What is 50NL and 500NL? Is that a max buy-in? Blinds? Can someone explain? I play live and I don't what the hell it means. I play more than I study or read, so..

Who cares, more pics like this please....

It's online shorthand for a standard 100BB buyin, so 50NL refers to .25/.50 NLHE.

Google "Lizard people. Never laughed that hard sitting by myself...

LoL. I would like to make that my avatar

HELLO. this is my first post. I am actually a moderator on a competing poker forum and have been fighting my case for online poker being rigged for some time now.

I want to make a few things clear before I post my essay though:

1) The word "Rigged" is so vague and loosely used that it often implies a lot more than I am trying to say. I think "artificial" is a more appropriate word for the topic.


2) I do believe that a player on an online poker site is profiled based on what kind of gambler they are, and the cards are fed accordingly. It is an elaborate system that has only one purpose: to control and maximize the action.


Alright,

I know this is a topic of heated controversy, and that there are many implications set forth by such accusations, but after playing online poker for over 5 years I can say with certainty that it is fixed.

First, though, I would like to tell you a bit about myself and my poker-playing history:

I am a 27 year old, White male who was born and raised in Manhattan, New York City. I am highly educated, graduating from one of the top high schools in the country, and attending a top tier college to pursue a degree in sociology.

I have been playing poker since the last few years of high school, starting with friendly 5-card draw games in the year 2000, then moving on to HE and NL HE in early 2002, playing both home-games and the $1-$2 games at local casinos. It was also around this time that I joined my first online poker site, PokerRoom, where I played only "play money stakes" simply because of the fact that I had no desire to put my credit card information onto the internet.
Within a few months of daily playing I had accumulated several million from my initial 1000 starting bank, and I figured it was time to test my luck with real money.
I deposited $30 onto PokerRoom, bought into a game with it all, and was broke within an hour.

I wasn't particularly upset, but I decided I wouldn't try it again.

After playing almost strictly casino NL HE during the Moneymaker/W.S.O.P. boom of 2003, I had built myself quite a bankroll. My group of friends, mostly due to my avid enthusiasm for poker, also began to take it seriously. It was after that year of the W.S.O.P. that I decided I would once again try my luck in online poker; this time it was a site called PartyPoker.
As posted in another thread, I was forced to split my initial buy-in using a friend's credit card because my debit card was not accepted on the site. I invested $25, and within 6 months of playing regimented cash-games, had built my bankroll into a little over $2000.00. I have to say, in retrospect, I was extremely lucky, hitting nearly all my draws, always getting pairs over pairs, etc.

A few weeks after reaching that $2000.00 mark, and soon after jumping up to the $2-$4 game, I began to lose. Not just bad plays, but horrible 5% or 10% suck-outs and ridiculous hands that were costing me 1/8th of my bankroll at a time. After losing almost a grand in mere hours, I had the foresight to begin the cash out process.
After all was settled, in the end, I earned close to $1000.00 from my initial $25.00 investment.

Skip ahead to 2006.....

I moved to Florida for a new job only to find out that some random state law had made No Limit poker illegal. The only method of playing cash-game poker that wasn't prohibited was limit, which, at $2 stakes is pretty much bingo - you'd have a better shot making money playing scratch-offs at the gas station.

So once again my thirst for NL was revived and I decided it was time to once again enter the online world. I signed up for Bodog, deposited $200, and started at the $0.25-$0.50 tables with $30 buy-ins.
I owned those stakes, rocketing from my starting stack of $200 to well over $1000 within a few months.

However, just as it happened on PartyPoker, once I jumped to higher stakes, I began to take bad beat after bad beat, losing to 10% draws, getting Kings to Aces, etc.
A week later I had been cut down to about $350. I decided to step back down to lower stakes, the $0.10-$0.25 or $0.25-$0.50 tables, and see if I could build up my bank again. I couldn't. The horrible streak of luck continued.
It was around this time that there was discussion of making NL poker legal in Florida. I took that as a sign, and began the cash-out process on Bodog.

