Rigged: The AA test

Good info and approach, will track.

Just wanted to add, last time I got AA in tourney (yesterday), two others pushed us all in preflop. They each had KK. How sweet is that?? What the odds??

Miko

VNice...thank you

Here's my two cents for what it is worth. When I first started losing at poker(notice I said losing vice playing), I would have said online poker was rigged. now that I have had ample time to analyze my play, I find that it was my play that was the problem. People who play live then online, have the basic understanding of HOW to play. Those who have NEVER played before try online first, as it is much easier to be embarrased online vice in person. Those online have LESS experience than live players therefore take more risks. More risk=occassionally more reward. Hence the online conspiracy theories.

I love it when there's a guy on my table goin' off about it being 'rigged',.. pleazzz... if so, then why is he still playing on it??
I've done a bit of research on it and have written a blog on another site about it, with examples, etc. I know that all the sites I researched had rng tests done periodically and had authorized certification to show for it.
Why would any site risk their credibility with something so ludicrous and can you imagine the extra costs and work involved with it,.. craziness.
"Okay Charlie,.. we're going to be needing to go ahead with that new highrise to house all of the computer programmers we now need for rigging the hands on the tables. Why don't we have pocket deuces get dealt with pocket A's this week,.. and hmm,... yah let's do it on the freeroll tables so the deuces dude will deposit some cash to the site when he hits quads on the flop, and just to phuck with them some more, let's have an A come down on the river. That'll mess with their minds a bit, hee hee"
"okay boss,... right after I get through with those other 932,000 different hand possiblities on my desk right now."
It's just total insanity!
On an opposite note, I watched a good portion of the FTOPS on Fulltilt, the one hosted by Erick Lindgren and saw him go in with 7-7 '4x' within one hour and each time he was dominated by a higher pair. Each of those times he hit the 7 to make a set??? When I started watching he was mid-way in a field of around 150, but after an hour or so he was in first?? Repeatedly he hit 2-outers, at least a half dozen times or more and only once did he actually get beat by a better hand going in preflop. Was pretty 'odd' for sure and did create a ton of static at the time (the 'chat' was going insane, lol).
Was a bit disheartening to witness it and once he was on the final table he had at least a 3x bigger stack than all of his opponents.
Would've been interesting to have tracked the hands throughout that hour, and to calculate the odds,... seeing just what the odds were of him repeatedly hitting those sets, time and time again, each time with the weaker hand,.. funny(?) it was almost always with 7-7 ?? (4x that I witnessed anyways).

Sounds like you're sitting on the fence mate.

I'm really impressed with all these statistics about aces. It's absolutely convincing evidence that online poker isn't a farcical load of old baloney.

I had to post. Reading this made me cry.

Just stop man. The spelling errors. The total ignorance to how the internet works. Your insults. It's all really ridiculous and just makes you look juvenile.
Constructive comments don't take the form juvenile insults. Which leads me to my next point:

When you post, and sound like an idiot, people are going to treat you like one. So please don't get offended when that happens.

Four, I really appreciate the work you've done on this. I'd love to see further statistical analysis on similar, perhaps more specific topics. I think it would be a good resource for the hand analysis forum.

All the best,

- grift

Thanks for your comments grift and I hope you stick around. Cardschat is a great community.

That was classic wasn't it. Although he has changed his tune some since he saw his hero Gus Hansen (a Full Tilt Employee) take a bad beat on-line and not complain about it.

I have had fun keeping up with this and I would be up to doing something else like it. Or, I wouldn't be offended and would be happy to help as well as contribute if someone else wished to take up the format.

wow..very intresting,, good to know full tilt might be allright..thanx

Actually, Full Tilt seems a little out of whack. I'd really like to see a much larger sample though.

I think we are missing an important point here. It makes no diff if all the sites deal hole cards such as AA near the expected value. Which sites or operators are capable of changing the runner runner outcomes?

Try calculating that one... What percentage of bad beats, one outers etc. does each site deliver, and when and why (as with the Lindgren story above), is much more to the point.

IMHO

And what good reason do you have to think the results would be any different? The problem is that the ability to test one Rigged theory after another will never outpace the the ability of the human imagination to come up with them.

Makwa,

If you read back through this thread you will see that this has been pointed out numerous times. Unfortunately, the fact that this would be very easy to deliver that statistically correct number of starting hands and still rig the site if they wanted to will not be tolerated on this thread. I don't believe the sites I use are rigged for a variety of reason but I don't hold that belief with absolute certainty based on a straw man argument(i.e. if AA comes up in starting hands the statistically correct number of times the sites are not rigged, they do come up the statiscally correct number of times therefore they are not rigged) Clearly this is very faulty logic.

