How long do you give a site before you think it's rigged?

I posted on another thread i'd lost 3 SnG's when I had 7 chances to win when all in (was between 68% and 92% favourite in the 7 - 2 of them over 90%).

This is from number 8 - i'd won the first match of a 4 player $10 H2H, this was for $40 (much needed after the last 3 games). I'd totally dominated until then - he hopelessly overbet when he hit a hand, and called pretty much everything;


PokerStars Game #5412997136: Tournament #27322011, $10.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Match Round II, Level I (20/40) - 2006/06/30 - 16:31:01 (ET)
Table '27322011 1' 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: TangoCP (1980 in chips)
Seat 2: robwhufc (4020 in chips)
TangoCP: posts small blind 20
robwhufc: posts big blind 40
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to robwhufc [Tc 8c]
TangoCP: calls 20
robwhufc: checks
*** FLOP *** [9d 7c 3c]
robwhufc: checks
TangoCP: bets 80
robwhufc: calls 80
*** TURN *** [9d 7c 3c] 2♣
robwhufc: checks
TangoCP: bets 920
robwhufc: raises 2980 to 3900 and is all-in
TangoCP: calls 940 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [9d 7c 3c 2c] 9♣
*** SHOW DOWN ***
robwhufc: shows [Tc 8c] (a flush, Ten high)
TangoCP: shows [9h 7h] (a full house, Nines full of Sevens)
TangoCP collected 3960 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3960 | Rake 0
Board [9d 7c 3c 2c 9c]
Seat 1: TangoCP (button) (small blind) showed [9h 7h] and won (3960) with a full house, Nines full of Sevens
Seat 2: robwhufc (big blind) showed [Tc 8c] and lost with a flush, Ten high

90% favourite.

using conservative estimates of 60% for the 5 beats i didn't run through, and 90% for the 3 i did, odds of losing all 8 are 97,500/1 - the actual odds i'm sure will be higher still. This isn't the first time this has happened on Stars either!

Has anyone else noticed a "bounce back" bias on H2H games? - more than one opponent has mentioned it to me when i've done it - i see it really much too often to be a blip.

Grumble over - Friday night games on Stars only from now on!

sux for you..


generally i log into a site sit at a table and think it's rigged

well, i play at pokerstars exclusivly, and have found it to be 'rigged' in my favor just as often as it is against me. That is to say, i think it evens out, and personally i've found most sites to be the same in this way, so ultimatly, since i'm a tournament player, there's no place i'd rather be then stars, but that's just me i suppose

-n

Feel your pain rob, I really do. After my post about how my higher pocket pairs would always get beat by lower pairs that hit trips, it knocked me out of my NEXT 2 SIT N GOES. One of them was three-handed, pushed all-in with 88, called with 77 and a shiny 7 hit the flop. The next one wasn't actually against a pocket pair but it was sickening. I held QQ and the flop was T 7 2, end up all-in against a JT, blank on turn, T on river.

Something I noticed on one line... *** TURN *** [9d 7c 3c] 3♣

Uh, it says 3 of clubs twice. How'd that happen? RIGGED DECK

Rigged. . .You ever notice the program taking a slight pause before dealing the river...? Now that's weird shitz...

I try to avoid the "R" word, but I believe in faulty randomness. I sometimes play 2 tables at a few sites (incl. Stars) and I notice, more often than rarely, I get the same valued hand (different suits mostly) on both tables. Also, both flops could have 2 same cards, different suits.

I especially think Stars is about 5 years obsolete in their software as a whole.

Uh- i just cut and pasted it - how wierd!

I have never played at pokerstars but I do wonder sometimes if sites are rigged also. But I think I win just as much as I lose. Although I have had some hands that got beat by this or that and it makes you think... no way! Well I wish you the best of luck on your games in the future.
Have a Good Weekend & A Happy 4th!
-gts3475

I haven't noticed it so much on pokerstars but the site where i often play on 2 tables (CDPoker) i have noticed this as well and it does happen quite a bit which can be very distracting - lol

IanT

I just had to make one more comment on this subject.

i think it's important to remember that we all play a lot, thousands upon thousands of hands. and when you play that much, you're bound to see some crazy stuff. there aren't many things, and none that come to mind, that i haven't seen happen on the poker table. No matter how remote the odds, they still have to happen eventually. As i like to remind myself every time i take a bad beat; In order to be a 3:1 favorite, you have to lose 25% of the time. Rob mentioned odds of something like 95,000:1, well, there still has to be that one time when it happens. It sucks if it works out against you, but it still has to happen, otherwise there would be no odds, it would be a guarentee, 100%. It seems like many of us think that that whenever we have the statistical advantage, it means there's no way we can loose, but odds in our favor only mean we'll win more often then we'll loose in such a situation, not that we'll win everytime. They're relevant more in the long term then the short. That's just the way math works. Just because something is improbable, doesn't mean it's impossible.

