http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56...ow-ev-1432941/

Curious to what all non-riggies have to say about this?

I don't trust you.
Your claim is that high VPP status players are permanently boomswitched, isn't it?

GodlikeRoy is a 5-time Supernova Elite and member of Team Online that has sustained one of the best winrates for years. He usually plays 10,000 hands a day. He therefore knows a little about variance. Here's his latest graph (from days 6-18 of his current roll-building challenge):



[x] Sick PLO variance detected. (80,000 hand downswing for arguably the best player at his limit).
[ ] Supernova Elite boomswitch detected.
[ ] Team Online boomswitch detected.

And here's DaWarsaw's 2-year graph (2012-2013), with 4 million hands played as a Team Pro:



[x] Utterly brutal 1 million hand stretch of runbad. (70 BI below EV)
[ ] Supernova Elite boomswitch detected.
[ ] Team Online boomswitch detected.

If you want to learn about variance and sample sizes, you should probably talk to some people that have played a few zillion hands on Stars. If you want to be treated like a rigtard, keep doing what you're doing and moan about 20,000 hands of 2NL.

And I guarantee you pros like this don't spend time worrying about the all-in EV line. They worry about the win line.

The only conspiracy that should be considered is that the makers of the tracking software put the EV graph function in there just to make those without emotional control an excuse to vent. Perhaps the site encouraged this feature to keep them from quitting. Silly theory, but at least there is a bit of logic behind it, rather than some personalized rig using a flawed measurement.

The OP there should consider reading this ( I would ask riggies / thought experimenters to comment on this thread, but they tend to ignore it)

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...l-luck-823386/

though I doubt he would like it, especially since he said things like

and


and he got similar advice that I would tell someone who believes it is rigged against him.


Not sure what answers you expect here. I ask the players I back to turn off that silly EV line when needed. Professional, calm players ignore it, and the emotional ones obsess over it without really understanding it.

I would be curious how this would be considered proof of a rig, seems nobody in that thread really even considered that, most was talking about how the EV graph is not that great a tool, which it is not.


That is exactly how all the 888 riggies discovered the new player boomswitch rig there! Your results are further proof. Keep an open mind, many of them observed this with their own eyes, and as you say that is reallty the only way to detect a rig (in this case benefiting you as a new player/donk there).

All the best.

I should also have mentioned that those EV differentials are well within the standard deviation expected in a game with such small edges. I'm personally about 50 BI below EV in my last 250,000 hands. I hated losing to all those suckouts, but I learned to accept them ("That's poker!"). It could actually have been (much) worse.

I'd say that the poster 'onemoretimes' is borderline ******ed but had me laughing out loud with his posts.

Want some (short-term) runbad? Just had a stretch of 38 9-max hypers without a top-2 finish. For an average player, that's a 1-in-14,000 chance (over a randomly-selected sample, which of course this isn't). Given my lifetime ITM% on these, that's a 1-in-100million chance.

And nope, I'm still not a riggie.

I'll tell you what's rigged: Evolution. Otherwise, how the **** did every single one of your millions of ancestors make it as far as reproduction?

How did you calculate the 1-in-100 million figure?

Do you truly believe this? Or are you just kidding?

A rig means you're winning or losing more than you should.

If you can't detect it by statistics, it isn't a rig, you're just hitting the joy of variance.

I'm pretty sure computers can observe and remember cards and numbers better than any player can.

Bah, sorry, just realized I did "no top-3 finishes" instead of "no top-2 finishes".
Assuming equal amounts of 1st/2nd/3rd place finishes (I don't keep records of individual place finishes, only total profit), my lifetime ITM% on these is 38.4% So 2/3rds of that is 25.6%. (1-.256)^38 = 1 in ~76,000. So yeah, not quite as bad as my original post.

Edit: FWIW, I've played 3,500 of these lifetime, so there's a 1-(75999/76000)^3500 = 4.4% chance that I'll have hit a run that bad. So really, not all that suprising.

I'm not really looking for answers, more of opinions of why you think he's 180 buy ins below expectation after winning 90k.

