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Originally Posted by tk1133
So was their research done at a random time? Did PS know the research was being done? Dude get real...I dont even need to list reasons as to why that's not credible enough....
I'm familiar with the Cigital study and participated in some threads with the authors when they were working on it. Poker Stars gave Cigital all the December 2008 cash game hand histories. After Cigital filtered out the microstakes games for being too much like play money, they were left with 103 million hand histories including all hole cards. Cigital was asked to do this study to help with the skill vs. luck argument going on in courts all over the world right now, since many gambling laws require an answer to that question.
Cigital solicited several million player copies of hand histories on this forum, to be used to validate the ones provided by Poker Stars. They matched 100%, so there was no tampering.
Cigital is one of the most credible companies in the world doing this kind of analysis. You can check their web site and see their references.
Two things the study showed were that 76% of all hands are won without a showdown, and of the 24% that had a showdown, only half the time was the dealt hand that would have won the showdown still in the pot for the showdown (they had folded half the time). Some conclusions were made from those two numbers about the relative amount of skill vs. luck in holdem poker.
There was no analysis done about riggedness or distribution of hands. But the fact that PS was willing to put an entire month's history out for analysis says they have nothing to hide.