I along with all the contributers to this project have put alot of time and effort into attempting to dispell just one of the many rigged theories kicking around cyberspace. What have you done to lend credence to your half baked ideas? There is NOTHING behind them but fanciful speculation. I am very tolerant of opposing viewpionts but I find paranoid conjecture monotonous and harmful, and those who traffic it, fatuous boors.

Nice thread. I don't have any database information to add; however, I think the information being posted is consistent with what we know. The poker sites are attempting to make the RNG as random as can be recreated. There is no substantive evidence that the are rigged in any way.

Thanks.
I just want stress to anyone reading this thread that on-line poker is not a single entity and as of yet, only the PokerStars sample is large enough to be meaningful.

Which half baked idea are you referring to specifically?

Grift,

I am honored that the first time you decided to post here was to insult me and give Four a pat on the back. You two should get along very well as I see that your writing styles and mindset are so similar. Someone might even think that you two are the same person. I look forward to reading a post from you that doesn't contain an insult.

Who the fu r u? I was hoping this forum was less of a flame fest than others. Are you a moderator? If you don't tolerate what I contribute, what will you do? This attitude is as bad as Railbirds chat, much akin to Lord of the Flies....

Good thread but for this attitude.

rigg? I don't fell a site has anything to benifit from riggin, I mean when the word gets out of anything of this nature, they loose players, Stars went threw theirs, A/P had their, FT has taking away players acounts in the last 6 months that were thought of cheating the system that had over 40K in their accounts, ouch... if you play live you will find cheating going on also....
If you play at the kitchen table with say; five players that play online you will notice a lot of the same..beats going on, this online bet big or nuttin, does have it pitts, you must have enough to make it back, and make it threw badruns..
percent are what they are,

But, it don't mean you are quarrenteed anything , in long run yes, I feel all power pair can be overbetted at times, and with this being what it is you are going to lose at time..
you are only a
AA,31% with 9players calling you and so on
KK,26.02% fav. if called by 9 players, and so on
I aint going to get into this much, I did use to think that it was set for better rake, cause I'd have a great hand on turn ,and
B A M M!!!, I would lose to riv, 10to1 or 22to1 long shots, site didn't tell them to call..their the answer..just throw the hand up on the kitchen table and look what wins so 100 hours....

Makwa,

I think you may have misunderstood me. I agree with you. I don't think the number of starting hands proves anything and have posted that before. A number of other people have posted to that effect as well. Look at the OP's response to my original post to you and I think you will know what I was talking about.

Sheesh. OK what I objected to was this phrase of yours:

"will not be tolerated on this thread."

I can tolerate anything except people telling me what they will tolerate.
Great thread tho, keep up the math and discussion.

lol. And to boot, we've never been seen together at the same time.

Yeah! What he said. You should be more tolerant justnor. Nice post Makwa.


How 'bout some more Data.

The last 2 times ive had KK its been up against AA, both in 6 max games.
poker is rigged, end of.

I didn't insult you. I was merely pointing out that you are acting like an idiot. I didn't say you are an idiot. I didn't defame you in any way. There have been times where I've acted like an idiot. Everyone has at some point in their lives. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Just understand the reaction coming from the forum is not because we dislike YOU as a person, or have anything against YOUR right to an opinion, but because we strongly dislike your presentation. I am glad you are honored when someone points out your ignorance. We need more fine people such as yourself on the forum.

When I use the term "we" in the following post I mean the forum in general.

Let's talk statistics.

4dogs is testing a hypothesis. For more on what that means:

Statistical hypothesis testing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm going to paraphrase some of this article just to get to the essentials.

We have a null hypothesis. The null hypothesis is kind of our "assumption." Here, 4dogs is assuming that the sites are rigged, by dealing a different number of a certain hand than expected. He collects data, and attempts to show that this particular assumption is incorrect.

He showed this to a pretty convincing confidence level, using the suitable hypothesis testing method. His data show that it is very unlikely that the major sites rig hands by dealing different amounts of certain hands than the expected amount.

That is what the test is about. It only proves that the site is not rigged using this method. It simply disproves his null hypothesis. These data make absolutely no statement as to whether the site is rigged in another manner. Pocket 2's could hit quads every time they are dealt, be dealt the correct amount of times, and thus the site would be rigged, but we could still disprove our null hypothesis because the expected amount of starting hands hasn't changed. This is why discussion of other forms of rigging is outside of the scope of this thread. 4dogs has acknowledged this. We all have acknowledged this.