I agree with you that the EV graph isn't the best tool. However, it is a tool that can give some type of light at whats going on in the big picture. Like you said, there is no proof of a rig. Without a doubt we all have to agree that he's @ least running horrible. There are a number of successful mid-high stakes players commenting in that thread and not a single one can explain it other than you're running bad.

With that said, I'd have to venture to say that the mathematical probability of a proven mid stakes winner over the years running 180BI below expectation has to be just as likely as there being a rig. Is there a mathematical equation to explain that or do I have proof, no.

Like I said, just looking for opinions b/c that just doesn't pass the eye test with me or many others.

Being over or under EV has nothing to do with whether you are a proven mid stakes winner. And yes, the probability of it occurring can be calculated, and the examples that have been given were not very low probability events. You need the specific player's standard deviation (which varies some with his play style) to calculate the probability. Probably best to put such a question in the Probability forum. Some assumptions can be made about SD in NLHE to get you close if we don't have the player's figures.

That's because there is no other explanation.

Based on a modest win rate, 337,000 hands and high std deviation of 120 the odds are still well under 1%.

This one intrigued me.
I picked this graph kind of at random from the many links:


There's clearly some horrible runbad going on there, as his actual winrate is about 20% of his EV winrate.
Since the actual winrate was 0.63bb/100, it seems the EV winrate was around 2.5bb/100.
If we assume that the poster's "true" long term winrate is 2.5bb/100 and he has a fairly typical standard deviation of 75bb/100, then we can put those numbers into the variance simulator at http://pokerdope.com/poker-variance-calculator/

And it turns out, the results could apparently have been a lot worse. The simulator tells me that with that EV winrate and SD, there's about a 3% chance of a downswing lasting 500,000 hands. The OP did at least make some money over a sample of around that size, so there must be some people out there (perhaps as much as 15% of the population) that are running even worse than him. :/

I think the claim of "150 BI below EV" is incorrect, btw. With an EV winrate of 2.5bb/100, the expectation is only for a profit of 125 buyins in 500k hands, and this guy made money, so he can't be more than 125 BI below, let alone 150. I suspect that the poster was jumping around different stakes and this confuses the matter. i.e. He might well have lost 150 BI of his lowest stake, but the dollar amount might only be 10 or 20 buyins of the highest game he played. I think a graph marked in blinds instead of dollars would be more useful.

For the record, here's the simulation graph result I got:



Imagine being the poor unfortunate one-in-a-thousand soul that has a net "winnings" line like the dark red line at the bottom of that (approx 175 BI below EV). Truly running that badly would probably even turn Jared Tendler into a tilted rigtard!

He may or may not be - that EV line is not a very good tool, and all of his assumptions are based on it being essentially a perfect tool. Think you even acknowledge it is not that good a tool, yet you are taking everything he says at face value based on that tool, which along with your riggie comments in that thread (that did not take hold to start a conversation) kind of shows you have a bit of an agenda here.

It is not really that useful, and people brutally misinterpret its scope and power.

Sure, that is possible. Looks like others did a bit better math to show that it is within mathematical expectations.

I back a lot of players, and I have lost count of the number of times I have heard "nobody has ever run as bad as I am running" or variations of that. Some people run bad. Welcome to poker.


OK, so he is likely running bad. He probably is not playing his best poker either given his tilt style posts, so he may not be running as bad as he thinks (as his expected win rate may be lower due to emotional, tilty play).

I would venture to say that he ran bad, then played worse, and his results are nothing that will prove anything other than he was a bit unlucky for a period of time. All of his beliefs are based on a flawed EV tool, so your comparison of a rig is pretty random and non sequitur, and again all it does is show that you are looking to introduce a riggie angle whenever possible.


Seems like it passes the math and common sense tests. Those are a bit more important.

All the best.

