The competition has gotten better, no question about it. My gut tells me that this should have decreased my win rate, not abolished it altogether. But I know that my gut can be wrong. That's exactly why I want to perform calculations.

Trillion hands? I think you are pushing it a bit. If somebody got 20 pocket aces in 25 hands, we would all conclude that the site is rigged, correct? Of course, this example goes into another direction, I am just questioning your "trillion hands" number.

I understand the logic behind "the online poker is not rigged". However, there are good arguments also for rigging it.

First of all, I don't think that smart (almost undiscoverable) rigging is something, that would be very hard to accomplish. There are a lot of smart people and online poker sites have a lot of resources.

Secondly, does anybody really check on sites? I mean really check. Do you trust Kahnawake and others? Because I clearly don't. FWIW, my "rigged feeling" started on Absolute Poker when I was suffering incredible beatings (just before I'd be eligible for 500$ prize). Few months later I hear that they were cheating. What a coincidence, right?

I played extensively on Paradise and Party Poker and these sites never felt rigged to me. On a bad day sure, but these really bad days were rare back then and there were very good days also.

Thirdly, I am not saying that all sites are rigged. There could be bad apples out there among tons of legitimate sites. Let's found out who they are and bust them. Corporations where known that they pursue any path that would make them more attractive to their customers. Why would online poker be any exception? And why would sites refrain to rig the games? Fear of catching them doing that won't do it, since nobody is going after them anyway (especially true in limit poker).

4. Has actually looked into the statistics and seen that everything is within expectation.
5. Does not have a genetic disposition to rigtardism.

Rigging makes sense only if the site gives to the fish some the money that should have gone to a good player. They make considerable more money this way. It is not that the rake is the same no matter who wins. If pro wins, fish goes away, if fish wins, pro stays.

So I am not sure, how useful board analysis is without hole cards. I know about removal effect, but if we compare several different databases and one of them is extremely skewed into another direction, that would be indeed quite suspicious, wouldn't it be?

BTW: My database has 162k hands in it, that should be enough for at least rough calculations. Anyway, what you are basically saying is, that limit poker cannot be really tested if it is rigged or not. If that is so, it really sucks. Who is testing the validity of online limit poker games? Players certainly cannot, so we have to trust corporations and regulators? I don't trust either of them. Too much money in online poker to trust anyone.

'Trillion' was sort of hyperbolic but I picked the number for a reason: There are probably around 200 million poker hands dealt on-line every day. Thus it only takes 5 days to deal a billion.

That's just under 14 years to deal a trillion.

So you really are looking at that sort of level before you can really claim 'rigged' on one single 'event'.

Of course, in reality a rigged site would persistantly show much less improbable events and that's where it would be caught out.

Those of us who think rigging is improbable see the trade off between extra profit and the cost of getting caught coming down very definitely on the 'not worth it' side. We may, of course, one day, be proven wrong. (Again ).

Why do you particularly specify limit?

Because in NL there is no card removal effect when a player is all-in so the results are valid.

Regarding the "trade off", I am asking you again: who checks limit games (we players can hardly do so)? If there is no possibility of getting caught, there is NO trade-off at all.

If you guys want to see what some real shills look like, check out this thread: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...verall-521555/

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...9&postcount=68

Summarized pretty well in that one post.

If you rigtards want to compare the discussion in this thread to that blatant defense of UB/AP over and over again by the same person, be my guest.

OK, I see what you mean. I didn't get it because you are making an assumtion below.

Of course players can check limit games.

You can get hold of millions upon millions of hand histories from specified sites/limits/games.

If you suspect that, say, the deal is being rigged so that losing playes get an advantage and keep on playing then you can do the following.

1) Look at your own hand histories to make sure your pocket card distribution is within realistic limits. You don't need a vast sample to do that.

2) Identify two groups: Winning Players and Losing Players.

3) Check all hands where there is a showdown and build up frequency charts for each group for cases where the favourite changes as the result of the flop/turn/river.

If these are skewed towards one group (outside expected limits) then you have proved that the game is rigged.

If, OTOH, both these measures are within limits then the site is safe to play.

Not just me thousands of others.

