is showing a fine-grained statistical distribution of all aspects of holdem poker (and PLO too in the community card analysis), including breakdowns for various stakes and by site. I'm also doing a few situational analyses that I've seen suggested, such as looking at all-ins when the short stack is the favorite or underdog (seperately) or the aggressor/caller and other things that may show some interesting card removal effects that no one has ever quantified. These may put to rest some of the rigged theories as a side benefit, or I could discover something fishy too, but I don't expect to.

I'd consider doing other suggestions.

Are you talking about a program on a site that you load your HH's into to run some different tests? I would be interested in contributing some money to that if we can figure out who is going to put it together and what it is going to look like.

This statement you just made has not been qualified in my opinion. I have not been convinced that you cant hide skimming programs in the stats and from inspectors. I will talk to my programmer and I.T. friends to get some more thought on this because I am no expert on how programming works by any means.

I think the grammar issue may attributed in some cased to english being a posters second or third language, but you are right, some people are just not gifted as writers or communicators. It is a sign of intelligence or lack thereof.

I think your arguments have been pretty good, but they have not answered the question, they have just been good counterpoint.

I hear you guys, there need to be more than just a feeling and a short sample of bad run to conclusively say that something is going on. I remain neutral until myself or someone figures out a way to examine real evidence. Thank you guys for at least instilling that much in me. I still remain slightly to moderately paranoid about trusting sites with my money and my future as an online poker player.

I wonder if it wouldnt be a good idea to post these high hand examples permanently here on 2+2 here so that you can just point new people to that thread?

Can we get 2+2 to host the server space you would need to leave this analysis up for for all to see?

When you do this remember to add that you are talking about programmers for literally hundreds of poker rooms and they all are engaging in highly criminal acts and all keeping it a secret until I suppose they die or are killed.

See how realistic they think that scenario is since we all agree that certainly the software could be programmed to give people a hand of a birthday card and a VISA card if they really wanted (ie: whether rigging is actually possible is not the real question).

Also ask them how realistic it would be for the software to be programmed to specifically target YOU among the tens of thousands of users each day in games of all types including those likely way, way above the limit you play.

Nobody can convince people that want to believe in boogie men or superbots that they do not exist if their beliefs are based on "well it is possible that they could exist."

You have to choose if that is the lifestyle you want to embrace or whether to ask the real questions to get the real answers to help ease your mind about your run of variance.

Your game may be flawed as well, maybe consider getting coaching or joining one of the coaching sites.

I'll post the results of my analyses in a new thread when they're ready. The stuff I posted previously was just a couple of samples of work-in-progress using about 2.5 million hands, which is a small sample compared to what I have access to now. We'll see if the results are worthy of being a reference when they're done.

I'm saying that Hold'em Manager - which many people already have - has the capacity to run all sorts of custom reports.

It seems like there might be value in people being able to conduct simple tests on their own data in a independent and transparent manner.

FTP is almost certainly rigged.
If you start winning, they will set up hands for you to lose.
If you have lost a few big pots recently, they will set up hands for you to win.
It's amazing how fast I can go from up 2-3 buy-ins to down 2-3 buy-ins, but rarely beyond.
The site is a total jokefest IMO.