-n

I just signed up for PS and must admit I do enjoy it there

I don`t play Pokerstars so can`t comment directly, but there are subtle differences between one poker room and another in the nature of the random number generation. Not "fixed" exactly, but not totally random either.

The one that most stands out to me is Victor Chandler (part of the Tribeca network and therefore essentially the same as Doyles Room and some others). Here I am positive that flushes and straights are more common than on other sites. If the board shows a flush or straight possibility, one of the players will have it almost every time.

The answer to it is, having identified the site`s quirks, adjust your play accordingly. At VC, I routinely fold trips when there is a possible flush/straight, knowing that I am likely beat. I will also play more drawing hands, since they are more likely to hit.

I know another site where the deal is more "dull" than usual and lots of hands are won with Ace High because big hands are less common. Answer - I relax my starting requirements.

just got stuck out in 10th/461 in a tournament on stars, it got to the stage that i predicted 3 river cards in a row that would hit no joke. As it happens all 3 where one from only two cards that could possibly lose me the hand. I don,t know why this has to happen on pokerstars but it goes on all the time. I agree egon that i have folded hands on pokerstars that i would maybe have moved all in against someone i,m sure is chasing the straight or flush.

You can't slow play there - try taking a risk checking a set with 2 diamonds on board, you could put your mortgage on the turn being a diamond.

Nomination for Dumbest Thread of 2006.

Seconded.

Thirded

robwhufc your avatar freaks me out

Fish and Beriac - do you play Head to Head at Pokerstars?

Hush your mouth! That's the reigning King Member of the Month who started this thread. Such sacrilege!

Can't speak for Fish, but I have been known to on occasion.

i do love playing at stars, had money there about 2 weeks ago and blew all away but all in all it is all relative, yes the bounceback seems to be there but as is on all sites its just tough when its in big spots like you had, it seems pokerstars lets you win for a while and then will crush you with a bad beat that makes you go broke.

one other thing maybe you should try forgetting about thsoe crazy fn odds you display, WHY WOULD YOU LOOK THAT INDEPTH! that is rediculous maybe your thinking too hard about the game and forgetting the rules lol

I humbly submit that "the site" doesn't actually decide when a player will start to win and when he/she will start to lose as if "the site" is a benevolent/malicious/sentient being. It's luck. Numbers. Odds. Statistics. Even with purely random outcomes, you will see streaks. It happens. It doesn't mean that Poker Stars (a large public company) programmed their random number generator to play tricks on people or manipulate them.

I don't see why they should need to rigg a game. Especially in a Sit N Go.
They make so much money there is no need for them to do this...

that is the argument. there really is no point to it, but as our beloved moderator said in last week's game at pokerstars in responce to the question if anyone really thinks its rigged, 'no, but it's fun to say'. in a way its nicer to think that you're being conspired against rather then it just being dumb luck.

-n

Mr Sticker: I have the same view about online poker.
I don't believe for a second that it's rigged. I really don't see the advantage for them of giving an edge for shortstacked players, or a 'bounceback' effect. I do believe, however that certain sites have their RNGs tweaked to make more 'action flops' to create more rake (cough cough *partypoker* cough - or so i've heard).

As for being 'rigged' to give certain players advantages over others, I just don't believe it.

Fish: fourthed.

this may be the dumbest thread of the year, but i am going to continue making serious posts in it.

I find this idea of the 'bounceback effect' to be ineteresting. the only argument that i have ever heard regarding online poker being rigged which actually explained how it would benefit the site is as follows; The site favors the big stack. If a player has considerably more chips then their oppenent, they are more likely to win, as in this way, players are eliminated faster, so they are free to enter more tournaments and pay more tournament fees, especially true in SNG's. Yet some people claim the opposite effect to be true, that the site favors the short stack. Someone mentioned the idea of "faulty randomness". Personally i think this is more a case of faulty observation, people seeing what they want to see based on a limited selection of hands and their own perdetermined ideas.

Having said all this, Chuck, you mentioned the idea of "action flops" to increase the rake while at the same time saying that you don't think it's rigged. if poker sites are arranging the cards to get more money in the pot, what else can you call it but rigged (even if it's not dirrected at anyone in particular)? Not that i believe it, but let's call a spade a spade.

-n

I'm sure, in reality, that this is probably the case for me - once you get an idea in your head, you only register examples that confirm to that idea and either ignore or not register examples that don't. The hands in my original thread happened though - in 3 other subsequant games the same thing happened twice, the big stack would get to 2000 - 2500, be all-in against the small stack with much the best hand, and the small stack gets the card needed to escape - the first of these I was the small stack (rivered full house against made straight). That was my observation, one that I had noticed previously, one that opponents had mentioned during chat in previous games, and one that i have seen 5 times out of the last 6 H2H games (hence my question).