So using that logic if I gave a chimp my account and had it play heads up vs you on stars it would crush you despite you having a skill edge over it?

you know before i was screaming that poker was rigged then i decided i was going to proof it with stats analysis and developing the perfect game and been able to mathematically show that i was doing everything right and it was rigged.

it didn't make sense how i couldn't beat the mircos against people that probably made no effort at all. I mean sure i was making mistakes but i wasn't calling of 12+ bb shoves with 86 suited etc like some people were. ok i did not know every spot but surely they cant be doing better then me there style can't be more profitable.

so i analysed my data on shark scope and poker tracker and noticed i was actually winning just losing to the rake. so no there style wasn't doing better just my complacency had left me with an edge lower then the rake.

so i began to study a bit and a few things began to happen i began to grow fast and reached a bank roll of just under $2000 from $100 not by been reckless but by playing micros and gradually building.

i also in the process learned that i really didn't know as much as i thought and that there was still lots to learn.

i came to the conclusion poker wasn't rigged when i started to actually study it and saw results changing.

but i also became aware of quite a few issues in the process firstly the all in ev is next to useless at best it is a rough guide.

one of the things i did was make a spreadsheet calculating from every position if you have a certain hand what is the probability of someone behind you having a better hand.

this highlighted a few things firstly runs do happen where you just run into horrible hands if you shove the button with AJ and run into QQ then shove a mid pair and run into a higher pair dominated aces etc your all in ev will look bad. this does not indicate that your actually playing bad you can run bad by running into monsters or better hands more then the statistical probability. as well as running bad by been sucked out on.

further depending on the game type and player types a winning player could actually have negative all in ev, eg assuming the other players are real nits he can consistently shove wide knowing his steals will more then compensate for when hes called.

its even possible in certain games for a winning player to actually lose chips and profit eg in satalites or dons if the other players are reckless simply been a nit and letting the others clash.

the problem with all this data interpreted here is that to actually analyse it properly you would need to go in depth not just some occasional graphs.

whilst i reject that pokerstars is rigged that does not mean i assume every single sit out there is safe. I am not implying that any site in specific is rigged just that the idea that none are is a bit presumptuous.

i still believe if the sites wanted to rig it properly they could do it in such a way that would be hard to detect computer programs have been made that can beat the vast majority of the human population at chess. i think one beat the world champion but im not sure on that.

the ultimate issue breaks down to this though if you are losing there are 3 basic explanations for this.
1. the site your playing on really is fixed
2. your not playing well enough to win
3. you have just been unlucky

the problem is most people are not capable knowing how to analyse the results to understand which scenario is most likely.

it comes down to a very simple formula though if you consistently lose over a large sample then either its rigged your not good enough, you have not made the right effort, or the variance is so high to the extent of making it totally unreliable as any source of income.

all scenarios are reasons to quit. not continue does it matter if your been out played or if it is rigged your still losing money.

but i think the real reason why it wouldn't make sense for the poker sites to rig the games is the money maker effect. the money maker inspired the poker boom in the first place and in reality many people know a smaller money maker, it could be a friend you know who makes a living regularly from it a family member or etc. the fact is i know a few individuals personally who have made a living from poker for a few years that inspires me and others like to take a shot to make the effort and to come to the games. if no one knew anyone who was winning regularly the traffic would stutter a lot more.

however i do have a concern when i was younger i played an online computer game which was very popular at the time but people ganged up and cheated they had player rules in place and people would delibrately break them play politics and favoritism and delibrately be the biggest *** they possibly could just to annoy people for the lols. they even had a parade of nazi avatars just to wind people up.

the end result was people just walked away and a game that had 10s of thousands of people playing it at anyone time went to having less then a hundred. i fear such a thing could happen to online poker to. not to the same extent or the same way and i know the declining traffic has many other causes. but is abusing laughing at and telling less able players to just quit really such a positive idea when we are having a declining online population as it is? the games are getting tougher all the time and i really dont want to chase the fish away. I admit i can be the worst mouth when things are not going my way but mocking them just for the lols here is that really constructive?

But does it?

The guy cashes out $90,000 and then falls into the ~.5%-1% that runs horrribad over nearly 400,000 hands afterwards.

