OK.

I have hand histories of around 1.5 million hands. (Not, I'm afraid, ipoker.)

I have carried out a number of tests on these hands and nothing untoward has shown up. Obviously my tests were far from exhaustive.

Perhaps other people who have large hand histories and have looked at aspects of the deal could post similar anecdotal evidence.

He hid it in his sock.

He stashed it somewhere when we weren't looking.

He ate it.

He didn't steal anything this time, he only does it when I get paid.

You can't see the evidence, it isn't detectable, but I saw him do it.

He only steals when the police aren't around.

37.47% of my friends agree he is a thief anyway, arrest him!

I know he is a thief because I can see the pattern.

You aren't the real police, you're just some indian sheriff and you're probably getting a cut anyway, so you'll just say his pockets are empty.

I know he did it no matter what, I always have another reason to believe it no matter what you say.

Edit: It's all in the timing, that's why you can't catch him.

What use is anecdotal evidence ?

See?

I told you that if anyone provided evidence you'd just nit-pick.

Exactly what do you think anyone is going to post here that will satisfy you?

Are you expecting a list of a million hands?

If they post the code that they used to perform the analysis will you be able to understand it?

Remember that you can't even find your hand histories after several weeks of everyone telling you it's vital.

Tell us exactly what it is that will satisfy you and cause you to STFU. (This should be amusing )

That's not a fair comment Wiki, because you yourself have shot down anecdotal evidence in the past.

I assumed there was some sort of statistical analysis that people could post and perhaps a link to a webpage with their findings. I've seen you ask people to provide evidence, what sort of evidence is it that you yourself are expecting ? I assumed it was in the form of hand histories.

I haven't looked for my hand histories as nobody had told me they were vital. People told me to get these poker tracking programmes, I wasn't aware you needed to locate your hand histories as well, hence why I haven't been trying to do so.

oh I LOVE the patterns thing. "There are patterns, I can't see them but I know they're there."

Don't forget timing though!
Classic.

why is it that rigtards never seem to have clicked "Save hand history to hard drive," PokerTracker or the ability to email support and ask "Can I have my HH's plz?"

Yes but it's well known that we're not accepting anecdotal evidence.

In your case I'm just trying to find out what the f*ck it is you do want.

So you won't accept anecdotal evidence on this web page but if someone claims to have done an analysis and posts an anecdote about it to another web page you'll accept hat.

You see how hard it is to take you seriously?

Yes, but if someone emailed me hand histories I'd know how to process them as would several other people here. Once a couple of people had agreed that there was something amiss we'd get to work on validating the hand histories - not cherry picked of gimmicked - stuff like that.

But you can't do these things. What it boils down to is that you have to trust other people because you have no technical competence to do the job yourself. So all you're ever going to get is anecdotal evidence.

Oh, FFS!

Well, what the f*ck did you think these programs work on? Thin air?

Exactly what steps are you taking to 'conduct an investigation of your own if you:

a) Haven't got any tracking software
b) Can't afford any tracking software
c) Don't have hand histories
d) Don't even realise that hand histories are important

You're just making yourself look like a bigger an bigger joke.

Either that or you're just about the most skillful troll I've ever encountered in 20 years of using the 'net.

I try to follow along and I'm with you for the most part, but I don't get comments like this. Was Bernie Madoff or Enron hard to believe? Or any of the other countless corporate scandals that could named?

No offense Wiki, but quotes like this seem every bit as wacky as a rigtard claim. Wrongdoing where there's money and profit is not an unreasonable possibility. This doesn't mean it's happening (or that is has happened yet) with an online poker site. But asserting how stupid it would be, is not impressive counter argument. (not that you need one without evidence of wrongdoing)

But at least we can explain how and why Madoff/Enron profited. They took the risks associated with making a vast amount of money. It still has yet to be shown exactly how rigging a deal would make a site a large enough sum of money for it to be worth the risk. As opposed to concentrating on marketing strategies such as retention/acquisition etc.

The reason Madoff, Worldcom, Enron, et al could get away with what they did for considerable periods of time was because they could hide what they were doing from people.

The difference with a poker site is that the evidence is there for everyone to see == the results of the RNG processing == the hands dealt.

Enron and the rest could not have done what they did if they had to have all their books open for inspection by any of their customers at any time.

That is the situation a poker site finds itself in as far as the deal is concerned. By it's very nature it is completely out in the open.

So it's not a valid comparison.

I literally had to hold in laughter with all my might as I explained investment strategies to the marks.

So yes, imo, I was very hard to believe. I still can't believe I got as far as I did!

can anyone point me to the direction where it shows the online sites have to set the rng to mimick real life math stats on the 52 card deck?

The general direction you should be heading is the one where all the people with an IQ that struggles past moron level can see very clearly that if they didn't there would be several tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of people screaming: "Look, we have incontrovertible evidence that your RNG is buggered".

http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/a...ine-poker.html

http://www.notedpokerauthority.com/a...et-caught.html

Ever heard of Google?

This has nothing to do with whether or not it's rigged now. We're discussing overall ability of improper conduct.

Perhaps I need to look further into RNG processing results. I know nothing about this. Are you saying that they publicly test and/or allow independent audits of their RNG results? If so, that's a step in the right direction. I'm not even familiar with how a RNG works, but I'll take your word for it.

