Yes, but it wasn't intended to be a statement of definition, it was just a casual statement. In a sufficiently large sample, a continuous random variable will have approximately a normal distribution. And since card probabilities are discrete and not continuous, it is actually a binomial distribution with the normal being the limit. Nevertheless, my original statement was sufficient for conversational purposes. See the central limit theorem, probability density function, and the law of large numbers for more.

Greetings,

I just thought I would post my regular experiences on Full Tilt as of late.

I lasted for about 60 hands in this last SitNGo and wanted to post a summary of the action hands of which there were many.

1) KdKs vs 6s5s - KK 78% to win preflop 95% to win after flop, KK lost to runner runner straight and was immediately out of tourney

2) JJ vs 33 - JJ 81% to win preflop 33 flopped set and JJ lost

3) My first hand KK, I flop a set of K and slow play it, other player gets aces up and pays me on every street

4) 6c2c vs 8s5s - flop comes JcJs4c, turn 5c gives flush river 8c gives other player two pair

5) 33 vs K10 - flops a set of 3,6,K, turn and river are blanks and gets paid off on multiple streets

6) AK vs AK split pot between SB myself and button with much smaller stack

7) AdKd vs QhQd - all in preflop blind war - flop comes Qc,7d,10c and set takes it down

8) My second hand 66 - flop comes 6,10,Q rainbow and I check it down to induce a bluff

9) AK vs 22 - I call with AK to small stack push and small stack hand holds

10) 8s9d vs 3c4c vs 2c6c - I flop middle pair 9c,7c,As and my hand holds up against two players on flush draws

11) AcQs vs Kh8c - button small stack pushes, I call and he rivers an 8

12) 6d6s vs AdKh - flop comes 8d,6h,Ah and I do not push to make sure next card is not a heart, I push and get called when it is a diamond

13) 6s6d vs AsKh - flop comes Qh,10c,Jh, AK a 97% favorite to win loses to J,6 on turn and river

14) 3d8d vs KsJc - flop comes 8h,3h,Js giving me two pair, turn comes a 2s and once again, I am all in as 82% favorite for all my chips for the 6th sitngo in a row and lose to a river 2

In the past two SitNGos I have seen multiple 95%+ hands getting taken down and it is getting old. It is not that I am on a big losing streak but, it is the frequency of action inducing deals and amazing draw outs that make me not trust the site anymore.

I am irritated that out of the 8 hands I actually won in this tournament, over a third were after I flopped sets. WTF kinda deal is that?

Is the game rewarding me for NOT playing many hands?

I have logged over 100k hands on the site and am looking for another site to play on while I drain my FTP on tournament chip SitNGos. I just don't trust the vibe I am getting from this site.

I am either switching to Bodog or to Merge Network.

Anyone else loving Full Tilt?

~Cheers

Btw, I have been logging my live games as well since I was a little suspicious the online players were just better (which they very well could be).

Over the course of my last 100 brick and mortar games, I am averaging 6.75BB/hour so I am a winning live game player at least.

Online poker isn't rigged.

I have played in casinos for a living for 4 years and I have just logged 100k + hands in 2 months on Stars. I can assure you there is no difference, same bad beats and runner runners online as there is live.

Perhaps you just ran very well live for the last 100 sessions ( about 15k hands im guessing? ). I can assure you that online poker is not rigged and those who say it is, generally want it to be, so they don't have to come to terms with the fact they are indeed, a losing poker player.

You can't post smart stuff in here arctic, not allowed. Stay away or this thread will make you dumber.

Interesting that you posted arcticbeatle.

I just happen to be following you on PTR to see if you reach your goal and good luck to you with it.

Anyways...

I write software for a living.

Do you know how easy it would be to simply teak the deal algorithm for a poker application. There are a number of ways you could do it that would not be easily detectable and only the engineers working on the code would know how it really worked.

I think that most of their income via rake is generated via microstakes tables which serve as a perfect environment to manipulate. The most anyone might lose is a small tournament buyin or get stacked on a cash table. Do you really think anyone is going to go after them for that kind of loss?

I have become very skeptical of both Pokerstars, Fulltilt and online poker in general since it just seems too easy for them tweak the game to make more cash. I think it would be naive to trust them. I mean this is gambling going on outside the US.

Two easy ways they can make a ton of extra cash is by simply creating more action and not allowing players to dominate the game by letting players that are behind catch up more frequently.

Your estimate of 15k-20k hands for my 100 sessions sounds right but I think it is unreasonable to believe that I have just ran good and have been lucky in my live game.

I understand what you're saying but I don't agree.

I mean how can Stars and Tilt rig their sites when so many of us are using HEM and PT to track hands played. From what I have seen all the statistics add up.

