Eh?

Yes!!!! Once you meet the Merge dealer you understand how important of a feature that was, I completely agree.

Cool and minty.

Yeah, the girl dealer on minted was way better. She was no help when they ran off with everyone's money though ...

Looks like the shills have taken over this thread (again).

Hmmm, honest online players realise the poker sites are rigged. Who do they turn to?

The poker site says 'We run a fair randumb number generator'. Yeah, right.

The gaming commission says 'They pay our wages. We don't want to know.'

So you go to an online poker forum, which makes money from plugging the likes of PokerStars and Merge. And you get swamped by shills who call you an idiot for questioning the integrity of companies based outside US jurisdictions and audited by Mick E Mouse.

Maybe, the best thing, instead of arguing with people who are paid to argue, is to withdraw all your cash from PokerStars and Fool Tilt and send their support people an email saying their randim number generators are suspect and house bots appear to be rife.

That might have more effect in the long run.

Might.

This thread has been pretty dead for weeks...

So why don't you take your own advice instead of prattling on and on here?

You have to be pretty stupid to realise that some course of action is never going to get you anywhere and yet continue to pursue it.

Because no way could any scandal happen on the USA's watch, they are way too good to let anything slip pass them

You don't get called an idiot for questioning anything. You get called an idiot for saying idiotic things.

In fact, questioning should be encouraged. It's all part of critical thinking. The trick is to do it critically though...

Also, to take note of the answer is a good thing.

I tested Merge some time ago, though I had been there even before they (Carbon) was a Merge. I saw the cards at PLO and LH were extra rigged. At LH I fast lost bigger than I have in about ten years, not one time before had it happened, and the quality of the games were the same. I made a cashout and might have got it already but it was slow as I didn't got in when I last time looked. It's possible they are desperate of cheating some money from here and there. The extra juiced cards are for increased rake and possibly for other reasons, and maybe they have some inside players too but I suspect not as I saw so extreme cases and they were ordinary players roaming around though looking like they knew what to do, possibly testing themselves if they can get extra luck by playing in a specific manner.

You should re-deposit and sit down at a LHE game with me. I'm sure the rigging algorithm on Merge will allocate some good luck and nice cards your way once you're down a buy-in or two.

Could you explain the testing that you carried out? What tools did you use? How did you analyse the data that you obtained? What sample size did you have to work with?

Cheers

Although it may seem that something like how many bad beats we endure while playing online poker is beyond probable (which it sometimes is) we also have to take into account that we are playing so many hands on sites that deal out millions of hands per hour. There are bound to be quite a few bad beats dealt out in those millions of hands, and yes it stands to reason that we will encounter them more often than not on occasion. It simply takes a lot of self control to brush them off again and again and even the best of us will lose faith at time concerning if these site are in fact "rigged".

In my personal opinion, these sites are rigged to a certain degree. I dont believe that they favor certain players, as most of the best live players in the world excel in the online world and vice versa. I do believe however that some hands are constructed to put the most money in possible, whether that be in a tournament or a cash game. I do notice however that they do promote/reward good play. Numerous times i have made a good bluff/call and been dealt a monster hand the very next deal (although i haven't always won with the hand). Also i have on occasion gone in with a junk hand just because i have sucked out with it in the past (It wont always suck out but more often than not it will do so in the same matter. Ex, J2o and hitting variations of two pair on the river on lots of occasions).

All in all I dont believe that online poker sites are completely rigged, however i do find certain situations and certain hands to be somewhat suspect. Which brings me back to my original point. The more hands that you play the more hands you will encounter situations which seem to defy all the odds, so we must take that into account.

Thoughts?

Did this analysis of yours involve any actual statistical analysis?

No it didn't. Merely an observation

Well, before you conclude that what you're seeing goes way outside of expectation, I would suggest that you confirm that your results are what you think they are. Humans are good at spotting patterns, but the upshot is they often spot them when they are not really there. In short, when it comes to this type of analysis, you simply can't trust yourself. You need a computer statistical analysis to figure this stuff out

Who cares unless they're triple range randomizing them.

Seriously, what's the point of re-randomizing them if this isn't just some some sort of level? Random is random.

It is done purely as a sop to potential riggies.

Anyone who understands RNG's knows there is absolutely no point in tampering with the output of a correctly set up hardware RNG.

The 'extra randomisation' is purely for those who don't understand RNG's.

If I am reading you correctly you are saying most of the times things seem as usual but if you play a lot of hands you are bound to see some unusual things happen? Guess what the expectation is here... Also unusual things happening stick in the mind more, so they tend to overshadow the large number of "normal" hands you see...

I can tell you online poker i have voted yes its rigged, but not the rng that is random its just a simple process that creates extra variance.

^^ Care to elaborate as to why you feel online poker is rigged? I'd like to meet these "elite" folks that seem to be "raking" it in since it's all slanted in their favor...

... theoretically RNGs differ and one can be more tilted by one RNG than another. ...

*

Edit/MH: Copied this classic comment from another thread, for discussion.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...ility-1270548/