Online irregularities

I played online a few years ago and built up a decent little bankroll from $50, but I quit playing because I lost faith in the legitimacy of the sites. I notices odd shifts in "luck" from time to time that just didn't seem realistic.

After becoming a member of this forum to ask some opinions on live hands I've played, I saw how many of the regulars were consistently playing online. I sent in a moderate bankroll of $100 and through a few small stakes tournaments, built up enough to buy in shortstacked into NL tables. I built my bankroll to $1650 in a couple months. Then I cashed out some FPP points that I had accumulated, and suddenly I can't win a pot nomatter how much a favorite I am. I've had big pairs beaten by one overcard or an underpair in 6 times in a row, and have won 2 races out of the last 12 or so. I can't help but notice that the curious shift in "luck" that lost me $1200 of my online bankroll happened the day after I cashed out my points.

I don't want to be one of those "online poker is rigged" people, but I'm wondering if anybody else has noticed any patterns such as this through their own experience. When I quit playing in the first place, it was because I noticed a terrible shift in "luck" everytime I cashed out. I'd cash out some of my online bankroll, and then immediately hit a sudden cold streak where I couldn't get a hand to hold up nomatter how much a favorite I was. I know these things happen, but the timing is always so suspicious that my skepticism in online legitimacy is starting to grow again.

Opinions?

FYI: the fleece is nice, but not quite worth $1200.

The initial instances of this happening are most likely attributable to variance.

The latter instances are most likely attributable to the old saying "If you go into a game of poker believing you're going to lose money, you're probably going to lose money".

Interesting thought, and not one I haven't had before. The problem is that I never even considered cashing in FPP as doing anything. It was only after looking back on my game after losing 8 buyins or so and asking myself what was different. Then I suddenly went, "hey, wait a second." Variance is variance, but when it's consistently shifted based on an event, that's a cause and effect, not variance.

Also, even if I did believe I was going to lose, which I didn't, how does that make me a loser as a big favorite 6 times in a row? Are you suggesting that mood changes luck, becaue I can assure you my play didn't change? If I believe I'm lucky or not, when I move in with a big pair and get called by a middle pair, that's what I want to happen, whether I win or lose. I mean I literally saw a set 5-6 hands that I played before the flop immediately cashing out these points (again in retrospect).

Wow, 6 times in a row.

And 2 out of last 12 races.

That's a lot. I think you're on to something for sure.

I'm on a downswing at the moment too, over 8k hands?(can't remember the exact number) Lost about 8-10 buy-ins. KK, AA cracked, straight lose to rivered flush. The usual. Sometimes it's hard to get the tilt monkey out.

Most of the time, you're tilting but don't know it yet. Then one fine day, you decide to review your hands in poker tracker and realised that you were plain playing badly, scared, folding when you should be value betting, calling all-ins with your overpair, even everything tells you that you're beat.

I realised it the hard way too. You never know how bad you can run sometimes. It can get even worse than worst...

If you doubt the legitimacy of online sites, how did you win that $1650 in the first place? When you're on the good side of variance, everything's gravy, but on the other side... it's rigged...

Just learn to love variance, or try to find where you're leaking chips from.

I know this sounds over simplified. I have this happen online and in real life, sometimes you just dont get lucky or whatever you want to call it. I know this sounds like I am saying luck is whats involved in winning and will get laughed at. Yes Im always trying to improve but there are times when I cant win a hand. I usually win at casinos everytime i go and play. Out of the last 10 times Ive went I went home with more money 8 times but no money 2 times. Playing style is the same but no cards and the same thing happens to me online. I just quit playing for awhile or lose my money, lol.

Nothing like waking up in the morning and seeing one of these threads to start the day... My sarcasm meter is low now so I'm left to just slamming my head in the door!

Seriously bud/budette, what the hell would they gain from rigging a site in such a way? Be real...

Ok, here's a real scenario.

(Of note should be that I never said it was rigged. It's very possibly, maybe even likely to be variance. I've just noticed that the upswings are right after I send in money and the downswings are right after cashing out or any other transaction that costs the site money.)