Also form a business point of view it just makes no sense. They make stupid amounts of rake and I doubt they would want to risk their intregity and entire business just to juice a few extra bucks out of online players

As far as action flops go and "juicing the deck" I don't buy into that either. I have went 1k + hands online where I am card dead and have hardly put any money into the pots played. I have also went 1k hands + without flopping a set.. Exactly like live poker where you go through these kind of prolonged card dead periods

I mean if anything, I think I have seen more bad beats live than online because live poker is much looser and people tend to want to "gamble" more.

I am sure you're a winning live player but online poker is almost a completely different game the way it is played. I have taken a while to adjust to even the smallest stakes online

I agree with your opinions on the game but not your faith that the online game is clean? These sites make the rules and you agree to them when you open an account.

Maybe it seems "fair" to them to give an edge to a bad player. It makes it a more "fair" game and it makes business sense.

I am looking forward to seeing how your progress at these microstakes. You are doing pretty well atm.

~Cheers

Cheers thanks

Just wanted to say, I enjoyed, and essentially agree with your views. At the end of the day who knows the truth, but both FT, and PS continue to leave me skeptical. I also have no particular axe to grind, I am up on both sites, but imo, varience doesn't begin to explain some of the beats. I understand this isn't a popular view, and I honestly respect everyone's viewpoint. Monteroy you in particular have my respect, for a variety of reasons..tc...just my 2c.

Why not? Please explain.

Also, it looks like you have changed your views from this:

To full rigtard status.

Such as? Maybe spadebidder can run a simulation and see if it shows up as detectable?

First of all, you are exactly the type of individual I was referring to in that earlier message, secondly keep your 'rigtard' comments to yourself. Ifind that sort of term extremely distasteful. I will reiterate, I have no idea if online poker is rigged. What I see on an ongoing basis, makes me skeptical!! Hopefully that is clearer for you..

Please believe me when I tell you as a live poker pro there are just as many horrible, disgustingly vile beats you get live as you do online. Poker is a very swingy game.

I remember one of my worst live sessions was when I lost about 6 buy ins. Over the course 200 or so hands, my aces got cracked twice when I got all the money in pre, I ran into a set over set and done a buy in. The next buy in I done was to a 5 outer on the river and then when I finally started to run ok and I actually won a buy in over a few hours of grinding. I flopped the nut flush with AQ and ran into a set that filled up on the river. All the money was in on the turn. All this in one session of live poker over about 200 hands.

This is poker and it isn't exclusive to online, it happens just as much live as well. By the sounds of it, you, like many others have a lot of problems dealing with variance.

Just don't say online poker is rigged because of a few coolers or bad beats. And if you can't handle a little variance, you know the old saying. "If the heats to hot get out of the kitchen".

First of all you are another person I have great respect for, you seem like a respectful person. Having said that, I was merely stating my opinion, I have never stated online poker is rigged, if I believed that conclusively I would no longer play. And tbh beatle if I didn't win, I probably wouldn't either. Not to say I'm up a ton, I play small stakes,but I've done o.k. This is supposed to be a forum, and I was answering someone who imo made some sense...gl in your challenge, btw

Ok ok, my post wasn't meant to be disrespectful in any way, shape or form though I can see how my comments could've been a bit misconstrued, as I came across bluntly ( hard to put a tone in an email ).

I was just saying that a lot of people have to find ways to deal with variance instead of blaming the online sites or blaming the dealer like some do when they play live.

I misunderstood your previous post and I apologise as I thought you were saying the online sites juice the deck.

And thanks for your support for my challenge as well, I appreciate it

No problem at all, not surprised by the apology though, that's what seperates men, from some of the frothing at the mouth, little boys on 2+2...overeager to make up for their own shortcomings by pouncing on other's perceived weaknesses. anyway again best of luck a.b.

Can you elaborate on that? Usually a simple math analysis of those events will show them to be normal. Most people (maybe all people) cannot intuitively grasp what random looks like. Only when you actually track those weird events can you see that they fall in a normal distribution. The same goes for live vs. online, since selective memory is short term and you do play more hands per time online (and maybe encounter a few more donks willing to chase, too).