Any other discussion of whether a site is rigged is outside of the scope of these data. Which means, why talk about it here? Why not start a new thread, collect new data, and do a new analysis? That way, posts stay relevant, and we're not just throwing theories around, we're actually looking at data and making informed decisions.

I think this is the point you've been missing that 4dogs didn't really elaborate on.

If you notice when you have KK, if you were UTG or UTG+1, you most likely limped or just bumped the bet (1 or 2x BB) same as AA, should of done, in that position, really, when YOU DO lose with KK, it cause 70 sum % of the time someone has AA, or YOU are gettin spiked, not many other hands should be taking out KK,LOL, really your answer is logic.. their just aint no guarentees!!, cards are cards, if it get to postflop 2-7 can win. am I saying I allways lose with MONSTER PAIRS? NO-WAY, they have paid me good..but they to lose also...
If I felt sites or poker, were "rigged or setup"I wouldn't waist my time playing!. either way, it makes you look at board postflop and so on, before committing yourself..

what

Well justnorv, this pretty much blows another one of your theories out of the water. You implied that grift and my writing style were suspiciously similar? I'm flattered that you think I write this well.

grift. I've made several attempts to say the same thing, but never as well as you just did. Thanks for the best post so far in this thread.

I love the arguments that 'if you think it's rigged, then why carry on playing?' Or 'if you think it's rigged, then you must be a bad player, who cant handle bad beats?'
FWIW I believe that some flops are tweaked to become action flops, so that any people left in will get a piece of the flop, so to generate betting, and therefore more rake for the poker sites. The turn and river cards are also 'actioned', sometimes, for the same reason.
So, you may ask, if you believe that, then why carry on playing? My reply would be Do you drink? Did you know that a bottle of wine that costs $10 to the consumer, will typically cost in the region of $4 to produce(from planting the vine, to production costs, to wages for everyone involved etc to the bottle hitting the supermarket shelf) so, you're being ripped of to the tune of $6 for each bottle, will that stop you drinking it? No, i didnt think so. We drink wine because we enjoy it, even if we are being conned over the price. Well, I enjoy poker, both online and live. Immensely. And it's cost me nothing over the 3 or so years Ive played online, as I've cashed out more than Ive deposited, so Im happy. Even if I had lost money, thats ok , it's still fun.
As for being a bad player, no, i dont think so. i consider myself ok. Ive beaten 2000 in a MTT freeroll(6 hours of play), amongst other wins, and have frequently cashed at my local casino. I get my bad beats, the same as everyone else, and accept them. I know that any higher pair is roughly 80% to win against a lower pair, so of course the lower pair will win 1 in 5 times.
This isnt about bad beats, and how many times you get dealt AA etc, this is about flops being actioned to hit whatever hands are left in play, so it doesnt matter whether you have AA, or 72os going into the flop, some of the time the flop will be 'actioned' to make you feel you are ahead to generate betting, and therefore, rake.
So IMHO, whether this thread's results prove that AA or whatever has been dealt the statistical amount of times over x amount of hands or it doesnt will make no difference to me, as it's irrelevent to my, and many others'(good and bad players) theory about how poker is rigged.(some of it............)

+1
I don't know if its rigged or not, but I have doubts. I don't care how many time I get AA or KK or flop a flush. I want to know how many times my big hands are up against other big hands. The last two times Ive had Kings, they have been up against Aces BOTH times, pathetic. I'm also running 22 buyins below expectation, pathetic.
The swings online are just INSANE. Anything can happen over ten thousand hands, bad players can win, good players can lose. I'm sorry but I cant see that happening live. If you get a good player and put him in a live casino, I think hes gonna win if he played 6 hours a day for 52 days (I estimated that's about 10K hands).
I know everyone is sick of donks saying poker is rigged because their aces got cracked or because someone hit a gutshot. I also think these people are idiots. I know bad beats are part of the game and I accept them, there not even bad beats to me, because they are supposed to happen. I wouldn't even call a 1 outer on the river on the bubble of a sng a bad beat.

I actually lean towards online poker not being rigged. But I think the chance that it is, is a lot bigger than most people think.
Just think about it, if it was rigged, don't you think these multi million $$ companies would rig it in a way that would be impossible to find out or at least really really hard.
People often say that these huge sites would never risk their reputation and all there money, just to win a little extra. That's not a very good argument imo. Like Daniel Kimberg said in his book, "But we don't live in a completely rational world, and online poker would not be the first parties guilty of an incredibly stupid form of gr