I don't think either side has provides solid "proof". It's kind of like religion. Can anybody really ever provide solid proof either way?

All anyone can ever do is post the information they have and provoke thought, intelligent coversation, and more questions.

People who jump in here and say "OMG It's rigged!" and post their Aces getting cracked twice are killing everyone else who wants to have a serious discussion just as those who just call everyone rigtards or shills aren't adding anything constructive either.

You are talking about a false dichotomy here.

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

Those who say it probably isn't rigged, don't have to prove anything. The fact that there is no solid evidence whatsoever to suggest it is rigged suggests in itself that it is not rigged.

Most riggies don't understand this concept.

The burden of proof is on the people with the crackpot conspiracy theories so there's no serious discussion to be had until one shred of evidence is produced.

Riggies are people who really just don't understand poker or probability in general, ran good for a while and then reality caught up with them.

HEY GAIZ ILL JUST LEAVE THIS HERE EPITOME OF MY ONLINE POKER LIFE

Poker Stars $2.50+$0.25 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t25/t50 Blinds - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter By DeucesCracked Poker Videos

UTG+2: t3889 77.78 BBs
MP1: t9858 197.16 BBs
MP2: t2975 59.50 BBs
CO: t3000 60 BBs
Hero (BTN): t6645 132.90 BBs
SB: t3472 69.44 BBs
BB: t3755 75.10 BBs
UTG: t2430 48.60 BBs
UTG+1: t3000 60 BBs

Pre Flop: (t75) Hero is BTN with J J
UTG raises to t300, 2 folds, MP1 calls t300, 2 folds, Hero raises to t6645 all in, 2 folds, UTG calls t2130 all in, 1 fold

Flop: (t5235) 8 4 6 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: (t5235) T (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: (t5235) 5 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: t5235
Hero shows J J (a pair of Jacks)
UTG shows 4 7 (a straight, Four to Eight)
UTG wins t5235

P.S. IDC ABOUT WHETHER I PLAYED IT RIGHT FFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU


and... 2mins later 99 loses to 33 when he flops a 3 all in preflop yaaaaaaaaaaaay

Standard

in after "Standard"

47os utg all in is DEFINITELY standard

I can't think of a more standard play from a ****ing moronic ****head like that, I bet it pays off 9/10 for him too ****ing donkass piece of ****.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree that I have to trust any site implicitly because nobody has proven their guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. If we all think like that in this sense then we are giving the sites a license to commit murder if we're not always a little cautious.

Would you invite complete strangers into your house and hand them loaded guns just because they've never been proven to be criminals? No, you can't out right call them criminals if they've never been convicted, but you have a right to be suspicious of anyone when prudent.

I mean it's absolutely true that we can't go around accusing sites without solid evidence, but we should absolutely be able to question them and say that we don't know. Because I really don't know either way for sure.

Nobody is asking you to not question a site. But the riggies here claim that "online poker IS rigged. Whereas the non-riggies are saying "it probably isn't rigged". Do you see the difference? Also, keep in mind we have access to hundreds of millions of hand histories (none of which so far has shown anything suspicious).

Your analogy is flawed. A more accurate analogy would be going up to a stranger in the street (who multiple people have done background checks on and found nothing wrong with them) and then said he was certainly a criminal. I mean, it is still possible that he is a criminal, but the fact that no one doing background checks on him has ever found anything wrong about him should make it clear that he is probably not a criminal.

No one knows 100%, but the odds are way in the favor of it not being rigged. If you went around questioning everything you aren't 100% sure about you would be a very, very paranoid person. Which is what a lot of the riggies are. For example, are you sure none of your friends have committed serious crimes? How sure are you? Or maybe your Dad killed a man. How do you know 100% he didn't?

Understand?

Ok, even though I still don't believe we're exactly on the same page, I can sort of buy into this and think we are closer than I originally thought. Although, I think there are some instances where a bit of paranoia might be healthy in life, depending on what you have at risk. But yah, I get what your saying. Besides, it's tough to argue too much with a fellow Jet fan these days.

It's just a bit aggrivating whenever I open this thread and see countless "he's a rigtard", "he's a shill", "look I just lost a couple of hands where I was a favorite" posts instead of what I thought this thread was meant for.

You are indulging in an implicit argumentum ad temperantiam.

One set of people believes that on-line poker is definitely rigged despite there being no evidence that is the case.

The other believes that it is probably not rugged for exactly the same reason.

The idea that a reasonable person would think one view is as likely as the other is as fallacious as believing that you are as likely to be a paedophile as not because there is no evidence one way or the other.

Would you really like to be judged by that method?

Why do you think it;s fair to judge others using that technique?

To be fair, this thread was meant for merging all of the insane conspiracy theory threads that sprung up every time somebody who took a bad beat created a thread to whine about how it was because poker is rigged. That makes this thread one massive dumping ground. It was never developed with the idea of intelligent conversation in mind, although there are plenty of people in here who are capable of that when not dealing with paranoid irrational lunatics.

Every time you open this thread, expect to be aggrivated (sic).

In that case, I apologize. I just assumed that stuff was either deleted or shipped to BBV. In my defense, I swear I saw some kind of intelligent debate by respected posters going on about a hundred or more pages back. Or maybe I was just dreaming.