The other "pattern" i have convinced myself always happens (again, maybe i'm using it as a crutch to defend my bad play?) is the Titan games we play, when the small stack wins a seemingly inordinate amount of confrontations (either will catch the required card when well behind, or will get a pocket pair when in BB and pot committed). The games seem artificially kept together to me.

The "proof" to the Titan bias I tell myself, is in my own performance in the games. I've played site games for 14+ months now, and have won 15 of them. Probably the majority of the games that I have played have been at Titan/Noble, where I have won twice, and usually bust out early (to AA, set, rivered flush, you name it), with the 13 wins coming at Pokerstars, Full Tilt, Paradise (5 from 5 at the last 2 sites) or Poker.com. Somewhat arrogantly, i would class myself as above average when it comes to the usual CC field, and I could easily name 5,6,7 people as good or better than me. In the Pokerstar games, all the usual suspect usually end up in the top 5 or 6, but at Titan, the "home of the fish", the finish order is a lot more sporadic, and the loose / passive players that call themselves into oblivion at all the other sites, seemingly catch and catch again until they reach the money.

It probably is a load of bull - on every other matter in life i'm very much a realist and dont believe in any conspiracy theories, but I just know what I have witnessed time and time and time again, with some sites simply having juicier flops and game shapes than others.

As for an explanation, no it probably doesn't make sense. If a site could rig a MTT or SnG, it would make sense to boot players out as quick as possible, so they would register for more games, not keep them in. And you can see how quickly games fill up on Pokerstars - they must be making a fortune. So is there any advantage to be gained from keeping poorer players in games, to keep rewarding their bad play, to give them the flush when they've called all-in with Even money odds? Well what will happen if every game runs legit? - some players will win a lot of the time, some players will lose a lot of the time. The winners will keep playing, the losers will stop playing. Who will replace the losers, especially when the Poker boom is slowing down and the market is becoming saturated by sites?

So would it benefit a smaller site like Titan to artificially keep more of it's players winning, and therefore playing? A site where the majority are freerollers and likely to be below average? I have my own opinion to that.

This is fast becoming a depressing thread for me!

Here is my "pitch" for the side of: online poker sites, at least those of any repute, are not rigged in any way whatsoever. I'm not referring to flybynightpoker.com or wearegoingtostealyourmoneyifyoudeposithere.com. My arguments won't apply to them.

Here we go.

ONE. Online poker sites are massively profitable. Party Gaming, for example, earns hundreds of millions of pounds per year and is worth over 4 billion pounds! Other sites are similarly profitable, if somewhat smaller. These are huge numbers. These figures are not generated because of rigged pots, but because at any given time 10,000+ people are playing on multiple sites, sometimes much more than that! Most are playing in raked games. Imagine a casino with that many players. These companies are simply gold mines.

TWO. Let's think about this for a second. Currently, gambling is illegal in the United States in several districts and we keep seeing threads about the danger of Congress passing laws making it quite a bit more illegal. If they passed a nationwide law banning online poker, I don't think it would be an issue of getting caught, I think the companies would be banned from offering their services here. How do you think learning that online poker is "kinda rigged" would affect their thinking?

THREE. Let's think about this in a different direction. Poker is huge right now. Massively huge. Everyone involved is making money. Why would the players at the center of this massive wave, the ones making the most cash, decide to piss it all away? Let's say that Party, Stars, or even Titan were caught rigging the game, not to make anyone lose but just to increase the action. I believe they would immediately lose their best players and highest rollers -- the people who have the biggest financial incentive to play at a fair site -- and probably most of their other players too. The publicity would destroy them!

FOUR. Corporate fraud is generally used for 2 reasons: (1) to turn around a business that otherwise would not make any money (what do you have to lose?), or (2) to enrich a particular person at the expense of the corporation. I don't see how rigging cards makes money for a given embezzling employee, and these businesses are not struggling. So they do not fit the bill for typical corporate fraud.

FIVE. Let's talk about cognitive dissonance. This is a characteristic of most human beings that I'm sure you've seen before. It basically entails "remembering what you want to remember". It's all about exageration. You know when a guy comes into the office and he's a bit late and he says "man, I caught every f---ing red light"? Well, this has been examined by game theorists, who found that because people had to stop for a red light, they remember it better than green lights. So folks often complain of stopping more at red lights, or having bad luck with red lights, when in reality that's just how they are seeing it, and their distribition of red vs. green lights is perfectly normal. Another example comes in the form of gambling. How many people do you know who have been to Vegas, or heck even a casino? Not close friends who seriously play poker and monitor their bankroll, but "regular" folks. Ever ask them how they did? Do you find that most of them say they "broke even" or "made a little money"? Do you think that Las Vegas or any casino was built on having people come in and break even or make a small profit? No. But gamblers are notorious for doing something everyone does: thinking they are better than they are, wanting people to think highly of them, and so nearly invariably advertising results superior to reality.

