Jeez, OP is still insisting on the 'rigged' notion?

The OP is trying to make a drama out of something that was clearly an honest attempt to improve a game. I think the term "rigged" is inapproprite because most of us take this to mean something the sites are doing to either increase rake per hand, favour fish in an attempt to keep more money in the system or to blatently cheat players in a kind of superuser way. Stars are doing none of these although I think they have made a dreadful error of judgement in making the decision they did.

All that being said I do have a degree of sympathy with the OP because he and others may well see this as rigging and the title change was not necessary. Anyone visiting that thread can clearly make up their own minds as to how serious they feel the implications are.

the title could be anything though and it doesn't even mention stars. data analysis? what does that mean? doesn't even mention the RNG nor pokerstars.

it is clear you guys are watering down the thread titles in that forum. why you are doing it is open for debate, but it is happening.

Rek,

Who are you and why do you so vehemently defend PokerStars at every possible juncture? Every single thread that questions there integrity has at least 20 posts from you in it tearing apart every single post that is made voicing any bad opinion of that site.

MicroBab,

Ditto, minus the who are you part.

I realise you are not very bright but how exactly am I defending Stars? I have clearly stated that I believe Stars have made an awful decision with their manipulation of this game. Do I think it was an unfortunate and innocent decision on their part? Yes.

This.

I don't mod that forum, so the only threads I have a hand in titling are ones I start. I chose not to mention Stars because I didn't want any potential discussion limited to Stars.

As to data analysis, the hope was that people who actually want to discuss "rigging" in a rational way would step up with some hand histories we could analyze. Alas, the evidence has been fairly non-existent.

PokerStars does not admit to "rigging" the game. PokerStars admits to having an unusual rule (as recommended by its expert 2-7 Triple Draw players, who participated in the thread), and acknowledges that this needs to be better communicated to players and staff.

If the purpose of your post was to draw attention to the actual problem, you have succeeded, and you should be happy with the revised title.

If the purpose of your post was to inflame people who think online poker is rigged, then you should go elsewhere.

What is actually happening? If an electronic dealer is instructed to replace a randomly selected card with another, then the game is no longer poker. Anyone watching a human dealer do this has just cause for action. All the more insidious if it's hidden inside a CPU. Please link to any description from a site rep of what is occuring.

Dug up the dirt on my own. I think Pokerstars decision is incorrect, but innocent. Obviously we wouldn't tolerate a RL dealer looking at the card to see if it were permissible to deal.

I don't think anyone would tolerate someone playing 24 tables live either so was that a bad decision?

I still can't believe people refuse to accept that this is the most blatant form of rigging. The RNG says you should be dealt a certain card. Instead of this card, you are given another card based on previous criteria that has nothing to do with the current street. That isn't "deal modification" or whatever, you couldn't even do what they're doing in a brick and mortar!

I mean think about that. Can you imagine playing a game of poker where the dealer was looking at every card before dealing it, and occasionally tossing some into the muck and instead giving somebody else a different card? That's ridiculous. If the casino said they were doing it since they thought it was good for the game, not a single person with half a wit would even consider playing there. Yet when Poker Stars does exactly this, there are a million reasons why it should be okay.

Poker Stars paying Scotty and the other handful of reps to float around this site is probably the best investment they ever made. It's the only thing I can imagine that's managed to turn a group of otherwise perfectly rational poker players into little more than on the house shills. I can't even imagine the response if this was shared in a more mainstream medium.

No, Russ Hamilton is the most blatant form of rigging. Potripper is the most blatant form of rigging. This is an ill advised but innocent attempt to remove one of poker's little annoyances which has a fair amount of support from players who may not have thought it through. I would much rather Pokerstars have never tried this or admitted it could be done, because the slippery slope does exist and has been exploited elsewhere. 60 Minutes will rightfully not give a flying fig about this particular issue.

Whether or not it is rigging, it still seems shady. This would be a shock considering that PS is one of the biggest poker rooms accepting U.S. players. Oh well, I'll try some others for the time being...

Poker Phenom

Seriously, take some Valium or something. Your posts read like your ready to go postal over this.

Anyone with HALF OF A F-ING BRAIN could read that thread and see that

A) Stars changed the game on good faith with feedback from experts
B) Stars didn't do the best job possible of explaining the change
C) Your failure to read the English language critically and intelligently caused a huge run on the tin-foil hat market.

Here's a suggested plan:

1) Keep telling yourself that everyone really is out to get you.
2) Buy aluminum futures
3) $$$$

And I can't believe that you refuse to accept that some people here define rigging a little differently than you, that using that term brings out the "online poker is rigged" conspiracy theorists to derail your thread, and that you have now resorted to their weapon of choice - calling those who don't agree with you shills.

There was an existing thread in the Zoo about this, and people were plenty worked up already. I can't see why you'd want to start a second thread about it, unless it was for some kind of call for action - petition to have Stars change this, petition to boycott Stars, whatever. Instead what you now have is the original thread dead in a ditch somewhere, your new thread with the same discussion as well as a lot more argument about whether this qualifies as "rigged" or not and a few conspiracy theorist posts thrown in (have there been any more since the title change?), and this thread where we're all bickering about the same thing.

