Sorry, you're right of course

I couldn't resist!

You're right though, what a ridiculous excuse for a "survey".

Perhaps the PP's point is:

when people complain about bad beats happening too often they're talking about frequency, which is independent of volume.

i.e. how often it happens per number of hands played
not
How often it happens in total, as a meaningless number.

Just a thought

[ ] Poll contains a "this is a ridiculous poll which I abstain from voting on" option.

Those are two sides of the same argument. The point is that many people strongly feel that online poker is rigged because they see a lot of bad beats online. They FEEL that it is happening much more frequently than online, but don't take into account just how many more hands they are playing online.

I appreciate you coming to the defence of the rigtards, and trying to paint them as not entirely unreasonable. To some extent that's true, and I don't think they are complete idiots. However, if you've read the entire thread, you will see that all your points have been brought up many many times and some posters have gone into some detail about perception and the human brains tendency to spot patterns and draw conclusions based on that.

The problem with most rigtards is, they don't get much past perceptions and feelings, and rarely apply even small amounts of more in depth analysis, such as, for example, reviewing their hand histories to see if their memories match up with what actually happened.

It's been said before, but since we periodically rehash it, there is some truth to the actual frequency of bad beats online being higher (per hands played) than live poker, sometimes. Particularly at low stakes. Briefly some of the reasons are, lower stakes that aren't available live, anonymous play making players take more risks, many more beginners who don't know better, and new players who mimic the style they see on big TV final tables, and think it will work all the time. Riskier and more aggressive play makes the underdog stay in the hand more often and see more streets that they shouldn't have with the odds against them. AA against one caller wins over 80%. AA against 3 or 4 callers is barely a favorite, sometimes not even.

This is on top of the perception issues, which just magnify the effect.

Large-scale statistical analysis still shows the deal is random and fair. Some of you know I'm working on some reports using hundreds of millions of HHs.

On another subject: to those who say that posters in this thread absolutely defend the honesty of online poker, you are mistaken. I've followed this thread since it was created, and no one does that. Some of us make fun of idiots who try to make a case out of thin air, and ask for some evidence. But when somebody shows up with evidence, most of the regular posters here will give it a fair shake. And if something really looks wrong, you'll get a lot of smart people looking closely at it in this thread, as they want to know if something is really fishy. So far there has never been anything showing that.

Frequency can be looked at in different ways. Bad beats are more frequent per hour, but shouldn't be per hand.

On an unrelated note, there's a whole bunch of interesting poker math and statistics on Wikipedia.

That is great but until we can get someone like the NVGC allowed to see their software it means nothing. The servers are hidden where no decent governing body can see them.

I actually think it's ok for the software to just be a black box and let the results speak for themselves. No regulatory agency can ever be diligent enough to prevent a clever crook from doing sneaky things with online software. But what comes out of the black box is what matters. If it's fair it's fair, and if it's not then someone will detect it. Particularly now that enormous public databases of games are becoming more and more common.

Ok, I'll bite: why exactly would the results mean nothing?

Your implicit xenophobic racism, where you refuse to trust people who are not Americans, continues to be pretty offensive.

There are governments outside the US, and they are democratic, and they are honest, and they are legitimate. The fact that you're a xenophobe is your own failing, not a failing of online poker.

I don't know about those Aussies though mate, they just look sneaky to me.

Like I said, I'm very much on the fence on this one. But if it's true that the software is "hidden away" then why is this the case, if it's truly random then nobody can gain an advantage by having access to it.

Another thing maybe already previously mentioned (it's a pretty long thread!) is: what're you testing for? Do you look into what the flop, turn, and river did for each hand?

An extreme example:

3 way hand between AA, AKs and 67o, 764 flop gives 67o 2 pair, and AK suited flops the nut flush draw (AA is looking doomed), then 4 turn gives AK the flush, but then the case A on the river gives AA the full house...
In most statistical analyses this will simply show as AA beat AK beat 67, and nothing of how improbable and action-generating the whole series of events was...

