I mean this is a very rare case but variance is so ****** brutal and twisted for some people it breaks them and they quit poker all together. It will work out in the end but you may need to play an extraordinary amount of hands before you see a true winrate one way or another.

You can read back in this thread and see my posts. I was a full blown rigtard on fullblown tilt after watching my 80%+ ROI dissolve into nothingness on two large sites. I play tournaments and would pick my way through avoiding all in situations, building my stack carefully by stealing pots, re raising players who were playing too tight and just being an opportunist in general. In 2008, this worked well for me. In 2009, it would seem that every time I had a chance at a final table and decided to gamble with the best hand, or set a trap knowing I was way ahead, I would get sucked out on. In a lot of cases, it was the first time I was all in the whole tournament. This had me believing that sites like Pokerstars had to be rigged or the programming was flawed.

I have taken some time to do some more research on my game to close some holes and to get a better understanding of variance. I am not too interested in math, so I read articles and posts from those who are. I am now realizing that variance can and will have a very wide range of influence on the game. Since I am still in the short term only playing about 200k hands online, what I am seeing in my results does seem to be very possible and normal. This after the worst year of poker in my life in 09.

So hang in there and don't let tilt change the way you play. If you are making money on other sites, you are doing something right. You are doing better than most people playing if this is in fact the case. I am going to try and take my own advice going forward now that I have more information at hand.

Thanks to Josem, Monteroy, Arouette, Spadebidder and all of the other regulars for putting up with my tilt driven rants.

It isn't. Online poker has latched on to the variance and # of hand argument and used it to their avantage. So now with all the fancy graphs your just losing because variance says you can lose a coin flip 20 times in a row which happens but what about winning it 20 times in a row? Variance works both ways until you get to online poker where the bottom line is the bottom line. Only way is to keep as many players playing and that means helping weak players.

I have a question, primarily for Spadebidder. I have played about 800K hands in my HEM database. Out of the hands that flopped 2 of a suit and went to the river, about 45% of the time, the river had 3 or 4 cards to a flush. Is this normal or excessive? It does not mean that flushes were made since I didn't check for results just board texture.

How is Banon Line Poker coming for you? When is the release date?

Ty for your positive input

Good job Donko! May you be an example for all!

In a game where all flops are seen and all boards are seen to the river (an imaginary no-fold game), the expectation for 2-suited flops to have at least 1 card in that suit hit the turn or river, is [1 - (38/49 * 37/48)] = 40.2%.

In a real game, where not all flops are seen, and where not all turns and rivers are played when a flop is seen, there will be significant biases that alter this expectation. The 2-suited flop means that a player with suited hole cards in that suit is much more likely to play out the hand than if nobody matches that suit. It also means that flops are seen slightly more often when someone does hold suited hole cards. The combination of those things means the real number will be more than 40%, and 45% is certainly reasonable if not a bit low.

Did Spadebidder just out his gimmick?

Who is that imposter?!?

Oh well, guess I'll delete that one, too many browsers open.

Maybe I need another week.

Donko, You're now a Puppet....Pathetic.

Sounds reasonable to me. Thank you for the answer.

Are you serious here, TK? You yourself said that you don't believe the deal is rigged. Donko used to think it was rigged, now he doesn't. What exactly is pathetic about him working on his game and carefully analyzing the situation? Seems to me to be the opposite of being a puppet.

Given the recent developments, I find this exchange to be specifically entertaining.

Hey guys. For those who have played live for a long time and tried online play, what has been your experience with the way the cards fall online vs. how they fall in the real world? And more importantly, what online poker rooms have you played in and how do you rate the fall of the cards in each?

Normal: Comparable to live play.
Suspicious: More freak hands than live play, and a higher percentage of suckouts than is normal in live play.
Highly Suspicious: Questionable hands and suckouts happen at such a high percentage over a long period of time that there is on doubt the RNG is not functioning in a random manner, either intentionally or because of faulty programming.

I believe it would be invaluable for online players to know the experiences of a large number of other online players and how they rate the veracity of each site. After all, if a poker site is not dealing a clean game, all the other details about play on that site become irrelevant.

As a live player, I understand variance. But the BS I’ve seen on the two big, popular sites I’ve played on leave me with no other choice but to quit playing online, which I have, or try to find a poker site with a truly random card fall, which is my goal here.

I have a feeling the company shills will want to turn this thread into a debate on whether online poker is rigged or not. That’s not what this is. And I suppose you’ll feel compelled to give the site you work for a “Normal” rating. But if enough people respond, hopefully the paid opinions will be equalized and maybe we can get to the bottom of what’s going on. Or better yet, get people to stop playing at the BS sites and only patronize poker rooms that have a truly random fall of cards (if they even exist).

Thank you for your response.

You waited four years to post that?

all the poker sites hate you and want you to lose all your money.

Actually on rereading, my explanation of the biases wasn't well thought out and was dashed off quickly. I didn't mean to imply that when you hold that suit, your chance of completing your flush is greater than 35%. It isn't. [1- (38/47 * 37/46)] = 35%. That is one of the conditional probabilities that goes into the 40.2% average for the no-fold game, and in that case you have removed 2 more of the suit from the deck stub. As for biases which might raise that number, I'm currently working on a turn and river analysis that includes this specific circumstance, and it will be on my web site soon.

Sorry for the identity mixup.

I'm a live player, 4 years pro. Just logged 120k hands online in 2 months. No difference as the cards fall exactly the same.

Go to the Poker is Rigged thread in Internet poker and look for the post of the variance simulator. Nothing is out of the question when it comes to variance.

If anything, live play is "rigged" if hand shuffles are involved, because dealers hardly ever shuffle thoroughly enough to make the cards truly random. Tracking Aces, etc. isn't very hard if you practice it, or so I've heard from those who do it, although I never bothered.

And who knows what those auto-shufflers do.

lol



Saying this or believing it to be true does not make it correct. You do not understand variance nor your ability to detect how the "cards are falling" just from casual observation.

You can continue to insist that you do understand variance and that you really weren't just imagining a difference. And you will still be wrong.

This is pretty much how I feel as far as FullTilt is concerned. Yeah variance can pretty much account for my downswings but the problem is the pendulum effect does not seem to happen and this is where I feel that it does not feel like live poker.

I know that I am not a poker pro, but I am not a poker newb either and I have gone as far as studying hands using permutations and combinations.

My last 13 buyin difference from what Holdem Manger showed that I should have won (+$EV) compared to what I lost when the money went in the pot was the last straw.

It is funny how right after I sign up and start playing on a new site, at the same level, my winnings are 12BB/100 hand for my first 1k hands.

I am sure that some of this is due to the player skill, possibly the lack of bot opponents, and dare I say variance but I have not even had a quarter of this success over my last 60k hands on Full Tilt.

The cards fall differently live vs online. Live, when receiving your hole cards (especially in split games), some cards (namely four) just don't slide more than 6 inches from the dealer's pitch, and he has to place his hand on top of the card and slide it to you. This never happens online because people can't crimp the aces online.

Btw, I play microstakes and all my commentary are at these stake levels.

.10/.25 and .25/.50

I also play live 1/2 and 2/5 games but not online.

I have had some success playing .50/1.00 online but that was on a European based poker site where every 3rd hand did not throw out action cards.

Anyone read this?
http://www.cardschat.com/f13/howard-...lts-rng-95460/

Of course it does not prove anything at all but I found the fact that Howard even entertained a conversation about the RNG interesting.

And no I do not believe it would be tough to implement a system to throw out action cards.

Creating a multiplayer First Person Shooter with deformable terrain and a physics engine, now that is tough.