Is this really what you wanted? Why can't you just move on from this ridiculous argument about semantics? Can you not make your point just as well with the current thread title?

Actually I don't think anybody is "out to get me" - if anything I'd expect to now have an unfair edge over the vast majority of players in that game. And I also don't deny the fact that Stars was presumably acting in the best possible faith. I've mentioned this multiple times not only in the other thread, but this one as well. Perhaps you should learn to "read the English language critically and intelligently"?

Again, the comparison holds. If I was sitting at a live game where the dealer was looking at each card before dealing (and also at your discards) and then occasionally throwing some back into the muck and dealing you a different card, I'd be out of that game in a heart beat even if they promised me they were just doing it since they thought it'd make a better game and had some really good poker players tell them it was a good idea. When Poker Stars decides to do this online, I'm damn sure not going to give them a walk.

My thread brought up the extremely relevant point that Stars is hiding this information - unless you tell them explicitly what they're doing and ask for verification. It also accurately summarized the issue providing relevant links to all proof and other information in one compact location. The new thread also brought more coverage of what I believe is an extremely relevant issue - as there were numerous posts in that thread of people mentioning it's the first they heard of it. My new thread is what finally forced Poker Stars to at least put up information about the rigging on their site - although they still have yet to do this and even when they do, how many people actually read the rules on their site? I'm also not naive enough to try to tell people how act in response to this information - a call to action. I already knew there would be an extremely varied response to the issue. This issue is going to be strongly personal. I will never play on a site that manipulates any deals in any manner behind the scenes. Some people are apparently completely fine with playing in 'manipulated' games as long as it doesn't provide too big an unfair edge - or directly target certain players.

The thread title change effectively killed the chances of this news getting out much more, at least on 2+2. It doesn't even mention the implications of the issue which was the entire point. Hell, the new title isn't even grammatical making it rather nonsensical, and it uses an acronym most people have probably not seen.

And also, I wasn't the one who brought up the semantic arguments. I don't think anybody could say anything in the post I wrote was even remotely unclear or misleading. If you had any doubt as to what I meant by rigging, it was completely clarified in the first paragraph of the post. It was people who did not want a word factually associated with Poker Stars that brought up the semantics and started trying to create some new definition for rigging - even after it came out that their "deal modification" would likely favor certain players over others.

I don't agree with everything you said, but you make some compelling arguments. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on some points.

However, I really have to take issue with this:

People weren't creating their own definition of rigging in your thread. For many people, rigging has always meant something much more sinister and greed-driven than your particular issue. They weren't making up a new definition to combat yours; it's the way many people have always seen it.

BTW, you must have missed this:

I do not feel that the person who changed the title did so entirely in good faith or purely for the sake of moderation. If there were concerns with the term rigging, then the title could have remained the same and changed rigging to "deal manipulation" or whatever else may have been deemed more appropriate. At the bare minimum it would have been nice if the title it was changed to even made any sense.

If the title was fairly changed to maintain the actual points of the post, but with a 'softer' word than rigging chosen - this thread would not exist.

Yes, you do not "feel" it was done in good faith, yet you don't know. Perhaps some communication between the two of you would have gone a long way to gaining some understanding of what happened, and enabled some kind of simple resolution. I know if it was in one of my forums, I would have tried to find a solution had someone PMed me about a situation like this.

Does anyone even play 2-7 triple draw for real money?

no, but you seem to be infering that play money isn't a huge deal.

Impressive. In that official site data thread I kept asking Dire what he thought Pokerstars motivations were, since that is obvioulsy a very important part of the equation,. Most sane people used common sense to assume that there was no evil doing behind the choice (as Barry G's post seems to confirm), though Stars should have made the rule change more clear, which they seem to be doing.

Baffling as this really seems like the situation was identified for what it was and clarified, and yet Dire's obsession has grown to a full bloom.

Kind of sensed that might happen when I asked about Stars motives and he indicated that he did not care what their motives were.

As I said a week ago or so

Unfortunately ignoring this represents a major flaw in analyzing the situation, and will cause you to lose sight of your objectives as you become more and more obsessed with your cause.

glanced at the other thread and already you are getting the tag alongs with beliefs like " if they do this they will do anything that's why my 2 outer lost after I cashed out/ UB UB!!! etc etc"

Stars motivation is a key part of this whole discussion. Without it you are left with an incomplete discussion and a following of the standard rigtards you are trying to distance yourself from.

Whatever though, have fun with your cause.


Nice to see that irrational behavior can be predicted in a rational manner.

I have no suggestions how this can be resolved for everyone's liking. Obsessive people on a mission will never be satisfied, though under the right circumstances with a good sound track it can make for a good movie featuring a ton of cars being smashed up and some very good blues music.

Continued luck with the cause.

Main Entry: rig
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): rigged ; rig·ging
Etymology: rig, noun, a swindle
1 : to manipulate or control usually by deceptive or dishonest means <rig an election>
2 : to fix in advance for a desired result <rig a quiz program>

By the definition of the word it seems totally appropriate to me. Don't let semantics draw your attention from the point. Anhyone who trys to i would question their motives also.