Shills get paid for every post they make.

I don't know what deals other shills got, but mine I have to clear a certain number of FPPs before the payments are released, but since I'm a low volume 2NL donk, I rarely get enough FPPs to get paid, so I don't post here much.

Shills like Monteroy obviously play a lot higher than I do to release the payments for posting ... or they just got a much better deal than me ...

OK I have combined all the HH's from the 4 sites together and run a MonteCarlo to come up with a combined probability density function.

There has been no filtering in terms of tournament type or hole cards, only selecting HU preflop all ins.

The result is:
# of PFAI's: 4777
Expected fraction won: 0.535
Actual fraction won: 0.521
Mean expected wins: 2555
s.d.: 41.5
Actual wins: 2487.5
Actual in sd's: -1.625
Probability of Occurrence: 0.05 (5%)

Out of the 4 sites the chances of running bad in 3 out of 4 is somewhat small.

I am not sure if this answers your questions. Somehow I suspect not.

Prove otherwise. If you are a consistent winning player at the mid stakes or above then it will be easy for you to demonstrate that with your screen ID and some simple ways to prove it is actually who you say you are if you do that.

If you need to give a reason why you will not do that consider

1) LOL - people will bother me then

2) Russian mobsters will come after me (already used but always solid)

3) I don't need to prove nothing



75% because it helps my poker business (I am a shill as mentioned, just not in the silly ways the riggies want to believe) and 25% because it is fun to mess with paranoid people and once in a while help a player who can be converted to a better player (had a couple of those so far).


I admit that I am not quite sure what this means. I generally post when I am not playing (or down to a couple tables for the day like now) or during a break from my other poker related work, so days can go by where I don't bother to look at this thread then I can come back and have fun for a day or two.


I never try to convince a riggie of anything because I know riggies need to believe it is rigged. Also, if you are going to participate in a discussion at least participate. The "don't you have anything better to do/ have a life" routine is very cliched for those who like to think of themselves above the fray.

Stop being a wimp on the sidelines, if you are reading this thread for months then post whether you think it is rigged or not and explain why. A pussy is worse than a riggie.

Very sly of you to pick up that I have an agenda. Without telling you what it is I will suggest you read my multiple posts which explain that 75% of why I post here is to increase the business I am in and 25% is for fun.

Those posts might give you a hint as to what the agenda is, but if you still need help figuring it out let me know



Yeah, you may need more hints in the future I guess...




If and when you get tired of rationalizing the world around you and want to focus on becoming a better player simply put down your density functions for a couple weeks, send me a PM, I'll do a sample session with you (no charge) and open your eyes about a lot of the game you are missing.

If after that you still want to explain why the poker world targets you to run bad that is your choice.

PM me with your screen name, the games you play etc ( I will not reveal it) and we can go from there.

All this sado-masochisitc good will is turning me on.

monteroy:


thanks for calling me a pussy even though I not once insulted you. I've posted several times ITT and gave my opinion in regards to this topic.

to be honest, your reply is exactly what I've expected, so I'm not surprised.

All you had to say is that you're protecting your poker business, which in all theory gives my argument some substance. It is your business convince people it's not rigged.

I remember reading that you did work in the Poker Industry..Again, gives my argument substance.

And again, there is no way proving online poker is rigged vs not rigged.

I for one am done posting ITT as you're clearly King of the Castle here, and I'd rather not invade your 'holy' territory.

What? King of a castle made of swiss cheese?

Congrats on stating after the fact that my reply was exactly as you predicted. In that regard allow me to offer you predictions on the football playoff games this past weekend.

Bet everything you got on the Jets, Seahawks, Packers and Ravens



Riggies can believe whatever they like, in fact I have said many times that casual players can believe anything they like if it adds to their enjoyment of the game and I meant it.

The industry is rigged, just as usual not in the way riggies ever imagine. They "rig" the games all the time by tweaking them to generate more rake.

Rush Poker

20-50 BB tables

Super turbo tournaments


Ever sit back and think of what these and many more innovations do? They generate a ton more rake while people happily pay to enjoy the product. The 20-50 BB tables are actually somewhat sinister in a way, but do riggies ever look at issues like this? Hardly, it is all doomswitch/boomswitch/my KK loses too much nonsense.

The rooms are making changes that make it harder for winning players to win at a healthy rate simply due to the game structure. Beating the $104 DoNs for 2% is an achievement and that is a whopping $2 a game, which makes them unplayable except for those seeking SNE. Many other games are unplayable in this regard as well and that is a concern.




Riggies sure like declaring things and pretending their are facts. Perhaps that should be a commandment...




In a sense this is correct, though this is not really an issue that matters. Ironically, if it was rigged in any way a riggie imagines then that would be very easy to actually prove.