Two people have accounts. One is cashing out via check every week and making the site pay for postage and processing fees. The other is leaving a large bankroll at the website, that the company can then invest and gain interest on for the life of the account.

Now multiply that scenario by about 2 million people. Which person having money left do you think the makes the company more profitable?

btw: I took a couple days off and just played a tournament. With an M of 7 after 4 rounds JJ allin vs. two idiots playing weak aces. Ace on the river. Add it to the list, bud.

I don't think I could have been making too many errors. I'm not calling allins with an overpair with a scary board. I'm buying in short stacked and playing very tight and aggessively raising with premium hands. All of my moves have come against big stacks when I'm all in pre-flop with a huge advantage and players with a lot of chips decide to gamble.

Homer. I hate to tell you this. but you`re right. They pushed the Doom Button, friend. You`ll never win at poker again.

Was I you, I`d take up outdoor pursuits instead. How about ski-ing ? So much healthier and much more fun. Snow under your feet, wind in your hair and, err, trees in your teeth.

I go on swings all the time but that is because I sit higher then I really should with availible money online. Hell I have played long enough to know they happen.

you either deal with it or you just quit playing, bottom line. My bankroll is funny like that, I can deal with playing way above my bankroll because I can deposit again If I like. If you have a limited bankroll you really should learn to manage and protect your bankroll better online. If you lost all your bankroll then obviously you are not.

WELLLLLLLL DUHHHHHHHHHH

if you are so shortstacked why wouldnt the big stack call you, try buying in full so your raises mean something.

Dealt to ripptyde [Jd Qd]
amazinmets73: folds
robjohn1111: calls $2
Pulivari: raises $8 to $10
sixpuck: folds
ripptyde: calls $10
Mr.smith12: folds
koldshot: folds
Sabalo1: folds
robjohn1111: calls $8
*** FLOP *** [Kc Ts 9s]
robjohn1111: checks
Pulivari: checks
ripptyde: bets $14
robjohn1111: calls $14
Pulivari: folds
*** TURN *** [Kc Ts 9s] 9♦
robjohn1111: checks
ripptyde: bets $40.80 and is all-in
robjohn1111: calls $40.80
*** RIVER *** [Kc Ts 9s 9d] [Th]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
robjohn1111: shows [As 9h] (a full house, Nines full
of Tens)
ripptyde: mucks hand
robjohn1111 collected $139.60 from pot

You never SAID it's rigged. Your only saying it's rigged...

I'm far from playing above my bankroll, if anything I'm playing below it. I just sent in a tiny slice of my bankroll to give online poker another shot.

I buy in short intentionally to get big stacks to gamble with worse hands against me. I've had a lot of success with short stack strategy, at least when the odds hold up. I'm never so short that a raise means nothing. I'm usually all in for 20x the big blind. I don't see how that raise could mean nothing.

Thanks for the advice you sarcastic ass. If I were you I'd try being sincere for a change.

I never said anything about online games being rigged. I only said that there would be a financial gain to be had by the site should they choose to do so.

I only said that I noticed a trend and was wondering if anyone else had noticed anything. If nobody responded, or responded by saying that it's never happened to them, then I'd have more information to base a judgement upon.

Think of it this way, if I'd never seen a coin being flipped before and flipped 20 heads in a row (completely possible), I might ask if anyone has ever flipped a tails. Just asking if anyone has noticed something similar is not saying that I know it to be true.

I guess I've at least picked up some information from this thread. The old adage about poker players being observant can pretty much be tossed out the window.

Credit where it`s due. Even though I have had a giggle at some of the other things you said, I don`t see a problem with this approach.

Quite a lot of the members here don`t seem to understand short buy-in as a strategy and believe that you must always buy in for the max and it is automatically an error to do otherwise. There are valid arguments both ways, and you stated a good one here.

Boring thread, read it all before and BTW homerphobe, JJ all-in against two players was just a bad move on your part and is not a badbeat, if they each held an ace its more of a coin-flip.

If it's boring don't read it. And BTW, 3 rounds into a tournament facing a raise from a loose player in the 5 seat and a call from a weak player in the 6 seat, all in with JJ and an M of 7 isn't a bad play. If there was an early position raise, then a reraise, and I moved all-in, I agree, that's a bad play, but this was very different.

