I used to be a firm believe that online poker was rigged, then not rigged, then rigged again, then not rigged. I eventually settled into not rigged when I continued to read about the pros who make their livings playing 8, 12, 16, and 24 tables at a time playing online poker and tend to believe them because there seems to be so many of them doing this and talking about their
hands and stuff at a very high level. They make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by putting in the volume and maintaining a slight edge over their opponents. I think the reason it seems rigged is because over a short long-term, say 1,000 tournaments, you can suffer bad beat after bad beat after bad beat, and other forms of bad luck in poker and be a losing player during that short stretch of 1,000 tourneys while still playing a winning form of poker, only making up for it during those occasional short bursts where you, the pro, are the lucky one. Those pros have come to realize the true nature of variance in tourneys.
So, if you're a cash game player, thank God for that, although variance can get a little ugly there too.
But I have no explanation about the delay before being dealt the river card. Please do a thorough study and make sure that same delay doesn't sometimes exist even after you've been dealt a favorable river card and make sure your study is at least 100 hands long, OK?