This falls into our previous arguments. I asked how many hands does 1 have to play to determine whether its variance or a rig. This guy can play 10 million hands and still fall within the .000000001 percentile of terrrrible variance and you'd still call him or me a riggie for even fathoming such a theory.

I guess I answered my own question. No matter how many hands one plays he can still mathematically fall victim to the worst variance ever.

Solid post. Thanks Arty.

All this "I lost this hand" or "I lost with AA six times in a row," is just hot air without proving it. Post your stats and then I'll listen, but none of you EVER do. Why? Because none of you keep proper stats, but just think your mind can remember anything like relevant numbers. And it cannot. Not even vaguely.

To the guy losing with AA six times in a row. Firstly show that please, or I doubt it was six times. And secondly even if it happened it doesn't mean anything at all. Aces will get cracked, they are ONLY a pair. Played badly or by bad luck you can most certainly lose with them. And looking at stats over a small sample in poker is the actions of the truly stupid. I'm not sure what the exact number is, but I'd be surprised if you'll account for all variance down to less than 1% till you've looked at stats over 100-150 thousand hands.

Over the years I've looked at loads of stats like how often I hit sets, make flushes on a flush draw, straights on straight draw, and hell knows how many other things. Do the same and you'll like shake your head when you then look up how often you should statistically see that happen over time. Why? Because it will be virtually bang on what you are seeing yourself.

Well I'm convinced that poker is rigged. My experience with online poker has a very consistent pattern. Here is how it goes.

If I haven't played in a while, especially if I make my first deposit on a new site, I am running really well. For example just recently I deposited 30 $, played for a week every day whole day. I was consistently winning every single table and by the end of the week I had turned the 30$ to 800$ by playing on the micros or 50 NL.

Then after the 7th day, I'm only unlucky. Every time I have pocket aces I lose. Everytime i have pocket kings I lose. Everytime I have top pair I lose. You might think "oh, he's just a fish who doesn't know how to fold aces or top pair who had some luck in the past". Well that's not true cause I am really good at folding good hands. But you CAN'T win poker on pure fold equity. If you lose too frequently with top pair or a useful hand, you can't profit. Everytime I have something useful other opponents have nothing. Whenever opponents gets the nuts I got something worth at least 2 barrels. This goes on forever and ever.

The past 5 days, my mentality has been like "maybe I'm just unlucky and it's a downswing, so I will play as optimal as I can, read hands as well as I can etc" But again and again I see the proof infront of my eyes that all my useful hands are beaten.

This is my experience over 5 years of playing poker. I have profited 500$ here and there on different sites the first weeks only to consistently lose forever if i keep playing. Only because I have identified this rig have I been able to profit on online poker by cashing out my earnings before I lose them to consistent never ending unluck. Maybe if I take a break for a few weeks the extreme unluck might stop.

I win in the beginning and lose in the end. This is a very well known casino mentality as well. The casino wants every player to win in the beginning to make them addicted and lose in the end. So how does the casino earn on this? Well it gets more customers. If it distributes luck from more active players to the new players, the new player will be more active/addicted as well, and the casino has more customers. Perhaps another reason they rig it against me is because they don't want me to win more money so I will cash it out before it is consumed by their rake.

I have been an active player for many years and I believe poker is rigged because i am CONSISTENTLY winning EVERY day for a full week by playing all day and night if I haven't played in a while. How could I play so many hands and still not experience variance if it is there? Then after 1 week, I am CONSITENTLY losing EVERY day. Isn't this a bit unrealistic? Why can't there in that case be variance within the variance, such as within those 7 winning days I had maybe 2 losing days, and between my 7 losing days I have 2 winning days?

This is what makes it look very fishy to me. I am always consistently winning or consistently losing for days straight while multitabling. The most logical explanation to this lack of variance within the variance is that it is controlled by the poker sites.

I also posted probably faaar back in this thread statistics from holdem manager that I have ridiculous statistics with pocket aces. That would be that every time I'm heads up and opponent sees the flop, I lose far more than I should for months. Cracking my pocket aces is the poker sites favorite way of rigging the game against me