On July 1st of 2007, NL Holdem became legal in the state of Florida. The first few days were a madhouse; people had NO IDEA how to play live games. One week, playing I think about 4 days in a row, I net over $1800. It was great.
I figured since I would be playing a lot of "high-stakes" poker in the upcoming years, it would be a good idea to record my sessions; and thus began my Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. It included information from every session, the amount of money played, the time spent playing, the number of players, the location, the date, etc. etc.
I have a detailed record of every single live action game, cash or tournament, that I have played since mid-2007. I won't get into numbers here, but I assure you that I am up overall; that is, to say, I am a winning poker player.


Now, back on track, I would like to discuss some terminology for my argument.


When I say "rigged" I do not mean that there is one guy who has all the code-cracking software and can see everyone's cards (AP scandal aside....), or even that there are a few players that are favored. What I do mean is almost the opposite of what one might think; I believe that the cards and hands are setup in an effort to balance the money on the table; to create action hands that result in huge pots involving two or more big stacks, or to favor the short stack/inexperienced player so that they may continue to "gamble".

I have a number of contentions to prove this hypothesis of mine. Granted, some are merely speculative, but most are sound. Given the enormity of the issue at hand, I will try to pre-emptively respond to the traditional online-poker-defense in an objective manner.

1) "The numbers"
Whenever the subject of rigged online poker is broached, there is one statement I hear more than any other: Big hands like pocket aces, flopped quads, turned straights, etc. all occur with the same frequency as that of your average, live cash-game. I do not refute this assertion, though I have never bothered to research the numbers.

Another common rebuttal to the "rigged" argument is the quantity of hands you play. People seem to rush to the defense of these sites, saying "well with online poker you see more hands, therefore more ridiculous beats are going to happen." I want to make it clear that I am not suspicious of the amount of bad beats, or straight flushes, or sets, or whatever that occur online - I am questioning, however, the timing of these rare hands in relation to the action of the past few deals or the history of the player's account.

A player that is on a hot-streak at a live, casino game may be on his streak for 4 or 5 hours, sometimes longer, with no real cooler hand to bring him back down to his regular playing style. Online, it seems almost inevitable that if an individual is on a hot-streak there is most certainly going to be a "cooler" hand to cut his profits down and disperse his winnings onto the table. This is why you can walk around a casino floor inspecting $1-$2 NL tables and see a handful of players with 6, 7 or 8 times the amount with which they sat, i.e. a player bought in for $200 and currently has $1300 in play. Conversely, if you were to view the stacks at an online table, let's say a $1-$2 game where the maximum buy-in is $200, you will rarely see a player with more than $700 or $800.
Obviously this pattern is highly subjective, but it has been reinforced by my experiences of going on streaks. In a cash game I would triple or quadruple-up but then get QQ, raise, and see the flop contains a Queen, but also three hearts, with no pair to come on the turn or river. I obviously have to take a chance and bet strong on the flop to prevent a 4-carded flush-draw, only to pay off the guy who called my raise with 9 7 of hearts. I would dump 20% of my stack protecting a hand that really could have gone either way, and end up hovering around the 3x or 4x the-buy-in mark.

2) "Aggressive poker is winning poker"
A more accurate statement has never been made in reference to this game. However, in online poker, the actual behavioral perks of being an aggressive player differ from that of a live game. In a live game, the aggressor is seen as the controller of action, i.e. the one who creates big pots, raises on draws then bluffs when he/she misses, plays position, plays the bubble, etc.
I see the same type of behavior at an online table, except there is one glaring difference: the aggressive play has less to do with the behavior of the rest of the table and more to do with "luck". It seems the online aggressor seems to have a higher rate of hitting draws, and otherwise just being lucky, than a "soft" or nervous player who simply calls down bets with the best hand. The difference can be as simple as raising on the button with 33 versus a smooth call to build the size of the pot, or raising with a gutshot in middle position vs a check/call.

I have seen 9 2 off-suit raise 3.5x the BB from second position pre-flop, get called by JJ and 1010 and hit two pair on the flop; I've seen AK re-raise all-in against a flopped set and get running straight cards to complete Broadway; I've seen KJ re-raise AA out of position and flop the nut straight. There are a plethora of these ridiculous hands I have witnessed in my half-decade playing online poker, and an overwhelming majority of the time, the player drawing to these runner-runner miracles is the one who is betting and raising the action.