Does Mcdonalds let you see the recipe for their "secret sauce". Will Cadbury ever tell you how they get the caramel into a Caramilk bar?

Fail. We're talking about a pure RNG, are we not?

Everyone who voted "no".

Well, name names and refer to specific posts.

Disagree. The poll first of all started out as a joke if I recall, and beyond that it's an opinion poll with only two options. Not everybody is going to abstain, so they're going to vote based on their opinion. My opinion is that the RNGs, at least for the major sites, are fair. Despite that, if somebody presents some level of evidence showing otherwise and it's legitimate evidence, I'm always going to be willing to listen. I still voted no based on my opinion. Do you ever look at the polls on espn.com where they tell you how people vote by state? If they ask which team is going to win the World Series and Colorado is an option, amazingly in the state of Colorado most of the people will vote for Colorado. Do you really think those people honestly believe their team is going to win the Series? You're taking this poll far too literally.

There's another thread about Pitbull Poker that for good reason has not been merged into this one. People are suspecting something is wrong and appear willing to examine the evidence, but the site is not providing hand histories. Whether it be suspected superusers or RNG issues, you'll find that when people make an honest effort to scientifically look at things, their efforts will be supported. The sites aren't getting a free pass. What you find in this thread though for the most part is a bunch of speculation that has no basis when heaps of evidence are readily available to those crying foul... evidence that is usually ignored.

I think most of the bigger sites use hardware RNGs made by Intel, so you could probably look into Intel's stuff for information on that.

No love for this? portrait of a riggedologist?

I'm not a riggedologist- I don't study it as a science because I lack the database necessary to do it. The only parties who have such a database are the websites themselves and obviously, whether they are cheating players or not, there is no upside to them releasing their data. Therefore neither side of this debate can currently be "proven" write or wrong.

I don't make scientific claims, but my senses tell me pokerstars is rigged. There is just no way that, heads up, there should be such strong hands made to the same pot. Pokerstars will give you hands that you can never get away from- if you did you would be forced into a severely losing playing style. After playing a ton there I believe that the bigger winners there have an intuitive feel for how the shuffle deviates from random. Sorry to disappoint all of you supersystem faithful, but small suited connectors are not monster hands in 3-bet short stacked pots. But at stars they are. I have also noticed that many of the big winners on stars do horribly on FT (possibly IMO because FT is not rigged).

I took my money out of stars but out of boredom (and taking a break from playing for real money on FT) I used FPP's to build up a few dollars there. The baby stars bankroll is growing yes, but I am still (and this has been going on forever) encountering monster coolers and beats EVERY ****** TIME I play there.

So PS defenders take your logic and shove it up your blind asses. Until YOU get a hold of proof I will go with my instincts, my common sense. Don't ask me to prove it's not rigged. I have lost with KK HU too many damn times, lost with trips too many damn times, lost with second nuts too many damn times. YOU prove it's fair.

Stars uses the Intel hardware.
Full Tilt uses this one:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/c7/
which has two hardware RNGs in it, explained here:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/initiatives...atures.jsp#rng


There are others.

Wrong. So all hands HU should be very weak, got it. Who are some of the many? I'll let you pick a number, then you can name people who are only successful on Stars, and I'll name people who do well on both sites. I'm starting to feel like I've been leveled. Hmmm...
Ah, well then. At least I was right about being able to look into the hardware RNGs.

Yes Spade, but how do you KNOW????????

THEY tell you they use Intel. But have you personally verified it? Until they publish live streaming of their entire operation, publish a wiki with the source code for their complete software, and hire a permanent member of the NVGC to monitor the whole shabang, I will continue to consider your statistical research to be completely meaningless and devoid of any merit whatsoever.

The RNG is not hidden away - all the major sites have had it audited (many by multiple, independent, reviewers) and I assume the regulators have access to it.

this