I happen to know the site was struggling dinancially and had a 'right issue'
that what a lot of the big banks did before they went bust.
Any site which robs player of their loyalty points is pretty desperate.

But go a head, you defend them, it's clear which side of the fence you are on.

Some of us are just on the side of the fence where people who don't want to see ******s spouting bs without being called on it.

If you have evidence* we're always more than happy to listen.



* The E word to a rigtard is like garlic to a vampire.

I do have evidence gut you ignore it, they stole millions of pounds worth of players points.

Any site which does that won' think twice about cheating or rigging the deal or whatever because they are BORN CHEATS.

If you can''t work that for yourself then it is you who is '******ed'

So, obviously, Bernie Madoff must have held up a lot of off-licences.

Ok, if this has been discussed previously please direct to the appropriate page but my only need for verification comes from this. Take the top 10 "winners" as ranked by OPR and put them on the top 10 "Losing" players accounts and over similar sample sizes see if they put up anything like the same numbers.

Would this be a fair analysis over whether a username makes any difference at all, or would it merely just re-inforce the underestimated impact of long term variance and that you need massive sample sizes to show that you are in fact a winning mtt player?

Why shouldn't they do even better on the losers accounts, as anyone who sharkscoped them or whatever would assume they were a complete drooler and play differently against them?

You can't seriously think there are 'rigged usernames'? If durrr had chosen a different username he would be grinding 10c/20c right now? That must be the most ludicrous thing I ever read

The only way this could be done is with the sites' approval, since I doubt people want to risk getting banned for MA'ing to prove they don't have rigged accounts. But then, of course, if the sites are involved, they'll just flip the switches on the usernames, so that can't be trusted.

An easier way is to just check a person's screen name on different sites, just off the top of my head:



Now unless Stars and FTP got together and said "let's make this Shaun Deeb character run hot in tourneys" you'd have to imagine he knows what he's doing.

I'm sure you could do this with all the top 10 players on OPR (well, except that FTP results are blocked right now) and it would probably be about the same if they had decent samples on both sites.

Actually the Real Deal shills loved pointing to durrrr as the prime example of someone who was given a winning account by a site (or as they called it, a GOLDENACCOUNT), completely ignoring that he wins live, on PokerStars, and didn't start out on FTP.

People have suggested things like the above have happened. One guy said he lost his aces 17 times in a row preflop. Yet when asked for any proof (which should be very easy to provide if it happened) all we get is anger and shock that the story is not believed by everyone at face value.

There was also a guy in here doing what he called a "thought experiment" where he suggested if something impossible can be shown as possible then maybe it was no longer impossible and something was up.

Well, duh. Sure if you get aces every hand of the day that will prove it is rigged. Similarly if you transform into a 500 foot lizard, that will prove you are a 500 foot lizard.

The sample sizes needed depend on what is being proven. Ask the guys in the stats forum what you need.


What about all of the people who are in on it. For hundreds of sites. For many years now. Unless you are proposing the software is doing it by itself somehow with zero human intervention, the odds are one of these guys would talk by now, especially since many of the poker rooms have collapsed and they are out of work.

Yes, the players do who have a lot more skill at analyzing data then you or I. Even if you pretend that there is not a single bit of independent auditing done (which plenty is done), the market place and the players will check on the sites. Hell, other rooms probably keep an eye on the competition since the best thing that could happen to Tilt is a rigged scandal at Stars and vice versa.

Competition was much weaker then so you probably did better, and since you probably think you are a skilled, winning player the sites "felt" right. Reality is your game probably stunk bad (I know mine did in the Paradise days ) and the average skill level of the games passed you by if you did not adjust.


If a site will be crooked they will choose much quicker and easier ways to do it. Not paying cashouts for instance (has happened many times on smaller sites).

Other sites as well provide minimal customer service and monitoring of their games to prevent collusion and bots, generally to save costs. That is why looking at all of these factors is important when choosing where to play.

All the best.