Proving it is not rigged is impossible as are most "disprove a negative" concepts. Some use the prove you do not beat your wife as an example which I think is a tad distasteful, some go for the dull teapot in space example, so I generally go with the more festive "prove you are not a Lizard Person" approach.




This is the verbal equivalent if having a hissy fit then stomping out of a room. Know what type of person does that? You can guess the label.

All the best.

A BIG LOL at the poker is not rigged monologue from the 80 IQ point and under representative...

With respect Monteroy, you clearly have a conflict of interest regarding this debate because you run a poker coaching school. It would hardly be good business to tell your clients that they are not getting a fair game online.

You make these vague statements such as how I think I am the centre of the poker universe when all I have ever done is post hard statistics and said they look a bit suspicious to me.

I am a winning player overall at online poker, in spite of what would appear to be appalling luck. I actually enjoy developing my own strategy for particular types of games/opponents which is something that is continually evolving with the game. So for that reason I will politely decline your coaching offer, which I do believe was made in good faith.

One thing that everyone who knows me and is associated with me can tell you is that I am brutally honest (variation seen in this thread).

I do not sugar coat the current industry at all, it is a very competitive, harsh game environment now due to industry maturity and the development of gambler friendly/ grinder unfriendly formats which encourage high action and lower sustainable ROIs.

This is genuinely how the sites are "rigging" the games, and the best part of it from their side is that many of the players are happy with these changes.

Bots and collusion are always a valid concern and if you look at my posting history you will see my opinions on those legitimate industry concerns as well.





How does the site make more money because of this? How does anyone specifically make more money?

You are not complaining about bots or collusion or game development issues. You are complaining that you are unlucky and there must be a reason for it. Why exactly must there be a reason why YOU or any specific player is unlucky?

You post some raw data but you never explain why you think it might be suspicious, and to do so would require a story where you are the main character.

Stop being on the fence, either go riggie or not already.


It was made in good faith, and that is your choice. If you play mainly for fun (whether casual or semi-serious) then developing your own strategies and doing soul reads and other fancy plays that generally are pointless at the levels you are playing is perfectly valid if that makes the game more fun for you.

If you ever plan to play seriously for money then you are holding yourself back with your riggie tendencies and the more fun, casual approach to the game you are on, but until you decide to play seriously you are doing nothing wrong in that regard.

Do yourself a favor and read the huge thread about the 20-50 BB games to get a better feel of what the sites are genuinely doing to the games which have a far greater impact and generate far more rake than any silly bad luck based riggie theory.

I thought I had made it clear that I don't believe in rigging at the Corporate level, other than changing game formats in a way that maximises revenue for the site.

My suspicion is that on some sites and in sng's it is the effect of collusion/bots that is making my apparent luck so bad and leading to an unfair game. I obviously do not have proof but my statistical analyses lead me to favour some sites over others to play at.

I do not see why this makes me special in any way. Other players could be experiencing the same but not have the statistical tools to quantify what is happening in terms of probabilities. I am not aware of any commercially available software which can generate the relevant probability density function for PFAI's which I programmed myself.

Bots will have no impact on your luck at all unless they are the "super bots" some riggies believe exist that know the cards in advance.

Collusive behavior has nothing to do with your all in luck as well, and if you see any strange play that seems to be collusive in nature (soft playing, chip dumping etc) then report it.

Bots and collusion are valid concerns, but they would have zero impact on the things that "concern" you which is how lucky you are at various sites all in preflop, and whether something sinister is behind that bad luck.

Again, this requires you to be the main character in the poker world, which you are not.

If you feel unlucky at a site then do not play there. Some people wear lucky clothing and have all sorts of rituals and if it makes them feel better playing the game then go for it. You are trying to validate this superstition approach with some raw data, but your data does not actually mean any of the things you are hoping it says.

How can bots or collusion impact your all in luck? The only thing that explains your concerns if they are real is that it is rigged on the corporate level to doomswitch you. You can believe that if you like as many riggies do, and frankly at this point if you just said you believed that then I could respect you for having an opinion that makes some sense (granted from a paranoid perspective).

For now you keep floating between being a riggie and not because a lot of the riggies you see are as you called them "nutjobs" and you do not want to be put fully in that category.

Collusion/bots can alter my PFAI luck if they are sharing information about their hole cards. It affects both mine and their odds. If they also see my hole cards they have an even greater advantage.

So your theory is that the bots and players are actively colluding to set up all ins preflop vs you?

Pretty sure bots just play as programmed and if you read botting threads and explore the botting community for information you will see this worry is literally the last thing you need to be worried about from a bot (do your own research and see for yourself). If bots see your hole cards (ie: super bots) then they would never go all in against you when you have KK for instance (unless they had AA) and your luck would not be impacted at all.

