Trend about “rigged” online poker
I’ve noticed every time someone complains about online poker being rigged, they get mocked and belittled. A lot of people point out low sample sizes, people not understanding variance, the faster pace of online vs live play makes bad beats stand out more, etc.
But should all these accusations be dismissed so quickly?
In light of the obvious abundance of cheats, liars, and frauds in the poker world, why is everyone so quick to dismiss site operators as potential bad actors? Especially after the several instances of sites being taken down for fraudulent activity?
I would agree that they are most likely not cheating and the complaints are probably a result of variance due to low sample size but I just don’t know if it is wise to default to that answer so quickly every time the issue is brought up.
Commence with flaming my opinion.
6 Replies
It’s funny that in GG most professionals have gone to bad runs they have never experienced before in their lives while playing against softer competition than in Pokerstars few years ago.
But there is no way to prove something shady is going on.
I cannot prove something shady, but 100 % there can be falts in the software that makes hands look very shady by paying the wrong player out, and the winner gets nothing
I remember when Pot Ripper was accused of being a super user by Mike Matusow and poker community told him to get better and laughed at him and anyone else that accused Pot Ripper of cheating was told the same thing. Well the poker site accidently sent a hand history to one of the people complaining about Pot Ripper but it was in codes he didn't understand. A software engineer took the information and put all the hand history together in a video to prove Pot Ripper was cheating. It took a software engineer to prove there was super user in online poker. Before he made the video proving Pot Ripper was cheating everyone was ignored and told to get better. I don't think any information on cheating should be ignored because if that software engineer dismissed them like you guys are doing then nobody would of ever found not 1 but several super users on the site. Instead they should get more involved and find people that can maybe turn their information into proof of the cheating going on if multiple people are complaining about the same players.
I don't think anything should be dismissed unless someone is complaining about a small sample size. Variance does exist. And it can get very ugly in short periods of time where it could look as though someone is cheating, but they are not. Your odds of even beating a bad player in poker is only like 55% in short period of play. It is barely over a coin flip guys. If you want to play poker, there is no way around it. You are going to lose and lose a lot playing at even an elite level. Most of the time people ask questions about hands, they played the hand pretty much perfectly. They just lost and are trying to find some strategy where they wont lose in that situation in the future. But it just creates leaks in their overall game. What ends up happening is they play a worse strategy and they lose a lot then complain people are cheating. But I see it in their hand history they are deviating from optimal strategy in these given situations cause they been losing. Most of the time people are losing cause they don't believe in what works and they deviate. Then get frustrated and call everyone cheaters. You wont get better at poker playing victim. Doesn't mean people are not cheating either, but the focus should still be on finding leaks in your game and fixing them. Not come on poker forum and complain of cheating on a small sample size. If you are a grinder that has played a lot hands for many years and you spot some players that you believe are cheating that is different, but you have to show some proof. There is so much good info on here to make all of you better poker players instead of focusing on cheating over small sample sizes. Focus on getting better and if there is cheating trust me the grinders will find them and report them to poker site.
Your odds of even beating a bad player in poker is only like 55% in short period of play. It is barely over a coin flip guys.
I'm pretty sure you have a way better chance than 55% of beating a bad player if they are -bb/100, some players you can basically play like a monkey against and still print because of how bad they are lol
I remember when Pot Ripper was accused of being a super user by Mike Matusow and poker community told him to get better and laughed at him and anyone else that accused Pot Ripper of cheating was told the same thing.
I think that everything in the opening of your post there is simply false.
-Mike Matusow was not an early complainant of the cheating of Pot Ripper and others
-No one laughed at either myself or the other original complainants, because we provided data to support our allegations.
Before he made the video proving Pot Ripper was cheating everyone was ignored and told to get better.
This is false: I proved the cheating was taking place before my friend Nat made the video. The video was helpful in explaining it to people outside of the poker community (indeed, in my video with 60 Minutes, they mistakenly claimed that I made the video) but it was a cherry on top, not the substantial case of cheating.
I think you make a lot of valid points, and others aren't as well thought out.
My POV is mixed. I'm damn near convinced they recently let me win to get me hooked; like to build an addiction. Won $2000 over about 3 days; then back to 'doom switched' where I just can't win a hand, even if I have the best of it by flop. Strong hands getting runner runnered. The only way I've found to minimize this variance is to never go all in until river, when you can be almost sure you have it. (I'm not the only one who specifically mentions this; I've read others say the same)
- Global support on 2+2 in a rigged RNG discussion posted a gif of a very obviously rigged RNG.
- The CEO berated one of their top players.
- They let the guy using tools run rampant for months.
- They falsely claim to have caught people on their own; when evidence shows users pointed it out.
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I truly don't know; but nothing Global Poker has done or said even remotely sounds like it's on the up and up. It sounds fishy.
My areas of interest
-> Rubber banding that appears to occur (They have a patent for it; and it does kind of look like it's in use). (Someone statistically is going to win so many hands within an hour; that they have hundreds of thousands of chips; in practice - you never see that)
-> Bait hands that can be called out. If we as users can call out the cards that are going to drop; either we're psychic, or there is a pattern of some sort that our brains can pick up on subconsciously.
-> The sweepstakes model itself seems like it would need the website to implement bots to prevent people from winning too much; because almost all tournaments are running below gurantee. If gurantee is $2000, it's rare to get 200 people in. That means they lose cash; then you figure the sweepstakes mail in redemption is also -EV. How can they make all their cash from cash game rake? It seems impossible barring using stooges. I've read about stooges; and guess what; some people on 2+2 have been hired as stooges in live settings.
-> My chart is the biggest reason I think it's rigged. It's exactly the chart you'd expect if you were trying to hook a player into an addiction.
That screams 'trying to get player hooked'. I can't express it well enough; but it just seems like a rigged way of hooking a player into an addiction.
If I had to describe my chart; it's like going to your crappy weed dealer for 10 months; thinking 'I should get a new dealer' and then he has fire weed, then it goes down in quality again. I know this game. It's a business model in drug dealing. You get them hooked with top tier bud; you then go down in quality; then you get a bit of that fire; then down in quality. I've played this game my whole life; and it's the addiction game. That's what that chart screams at me. Drug dealer giving a bit of a dopamine boost so they can keep selling you trash weed.
Is there any way to do this repeatedly? Do the fish get unlimited rungood if they just keep playing bad (in terms of a fair game, actually good play if they abuse the riggedness obv)
It just sounds obvious that if you know how it's rigged, you can just crush the games by overplaying the 32o and J6o every time, and folding KK+. Even the usual fish who'd normally punt their 3-highs will probably misplay their "premiums" not knowing they'll actually lose.
No idea the answer to this; but one day i did run only horrible hands for one tournament, and won first the next tournament.
Went in with 75o, would fold AA,KK,AK, or anything double face/face plus ace, any suited cards with a face I laid down.
The very next tournament I got aces 3 times, kings 3 times, and won the final hand with 33 or 88, or maybe i had 88 vs his 33.
I don't think it was related; but it might be now that you mention it. It did give me insane run good the next tourney.
If you have PS or WPN hand histories, there's an app call "PokerShowdown" that will statistically analyze your results and tell you if something other than random poker is going on.