3) “Action hands”
As someone with the unique perspective of having played both real and online cash-games for over 5 years, I can say there is more overall action in an online game. Maybe it has to do with the fact that instead of flipping actual chips into a giant oval, people are just clicking a button, and that, in turn, makes them more willing to chase, but I contend it has to do with the actual order of the cards dealt.
Steadfast zealots arguing for the credibility of online gambling are always yelling about numbers – the amount of aces dealt per hour per capita is the same, the amount of boats per hour per capita is the same, etc. etc.
The study that HAS NOT been done, though, is the percentage of players at a table that pay to see the turn and river online; it is most noticeably higher than that of a live game. It seems that in an online cash-game there are more draws and other opportunities off-the-flop than there is in a real cardroom.

For example, at a 9 player table last week on Bodog, I had pocket 7s in mid-position. I limped. The flop came 7 9 Q with two spades on the board. Now a flop like this is fraught with drawing options, so I had to bet strong. As it stood, three of the people who saw the flop, out of the total 7 of 9 players, were short stacked. I bet big and all three called, not to mention the player on the button…..so that’s 5 total players to the turn. The turn was a 7. The river was a 5. After the river “call-me” bet was matched, the button turned over Q 9. The three players who went all-in on the flop had 6s 8s, J 10 and K Q, respectively – three hands that were either thought to be strong, or have a good chance of pulling a 5-card hand.

When was the last time I saw a hand like that, or any hand where 5 out of 9 people paid for the turn, at a live game? I can’t even remember. In fact, at a casino with even reasonably irresponsible players, it is infrequent to see three players going to the turn, and even more rare to see more than two going to the river.
It just seems that online flops are action-based, in an attempt to stimulate the players and build “dramatic” pots.
It’s like the WWF – you know it’s not real, but its exciting none-the-less.

4) “The ‘Random Number Generator’ or R.N.G.”
What makes something happen at random? It is defined as “without definite aim, purpose, method, or adherence to a prior arrangement; in a haphazard way”. To artificially create a program that is truly “random” is, as of today, a technological impossibility. We, as a species, do not yet posses the capacity to make a system that is unequivocally entropic, just as we do not have the ability to form an intelligence system that is capable of independent thought and reason.

The truth behind the so called R.N.G. is that it uses a series algorithms to decide the order of 52 (or 51 as it were) pre-selected numbers – or “cards”. Computers, which use algorithms to execute every program from Microsoft Word to Solitaire, are not yet advanced enough to offer this “infinite precision” of randomness. This means that over the course of 1 billion deals or shuffles by the R.N.G., one hand will be favored over another, and one combination of cards will be found more often than it should. Granted that the hand in question is almost impossible to preemptively determine, it is still not “random” as it is defined or promoted.
So now that is it established that these programs are not actually random, just nearly impossible to predict, there is all of a sudden a huge window with which to alter the frequency of specific hands, or specific combinations of hands. This is why multi-table players, like myself, will see an uncanny similarity between the cards on two or more tables.
Here is a screen-shot to give you an idea of what I am talking about:



This is not to say that there is an easy way to exploit this gap in random selection, but it is to point out that there is a whole lot of room for tweaking within the system.

5) “Beginner’s Luck”
As you may have noticed in your own experiences, or perhaps simply from reading mine above, when an individual first signs up for an account on an online poker site they almost inevitably win. In fact, out of the 25-or-so friends of mine that have played online poker, 24 of them have at LEAST tripled their initial bankrolls in the first series of sessions. There is one friend of mine, a guy named Mike from Vermont, who did not tap into this mysterious luck. He played in the same manner I did when depositing my first $30 onto PokerRoom – he bought into one cash-game using his entire bankroll.
Is it a coincidence that both he and I lost under those circumstances? Possibly. But the other 24 of my friends that tried to ration their money did quite well right-off-the-bat, including me on PartyPoker and BODOG.