Let's review.

FACT: Online casinos are making huge bucks.
FACT: Gambling faces a potentially protracted and uphill battle for legality and acceptability -- especially in the United States -- and mistakes could be costly.
FACT: Poker players would react negatively to news of a rigged site, and would at least flock to other sites, if not be turned off of online poker altogether, as would lost potential new players.
FACT: Corporate fraud is generally about keeping companies afloat or making individuals rich at the expense of the corporation. Rigging poker accomplishes neither.
FACT: People like to think and say they are better gamblers than they really are.

It's funny, when I hear some folks talking about their game (and I have been guilty of this too), sometimes they sound like Phil Hellmuth: every loss they take out of a tournament is a bad beat, they are always better than the people at their tables (who are "fish" or "donks" for the most part), and they are amazed by the frequency that their opponents "river" them. No wonder they think the sites are rigged! This is another case of "90% of poker players think they are above average" kind of statistics that get recorded about driving and other walks of life.

So people (a) generally think they are better than they are or like to portray things that way, (b) tend to notice when things are weird a lot more than when they are normal, (c) and so accuse incredibly profitable corporations who are raking in dough raking the tables of risking their entire livelihood (both from a regulation perspective and from a reputation perspective) in order to make the company slightly more money.

Does this not seem ludicrous to anyone else???

I'm not saying momandpoppoker.com and riggedpoker.com and shiftypoker.com and all the other mini sites are legit, my arguments apply to Party and Stars and Full Tilt and Ultimate Bet etc etc. I believe that accusations of anything other than the best random number generator money can buy right now for these sites is simply a conspiracy theory.

Finally, I do not, for the life of me, understand why I hear from people that a site that they continue to play at is rigged. If you truly believe a site is rigged, for goodness sake stop playing there...!??!

Sorry if this sounded like a rant. That's because it was a rant.

Note: This is all in addition to the fact I have stated in other posts that if you are a superior player, you will receive more bad beats by definition, not because the site is rigged but because you more often have the better hand going in.

Pokerstars and Party Poker are making huge profits. The other ones? The ones at the bottom? Titan etc? Some of the traffic at these sites is very low (Check'n'Raise poker couldn't afford to send it's WSOP winners to the big event), so they HAVE got a vested interest in doing everything they can to keep players.

I'm not trying to argue against you - your post is the one I would have made if I hadn't played so many games on Titan (the reason I still play there if that comment was towards me? Because 88 of the 90 monthly site games are held there, and 8 of these (the weekend ones) have a hefty added pool ( I sat out accidently last Saturday - can 5th out of 9 and won $10 for a $5.50 buy in - I can put up with shit for easy money like that)).

I'm sure you're right Beriac, but i'll ask you a question - have you played at more than one site over an extended period of time, and if so, have the cards fell the same one both sites?

there are NO rigged sites,,,,,,,,,LOL,,,LOL,,>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>buck:hello :

Fair question. Full disclosure: I have done most of my playing on 3 sites, 2 of which are majors: Stars, Party, and Titan. I have never noticed a significantly different distribution of cards on any of them, and I have played at least 10k hands on all of them. Just cause I didn't notice them doesn't mean they didn't happen, but that's just my experience.

Best as I can tell, the cards fell the same. Here's food for thought, though: how the cards seem to fall will depend somewhat on your competition. If you play on the site with the best players on the net, let's say it's Full Tilt (I have NO idea), then you'll much more rarely suffer a bad beat than when you swim with the fishes at a site with bad players, as you'll less often have the best hand when you're betting so your opponents will less often behind and even need to catch up. It's the same as when you play $0.01/$0.02 vs. $10/$20 poker -- you'll suffer more bad beats at low stakes than high stakes, but the cards aren't running any differently, they might just feel that way.

Between that and the cognitive dissonance thing I mentioned (think: "I always pick the line that ends up taking longest"... not true, and based on the assumption that you notice such lines more than the ones that take less long), I think the cards just "seem" to run differently from one place to another.

I can't be sure that everything is on the up and up because I am not omniscient, but I think people make a lot of sketchy assumptions when the confidently express that a site is rigged. I feel quite strongly about this.

I really don't understand what all the debate is about. We've answered this question ages ago. See here for absolute proof.