Okie doke. How is this an "action hand"? I didn't realize somebody sucking out qualified as one now. I've noticed you've done us all a favor and not just copy/pasted hand histories, but at the same time, leaving out everything but preflop equities and showdowns is pretty much useless. This is a good example of "expert" riggie play. If the aces up dude had instead hit a runner runner straight, you'd have said "KK vs A8 - KK 70% to win preflop, 95% to win on flop with set, lost to runner runner straight zomg!"
Wow, what an action hand. 6 high flush vs somebody who already had 2 pair on the turn getting a higher two pair on the 4 flush board river. I bet the stacks just went a-flying in on this one. Wow, the better hand at all times won. So rogged. Big stacks always win though. More expert riggie slowplaying. Small stacks always lose, don't you listen? Be honest: was this a freeroll? Because so far 2 people have had 62s. Also, I'd looooooove to see how this hand played out. God damn you, the small stack always loses! Why must you refuse to listen! Brilliant move to give a flush draw a free card instead of charging it. Again, expert riggie play. When did the money go in, because for some reason, I have a hard time believing 66 was jamming a QJT flop. Then again, people were playing 62s like it was QQ so you never know. You should have been all in before the turn. To say "the site has action inducing deals too frequently" implies you know what the frequency should be, and your results show that Full Tilt doesn't match that.

Feel free to show your work.

That's flawed reasoning.

If someone identifies that when they flop 2 pair, someone else will call with nothing and end up with trips... it's not like there is a way to "exploit" and profit from that.

Just because someone sees something doesn't mean they can flip it in their favor. They can certainly learn to lay down marginal hands when they identify set-up situations, but it's not as if they can turn a profit by these events.

I'm on the fence in the "rigged" discussion, but I can say with absolute certainty that during losing AND winning streaks... I've seen patterns and long stretches of odds-f#cking results that simply defy anything that could be attributed to variance. So, I've seen it help me... and hurt me.

Of course, that's my opinion. I could be wrong. But, being so quick to dismiss someone's concerns isn't really the hallmark of true research. I'm not saying it IS or isn't rigged, but I have suspicions.... and I consider that to be healthy.

There was a time not long ago that people weren't suspicious of banks, or large brokerages.

Remember the Madoff video where he was speaking to the broker's seminar?Remember the dismissal and utter condescension with which he spoke to those who questioned the ability of Wall St. firms to engage in illegal activity?

I'm just saying that for all of those who debate this issue, dismissing one side as crazy or just bad poker players is a little shallow.

Even mentioning Online Poker and Bernie Madoff in the same sentence is almost slanderous and insane, let alone drawing a direct correlation between the two like you just have based purely on opinion and no evidence.... Or at the very least you have strongly implied it's not unreasonable for Poker sites to be as crooked as the biggest fraud the world has ever seen

You say you sit on the fence? From your post above I beg to differ

Of course it isn't.

Leave your poker message board world... talk to those in the real world, and tell poll them on whether or not they think internet poker hosted in off-shore locations might be rigged. 90% of them will laugh in your face. Hell, almost 40% of the people HERE on a poker forum think it's rigged.

So, simply mentioning that financial institutions have been widely corrupt isn't "insane." It's just a simple fact. If you believe that giant corporations under US government scrutiny wouldn't play by the rules, but an unregulated internet poker site WOULD voluntarily choose to play by the rules, you're just far more trusting than probably 90% of the public.

Beyond that, sharpen up your reading skills and understand the difference between saying that internet poker is LIKE Bernie Madoff, and saying that true debate about the subject should involve more than simply dismissing one side or the other as "insane."

Once again what do you base these stats on?

Also comparing online poker to a ponzi schame has no merit as you can see every single hand you have played in online poker and in a ponzi scheme you don't know where your money is or is coming from.

Also how can you continue to try and argue against real statistics that you can access from PTR, PT or HEM that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt online poker is not rigged. And yet make up your own stats ^ ( see bold above ) and preach them as fact!!!!

I really gotta stop reading and posting on this thread

Obviously, that was somewhat rhetorical, though my personal opinion is that anyone who doubts that simply isn't speaking to enough non i-poker players.

You realize that people involved in ponzi schemes not only get paperwork, but many of them received regular payments and also made profits, right?

How could anyone argue against brokerages that were heavily monitored by the SEC? How could government regulated financial institutions be involved in such fraud when there was so much apparent regulation?

I never preached anything as fact. I said I'm on the fence. I believe there is corruption in almost every industry that involves money. We've already seen it exposed in this very industry. You think that's the last time we'll see it?

You're assuming that everyone who voted yes actually believe that. Does it occur to anyone that there would be a lot of people that would find it amusing to vote "yes" in what they consider to be a ridiculous poll? 2 mods voted yes, and I know for a fact that one of them did so as a joke...quite likely the other one did too. Looking through the list of names, I see quite a few more that probably did the same.

My point is, this poll is extremely unscientific. But even if the number really is 37%, so what? 34% of Tennesseans believe Obama was born in another country. Over 1/3 of Americans polled in 2006 believe the US government was involved in or allowed the 9/11 events to happen. 31% of a 2001 Harris poll believe in astrology.

Those are just a quick sampling I found around the Internet. So what does 37% believing something matter?

Oh...and 25% of the poulation has an IQ <90.