Are you saying that a site like PS has their books open?!?! I highly doubt that. At least not any more than a company like Enron. Please show me numbers on their books that couldn't be obtained from Enron.

Again, you have to be a statistician to know if there is enough info out in the open. To someone like myself (who is NOT versed in statistics), I would think you have to know folded hole cards in order to say with any degree of certainty that everything is out in the open. I don't know what cards my opponents are folding (and I'm not saying I have a right to know that either). But I don't see how everything is out in the open with information like this NOT out in the open.

Maybe if I was a math expert I'd find this argument more impressive. But for now, I would argue that a poker site has both as much incentive and means to commit fraudulent activity as any other company in any other business. In fact, arguments to the contrary raise my suspicion even more.

The argument of folded cards is redicoulus and it would be just another way to rig the deal (and totally undetectable) by dealing let's say ... A2 to UTG A7 UTG+1 KK UTG+2 and AA to the button, while other players wouldn't have a king in their hand. So this would increase odds for KK to win the hand, but again if deal is totally fair, dealed cards shouldn't be a factor at all toward's your decisions or finall outcome as they are dealt randomly, distribuited randomly and noone knows what card's have been dealt to one or another player.

I find this interesting. Can you point me to where I could read more about this? If there is a reasonable argument that sites cannot make significantly more money by rigging the deal, I know I'd feel a lot better.

I could see how this might be true for a B&M card room, but a virtual room can open and close as many tables as necessary at any time. Just to use extreme numbers...

70% of a site's top players are better than the lower 30%. Why wouldn't having this 30% play 10% more hands than they could have under a fair deal generate more rake? I honestly don't understand.

If there are 1000 players and the top 70% would bust the lower 30% in an average of 100 days under normal dealing conditions, you'd be left with 700 players. Why wouldn't having an extra 300 players for the next 100 days mean more rake for the site? It seems too easy, so obviously, I'm not understanding something.

I realize that losing players are going to regroup and get back in action no matter what. But if I owned a poker room, I think the most ideal situation I could have is for EVERYONE to break even! You're saying this isn't the case? Please explain or tell me where I can read up on this further. Is it buried in this thread somewhere? I haven't read through this whole thing because I agree most of it is noise. But I'm really interested in what you and some others have to say. Thanks.

That's why i am break even on full tilt for ever, i just can't start winning. I get rush of 400 games where i run well, then rush of 500 games that ruins all my profits + some loses while i am able to show profit at other sites.

I am not high stakes player or anything, but i really think that full tilt is screwed big time here is my stars graph :



Full Tilt Graph:



Graph 3 or 4 days ago :



----------------------------------------


I previuosly had another account on full tilt and same thing happened i run well for some time and then i get streak where i simply can't win untill i get break even or lose some money. This graph is from this month only so you can imagine how much stress this **** have caused me.

I don't understand what you're saying...

The only reason I'd be interested in folded cards is to be able to calculate realized equity. To give an obvious example, I don't see how one could ever say they get sucked out on too often without knowing folded hole cards. You could never disprove the standard pat answer of: Well, you didn't get sucked out on the times your opponents folded. Case closed. But that doesn't really tell you if you realized your rightful equity. At least I wouldn't think so. I keep saying that I'm not a mathematician, which is why I normally keep my mouth shut in this thread. I'd just like to see if anyone can explain it to me in layman's terms.

Well, the thing is that you don't know what your oponent has and all the cards have been dealt randomly. So the remaining cards of the deck will be left there randomly also so this in the long run shouldn't affect any outcome. Your rightfull equity doesn't change if you know what your oponent's have, becouse they won't have the same everytime (unless you always know what they have).

I'm impressed with this part.
I don't dispute this point in any way. What bugs the **** out of me is folks who accuse or imply they are doing these things based only on "feelings" and "hunches" and call everyone who asks "what do you base your opinion on?" shills. I have yet to come across one who has the ability to analyze data (shucks, they rarely have any - FatedToPretend doesn't even have his HH's, or understand why it would benefit his game to use PT/HEM. and he wonders why he's not a winner! wow!)

Not saying that applies to you, Lestat. In fact, the first paragraph of yours I quoted is the polar opposite of that stereotype. I just mean in general.

I've said before that this is true. It doesn't necessarily maximize rake long term because it will make the games less interesting than they are naturally, but it would probably be the way to maximize rake short term. Keep the money churning between players until rake eats it up, instead of letting anyone go broke and risk them not redepositing. This keeps more players in seats, which is how rake is made. Personally, I think rake is probably near-optimal by letting the natural fluctuation (luck) in the game play out normally. Skill edges in the game are already small. Consider that a successful player might have a winrate of 8 bb/100 and an SD of 40 bb/100, or 5x as much, and often even 10x or more. One way to look at that is a short-term ratio of skill to luck. The winrate probably doesn't usually surpass the SD until a player has a consistent record for 50-100K hands in NLHE, and we do the ratios over that number instead of per 100 hands.

But the problem with this theory (making players break even more than they would naturally) is coming up with a way to do it that isn't easily detected. We've done the math a lot of different ways in this huge thread, and adding just 5% to the rake appears incredibly hard to do without the manipulation being obvious.

Spade, did you see the 2 articles i linked? they are a bit old, but i posted them for guys that had not seen them.

Seems like they have been talked about on 2 + 2 before, was just curious what your thoughts were since you seem to have done some studies on this stuff.

Has some interesting thoughts in there.