Colluding players may share card information, but they do not do this to set up all ins vs other players pre-flop in the way you think. Give an example of how your collusion to impact your all in luck would work.

I am guessing you are thinking of some form of removal effect, but colluding people collude by softplaying and trapping people between their bets (to get folds) and various other techniques that actually try to avoid all ins preflop (where they lose a lot of their colluding advantage).

Do you see how deep and complex a world you are creating to rationalize standard bad luck? Now we have bots and colluders working against you in mysterious ways that impact your luck graph.

I give you credit, you are leaving me almost speechless :P

Anyway, better luck I suppose. Play on sites you are comfortable playing for whatever reason, and good luck with your quest to figure out why you may have been a bit unlucky with all ins preflop.

All the best.

By Bots I did not mean bots acting in isolation, I meant bots which together share information and compute the odds in realtime, possibly with knowledge of my hole cards.

You can say its unlikely but so are my EV graphs. In fact if there was a 5% chance of cheating it would be an equally likely explanation as bad luck.

Why should it not be a deep and complex world where cheating is concerned? If it was not it would have no chance of working would it?

Even if we totally accept your results, I guess for now I would go with the belief that there is a greater chance you just ran a little unlucky than you were the victim of coordinated super bots that were sharing hole cards info that also saw your hole cards that artificially created bad luck for you in all in preflop situations as a result in the freerolls and micro stakes games that you play.

Nowhere else for this chat to go since we are barely a step away from "mind control" being a part of this discussion at this point.

Best of luck in your poker adventures.

All I want to know is how much of a rigge do I need to pretend to be to get Monteroy to offer me a free coaching session?

I already did it. If you want the graphs PM me. Of course I had to do it for micro stakes as I am poor

You are screwed since you actually post on the strategy forums. Genuine riggies never do that


PM me your work and I will not reveal any of your information. I will likely ask a lot of questions to verify the ability to exploit the rig as you indicate so if all you have is 10,000 hands of 1/2 cent poker vs droolers that show you won that really will not mean a lot for obvious reasons.

And you sound like someone trying to convince everyone that in the 16th century they thought the Earth was flat when they didn't:

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

Hint: Don't take history lessons from Bugs Bunny cartoons. Columbus' voyage had nothing to do with proving the Earth is round.

4 sites? I thought you said you had played on 10? Are you still cherry picking becuase you have decided that you haven't played enough hands?

I am no statistician but based on the above are saying that based on the number of all ins analysed you would expect:

5% of people to win between 0 and 2487 all ins
90% of people to win between 2488 and 2623 all ins
5% of people to win between 2624 and 4777 all ins

If this is correct and you arent still cherry picking:

1) Do you believe that this 1/20 event is reason enough to believe that you are being cheated in the absence of any other proof rather, than just a natural mathematical occurance?

2) If I find someone in the top 5% over a similar sample do you believe that is just a natural mathematical occurance or do you assume they're one of the players cheating?



From your perspective yes. From our perspective, what are the chances that people from the thousands in the 5% unluckiest are going to be here complaining about suspicions?



Ultimately, I am responding only because you made an effort to answer my question rather than because I have anything of value to add. My overiding point is that the numbers on their own have to be very bad to convince anybody and if you have genuine concerns about hole card sharing bots perhaps the answer lies in analysing those players who are running way above EV against you?

Just enough but not too much.

Game Integrity

Q: How does your shuffle work? How do I know that it is fair?

A: PokerStars deals the cards in a fair and honest manner. Once the deck is shuffled, it is set, and the order in which the cards are dealt cannot be changed. The software that shuffles and deals the cards cannot control who wins or lose; it just deals the cards and the rest is up to the players in the game. Our software produces a shuffle that is completely random, which favors no player over any other. The methods we use ensure complete randomization of the cards, and complete unpredictability of the cards to come. You can see the description of these methods at:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/features/security/

We arranged for the largest consulting firm specializing in software security and quality, Cigital, to review PokerStars shuffle. Their investigation found the shuffling to be fair and random. You may read about their analysis at:

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/rng/

Should you have further questions regarding our shuffle or security of our software, feel free to ask any question you would like in an email to support@pokerstars.com. The integrity of our games is paramount to our success, and we are happy to address any concern you may have.

Comments ?

I have no concerns whatsoever about the integrity of the shuffle. For interest I have analysed my distribution of hole cards and certainly all the percentages of cards comes out about right, for all sites I have looked at.

However there are plenty of other things going on between the shuffle and showdown.

Frankly, I'm astounded that a third of 2+2 members appear to believe that online poker is rigged.