You might want to get a bit more info before you judge people's play.

I am going to side with Homer on this one because I always get those bad runs right after cashing out , it never fails. I dont play any different then and its just too much coincidence .

One week ago i've placed 3 on a freeroll without depositing on that site. After the tournament i've recived an email stariting like that "After signing up for an account, I noticed that you decided not to make
your first deposit." They tried to make me a better bonus offer for the first deposit. And from that time only bad cards.

On partypoker for example in the bottom of the page are some reports made by iTech Labs Certificates regarding random number generator and card analysis report( based on statistics ), in which they say there ar no irregularities.Who knows? There are a lot of money in this industry. Enough to buy a "good" report.

I'm experiencing one of these irregularities on bodog now. I'm really beginning to suspect.

Has anyone else realized that if you're on a draw and fold your hand, you ALWAYS hit it (90% of the time for me) but if you call you almost never hit it (under 5%)?

Then again I don't think it's rigged, I don't what to think really :\

You do understand the millions of dollars these sites make right?

1 tournie = 3k people with a .25 going to the site, this is one of hundreds of MICIRO stakes each day. Now go to the bigger tournies with about 1k people and $5 going to the site, this is each day. They gain a lot more than they lose......

You just need to play through it - i cashed out $500 from P'stars after winning 66%+ of my H2H SnGs for a few weeks. Soon as I cashed out, i lost 10 out of the next 11 (was knocked out by AA an incredible 5 times of those, in just 2 days). I've almost got i back though (and caught a few beauties along the way). You will get periods when you'll play games that are simply unwinable, but pokersites can't logically (across a number of different sites) programme a cash-out penalty. Just ride it out.

So you're saying that if a company is extremely profitable, then there's no chance that people will get greedy and become corrupt. Or in other words, power doesn't only not corrupt, it purifies?

How about Enron, or oil companies, or.....get the gist?

On this I agree with you, the whole theory about these sites making a ton of money does not prove it isn't rigged, and I've said this before. This seems to be every time the biggest argument in favor of these games being clean, but its a very hollow one. There still are plenty reasons and plenty ways to fix on-line poker, with the biggest one being that they can get away with it.

I don't argue either side, I'm not saying its rigged or it isn't. However, I won't believe it is until I see evidence, or someone proves it scientifically.

I dont know man. Is online poker rigged, probably not. Does it seem like we lose more often with better hands, definately. One thing u have to realize is that u see a lot more hands online, meaning a lot more variance. I dont know if the sites have much to gain by "tricking u" into losing ur money. However, I could be wrong. If ur that good play in B and M rooms and make some cash if u think the house isnt trying to cheat u too.

I could see a large scam poised at getting accounts made by PS staff to go into the higher end MTT's or the sunday million every week and win it giving them a 5% slice of it and the rest of it going into the big wig of the company i reckon that would make a good sunday movie tbh. And they would have like all the hands that were coming up on like a cheat sheet so they know when to bet big and when to lay low, i know the next movie im making!.

It's just that these companys have no need to do it and not smart to take the risk of getting caught

I have folded on a weak pair and then hit trips...many times. I still enjoy the site though. I just try to control my chasing. lol

I never said it was smart, only that it was a possible reason for intentionally adjusting the "odds".

I wanted to make sure to note that I'm not saying that this is the case, only a possbility. I'm still playing online, but I'm only buying in for about 1% of my bankroll becasue I'm still not sure either way. That's why I started the thread, to see if anybody else noticed what I was.

The only way to give any scientific evidence would be if about 20 people with accounts participated in a study where half cashed out and then everyone played exactly the same number of hands by exactly the same strategy. That would be pretty hard to organize, so I figured I'd go for anecdotal information so that I could make an impromptu qualitative analysis.

So far nobody has said they've noticed anything similar to what I have, so I'll keep playing online at very small stakes and see what happens. I wanted to avoid paying for gas over the summer, but I guess it's back to the casino if I want to play higher stakes.