Additionally, there is a phenomenon referred to as the “cash-out blues”, wherein a player requests to cash out part of his bankroll, and suddenly goes on an extremely unlucky streak of beats. I have had it happen to me on several occasions, most noticeably with Bodog.
Just another coincidence I suppose…
If this is indeed a common theme among online poker sites, then that, in itself, is proof. If there is even a hint that the “luck” is controlled for new players, then it is an impossibility that there can be random “luck” throughout the duration of the player’s time on the site. Its like your neighborhood crack dealer; the first one is free to get you hooked...
I won’t even get into the benefits of having new players win – that should be obvious.

6) The “short-stack miracle”
There have been countless times in my years playing online poker that I have taken a bad beat, had maybe 1 or 2 times the big blind left after doubling up the opponent, and then landed an extremely lucky (not to mention timely) winning hand – like runner-runner flush, hitting 2-out gut-shots, etc. Though this is harder to notice in cash games, where players usually go broke on one hand, it is far more prevalent in Sit-n-Go’s where people cling to short stacks in an attempt to coast “into the money.” In this single table tournaments, I see short stacks come from behind again and again, like pushing pre-flop with A 6, getting called by A J and flopping a 6; or having the flop come 3 4 5; or 4 to the flush. It seems these hands are almost preset to stimulate excitement and action in a way that would encourage the player, regardless of whether he won or lost the hand, to continue playing because he was “close” to winning.

I realize that this is a highly subjective critique of the system, it is still a pattern I notice with frequency.

7) Online gaming commissions
The most well-established, not to mention notorious, of these regulatory commissions is the Kahnawake Gaming Commission based in Canada, which oversees such popular sites as Absolute Poker, Ultimate Bet, Poker.com, Bet.com, Bodog, Euro Poker, Full Tilt, Hollywood Poker, Paradise Poker and more. What began as a surrogate NGC equivalent, based outside the U.S. so it could supervise the host of international gambling sites, the KGC has proven itself again and again as an incompetent agency; and in some cases has been loosely connected to the so-called “profiteers” of the post-millenium online-gaming boom.

And the plain and simple fact that this is based in Canada, and that the overwhelming majority of these gambling sites are based in places like Costa Rica, or islands in the Mediterranean, excludes them from any kind of consumer-based retaliation for unscrupulous actions. There are no penalties for a faulty or skewed R.N.G., just as there are no quarterly investigations or inspections to ensure that the people in charge are actually doing their job. These companies are given free reign within the public marketplace.

With the recent explosion of problems people were having with specific “super-users” on UltimateBet.com, many hundreds of complaints were logged. However, it was only after a public outing of the story did the KGC make any kind of statement regarding the problem – and that was a flat-out denial even though it was clear, through various forms of investigation, that the players in question had unusually high win rates. To this day all that has been done has been a “wiping” of the accounts in question. No civil lawsuits were filed, and no subsequent investigation was done.















Well, ironically, as strongly as I feel about all of this, I still play online poker; now it’s not at the level that I would play at a live game with a real deck of cards (which happens to be $1-$2 and $2-$5) but I do find myself sitting at the $0.10-$0.25 or $0.25-$0.50 tables, feeling the exhilaration of taking down a nice pot.

Anyway I’m sure you all have a lot to say about this….go ahead

You spent years on your mission, so it is really time that you updated your arguments, all of them are ancient riggedology stuff from 2004 or so.

It's 2009 - look at this thread and you will see a whole new wave of innovate riggedology beliefs, use some in your mission.

You have timing effects, non-action hands, ADD mouse clicking, underworld mafia (Russian and Israeli), entropy effects, laptop curse effects, superbots, RnGs that only work the unguarded night shifts and so much more to choose from and all you have is

action hands, non random RnG, new player boomswitches, short stacks winning a lot (which is against the common beliefs of big stacks winning too much but whatever), and pattern recognition.