Difficult to discover might be possible, but it's very questionable whether such a subtle effect could add any profit to the site, and if not then they would have no motivation to do it. I've yet to see anyone propose a model showing mathematically how a site could manipulate certain key hands for targeted players (related to deposits, withdraws, win rate, anything) and result in a worthwhile profit increase for the site. The only way a site can increase profit is to have more money in play and generating rake. And there are only two ways to do that. One is to increase the average stakes being played. Obviously this is accomplished by marketing and game structure, and not by card rigging. The other way is to have more players sitting in seats on a 24/7 average (this is measured on PokerScout for cash games). There is nothing else that can increase the site's rake, period. Read that statement again. It means any rigging that takes place must result in more players in seats, on average. So any theory that doesn't address that is worthless.

I've proposed previously to pay a reward if anyone can devise a scheme that is 1) not easily detectable statistically with available hand histories, and 2) will increase the site's rake by at least 10%, with math to back it up. No one has ever taken me up on it.

I'm reading an interesting book right now ("Why does E=mc2?") that talks about an important principle in science. It says that if something can't be shown by experiment and observation, then it doesn't exist, or at least doesn't exist in any way that is meaningful or useful and can be disregarded. Bertrand Russell illustrated this principle sarcastically with his tiny teapot in space.

True riggedologists do not use this type of thinking and deductive reasoning skills, which is why everything they have is based on gut feel, super powered pattern recognition skills, fear of the unknown, and thinking that if others believe something that is proof it is true in and by itself.

The thread is fun as it lets us see all the different types of human behavior from different personalities. We have deep rationalizers, angry dumb guys, real out there conspiracy nuts, bad beat whiners, all of whom rely on raw emotion and memory to form their beliefs which will never change regardless of how much unemotional data is presented.

Some of the "shills" are a bit high strung as well at times

Push comes to shove, all this thread is is a spinning wheel that can provide some with the ability to vent and make excuses, and others who choose to entertain themselves with a silly discussion, and that is all fine.

Your huge study will be interesting to see, but you must know by now that it will in no way stop some people for believing that intricate, massive conspiracies are afoot to take their 5 bucks, and thank goodness for that as that would remove a lot of the entertainment value to be had.

Self knowledge is a wonderful thing, eh, Monty? I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who is quite as prepared to keep banging his head against a brick wall as you, nor anyone prepared to do it for so long.

Do keep it up, though. As You say, it all good for entertainment.

Well, it really depends how you define the conditions. I enjoy a good debate once in a while, and a little snarky trash talk, so dropping in a post or two a day in this thread for those purposes is basically a quick, entertaining hobby.

I do not have a single shred of expectation that any riggedologist will change their views, because that is not how their thinking works. However, it is fun at times to expose the gaping holes in their logic, even when all that does is generate some name calling in response (and once in a while a $20,000 bet/"me beat u up" response).

Irony is, I get the riggedologist behavior (even made commandments for it), because their responses fit an extremely base line level of thinking and emotion for the most part. I get the behavior of the "shills" who hurl personal insults around because it is a very simple yet fun form of combat for those into that sort of thing.

I do not entirely get why people like Josem even acknowledge posters like that K guy as that just seems like a total waste of time. Similarly I find it a bit amusing when someone as logical and rational as spade tries to explain how to do proper statistical research to those who only want to whine about their bad beats or are convinced they see the true rigged patterns on the site from memory.

When the thread gets boring, like recently when real obvious gimmick accounts hurling threats appeared, I just ignore it for a few days, but when it calms down it is always fun getting it back on track pondering why a huge site would spend 100+ hours to screw a "winning player" out of $5 . A bonus if you can get someone to shout ENRON! MADDOV! PONZI!

In that regard, I am happy to help keep this entertaining wheel rolling. Glad you are enjoying it as well.

All the best.

Stop defending this BS because one ****en player is a winner. who gives a ****. I win every single month and its still rigged.

And the Ace thing, I will never believe it, never, no ****en way can you have three people with aces and an ace still flops so often. Beyond ****en BS.

I find it interesting that you can be shown proof that the opposite of this happens and still say things like this.

"The sky is green"

"No we analyzed it for a few years and it's blue *fancy chart*"

"I don't believe that ****en bull**** I've seen it's green with my own eyes, you sky shills. There's no ****en way that sky is ****en blue."

I don't see any proof. Show me the proof.

That's because the proof is outside your parent's basement.