The intelligent debate ITT is actually very terse.

It goes:

RT: I think the deal is rigged.
SH: Do you have any evidence?
RT: Um, no.
SH: Next.

Before you can have a debate you need something to get a bit of traction.

A succession of rigtards asserting that the deal is rigged without a shred of evidence simply does not qualify.

Where out of the milliion times that this has had to be said, did you copy n paste that from?

The biggest piece that's missing in this most recent and surprisingly rational conversation is the reality check that is the rest of this forum. The Internet Poker forum is filled with hundreds (thousands?) of threads addressing actual problems involving poker sites. And when a site is considered guilty of wrong-doing - and that includes past real cases of "rigging" - this forum is like a swarm of locusts eager to strip the meat from the bones. At any given time, half the threads in this forum are a poker site being taken to task.

The premise that any malfeasance by any site is being ignored or hushed up is simply ridiculous. If anything, many sites are afraid of 2+2 or of sending representatives here because things have a tendency to go very badly if they're not willing to appease the mob.

^ My imaginary paycheck just took a hit :fauxmad:

what about your real paycheck? hope that cleared ok

I would like to test/analyze/proove if a certain site X is "rigged for action". How many hands do I need to have a valid sample? Are obvserved hands sufficient or would it be much better with holecards?
Where do I get percentage data how often "flush over flush", "FH over flush", "set over set"... at 6max is normal/expected?

Do you not realize that "rigging for action" would actually hurt a site more than help it?

No, didn't realize that. Can you name some reasons/explain why?

Conventional wisdom, that has been posted many times in this train wreck of a thread, if you have the patience to read thru and find the posts is that ...

Action flops would increase variance.
Therefore, the fish would go broke faster.
Therefore, the fish would give up and not re-deposit.
Therefore, some regs/pros would give up as there would be fewer fish,
Therefore, the whole poker economy is depressed and the site earns less money.

I'm not convinced that all the "therefores" are true, but I'm not saying they are not true.

Beginners Forum Frequently Asked Questions

(Question 12)

One of the predominant claims put forward by conspiracy theorists is that sites deliberately deal coolers and bad beats to "juice pots" and make them bigger so as to collect more rake. These conspiracy theorists never offer any actual statistical proof. Just their "feeling" that online poker has more "big hands" than it should. This despite the thousands of 2+2 users with large databases of millions of hands, particularly at FTP which is routinely datamined for all hands. Considering how well posters on this site have been able to spot real cheaters, be they bots or super-users, you'd think someone would have some concrete proof by now if there was any substance to any of these speculations.

Yet no one does.

No, the conspiracy theorists evidence consists entirely of the argument "It would be good for the site".

Except that's completely wrong.

They say it would be good for a site to juice the deck to ensure coolers. Big hands like quads over full house in order to maximize the rake. That the site would stand to make the most money this way.

This is wrong and it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the poker economy and how winning players and the house make money. This is exactly what a site would NEVER do. In fact, if sites were rigged we would never see quads over full house.

At most sites, the No Limit rake is 5% with a $2 cap. This means the maximum rake is hit when the pot reaches $40.

At a 50NL game if two players go all in, the pot is $100. At 100NL if two players go all in, the pot is $200. The site still rakes only $2.

In fact, the best situation for the house would be if the pot was always exactly $40. A $100 or $200 pot is actually bad for the site because they aren't getting their full share of the rake and there's a chance that somebody goes broke. Even worse if they go broke and never come back.

This is the worst case scenario for both winning players and the house - That losing players go broke too quickly, get frustrated with the game and never come back. You can shear a sheep many times but only kill him once.

It would actually be in a site's best interest to always have a $40 pot. That is, if a site were going to set hands to maximize profit from pot size, they would rig for medium sized pots.

Which of course is impossible since pot size depends too much on players. There's always some donk who'll overplay and get it all in. There's always some nit who will underplay and the pot will be small.

However, from the house's perspective clearly medium sized pots are optimum, small pots are second best since they still collect some rake and nobody goes broke. Large pots, particularly all-ins are the worst case scenario for the house. Both because they miss out on rake and there's a chance somebody goes broke and quits, even for a short time.

Since a site can't ensure that medium sized pots actually stay medium sized, if a site were rigged it would rig for small pots. Action hands and coolers would actually occur far below expectation.

So why do people keep coming back to the idea that there are more big hands online than live?

There are several reasons - Sample size and selection bias are the two most important. You get far, far more hands per hour online than live. At least twice as many hands per hour per table and as many as triple. In addition many online players multi-table. An online multi-tabler can easily see 10-20 times as many hands per hour as a live player. That's sample size. More hands of course means more big hands. Also, if you have the preconceived notion that there are more big hands online, then every time you see one of those big hands it's only going to reinforce that prejudice even if it's not that big of a hand. Whereas live you're not going to be making a note of every big hand. There's your selection bias, we tend to remember things that support what we already believe and discard whatever contradicts it.

In the DoN's the worst starting hand wins more often than it should when 2 players are all in preflop. This way the bad players don't lose their money as quickly and leave the site. Its best for the site to spread the money around.