Get with the times Gramps, all of your stuff is outdated. A fresh crop of riggedologists is passing you by.

so let me ask you a question...

why would i want online poker to be rigged? what would i have to gain?


as it is, i would LOVE if online poker was legitimate. i would love to be able to sit at home and play in my underwear and join 3000 man MTTs for 10 dollars and have 4 or 5 tables going at once.

i would seriously love it.


so, knowing how badly i want online poker to be real, why am i constantly thinking to myself that it is fixed? why do i see things online that i NEVER NEVER NEVER see in live games?

no, im not talking about "omg he hit quads on the river", im talking about the guy who check raises you all-in with no pair and no draw and manages perfect perfect to win that hand. these are the types of plays i have never seen, and will probably never see in a live game.

anyway i dont really care if you think its real or not. i dont care if you think im some tinfoil laden supernerd with police scanners and pictures of UFOs on my wall. i really dont.
i posted this essay for your benefit; not mine.

ROCKART - your original post is so full of just plain factual errors and logical errors that it isn't much worth going through a detailed rebuttal. I mean stuff that is just flat out wrong on the face of it, theories aside. Suffice it to say that your argument is a very poor one. That's disappointing considering your build-up and the time you've put into it.

go on....

Please someone resize it to 80x80 (max 250 kb filesize) and poast so tk can use it. :P

A soap box to stand on, which is what most like you really crave.


I'm just disappointed all of your stuff is so old and stale, that's all, with such a long manifesto I was hoping to see some better stuff.

Wa?

Yaaawwwn.

S-t-r-e-t-c-h.

Did someone say something?

You are wrong about modern RNGs not being able to be truly random.

Hi Rockart, you have obviously spent a lot of time on your post. However, I think you will find that pretty well all of the problems you have raised have been dealt with in detail in this thread. I know its long, but your time would not be wasted in starting from page one and reading through the whole thing. There is a lot of filler, and insults and jokes in there, but also a lot of substance and I think you will find pretty detailed replies to most of your concerns. Perhaps after reading the thread you will have a different opinion, or will at least know how to approach your theories and what you might be able to do in determining whether there is something nefarious going on or not.

yea i didnt bother reading the previous 400 pages. if i am repeating ****, im sorry.


anyway here is a blurb from the EGS website i find particularly interesting.


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Anyone notice a section or paragraph in which ROCKART mentioned that he had analyzed his hand histories in an attempt to find some holes in his game? Did he ever once mention that he had looked over his past sessions in order to interpret and analyze his data in an attempt to find any "inconsistencies" to support any of his theories? And last, did anyone else notice that the limits he mentioned playing, live vs online, were not the same? Is it me or does he not trust online poker to begin with?

Maybe he can't grasp the fact that online players are much better, even at the lowers stakes, than he's willing to admit. Anyone else think that ROCKART is none other than Rounding4Rents brother or something?? I smell a fish }><\\\'>


**so, knowing how badly i want online poker to be legitimate and fair, why am i constantly thinking to myself that it is fixed?**

I don't think Rockart is R4R, though I think there's a decent chance that Eddie Mush is.

However, a google search for "Rockart and poker" found him at www.pokerisrigged.com. I'm not joking. Same avatar.

Rockart: I'm not sure what your last post was supposed to show. But in any event, read through the thread, and then come back to us.

So that's what he calls "a competing forum". snicker

http://www.pokerisrigged.com/showthread.php?t=1881

Exact same post as his first one here, but 06-24-2008. It is copy-and-pasted to here, literally.

If you had you would realize everything you are doing has been done so much before that it is utterly stale and boring.

Congrats on showing a piece of opinionated writing from a random webpage and assuming it is significant, even that's been done a million times in this thread before (though you may be the first to call it a blurb).

Seriously, the only thing that would impress me is if you turn out to be a gimmick intentionally pretending to be an ancient riggedologist spewing outdated stuff.

This thread is always looking for new and exciting theories to consider, so do a bit of work and be innovative in your paranoid beliefs. No one likes a delusional guy who is also boring. This is not an area where being retro is cool.

UUuuuuuuuuuuuuh fresh meat

Nice find.

You can almost see the de-riggers circling in the afternoon sun whilst the vultures fly overhead.

What sites are you playing where people are seeing the river more then live play? i want in.

@ online poker sites. Please rigg your games for action it's like watching paint dry out there.