The great "Poker is rigged" debate - Collected threads edition

There is no such thing as a cash out curse or run good just because you deposited money

I've explained this before in a previous post, but when you play poker, you are ALWAYS going up or down

It is variance, and you have no control over it. Everyone experiences the same variance after an infinite number of hands

What you CAN control, however, are the decisions you make when you play

And how you manage your bankroll

If you play long enough, you will run worse than you ever thought possible

That is not the moment to get emotional and/or complain

I know this is not easy. I ****ing hate losing too. And I go through "wtf" downswings all the time. That is simply the nature of the beast

TD, I rarely play online. But I just played a game to spend time.

Yeah, the field is too good nowadays, i'm far behind.

The start of the tourney -

The next hand -

The next hand (just for fun). When you got AKs AJo KK in a row after a week of break it looks funny in my opinion.

Here is a world class, the second table, same tourney.

Too good for me, you are right. People read too much nowadays. That ATo, 99 limping is GTO mix poker genius (just a set of words here, but i need to describe THE level somehow in a cool way)

Just interesting, guys, if you do play online. Are you serious saying the field is good?

I mean, if you say it's good, are YOU good? ))

Huge number of babysitters, 18 years old kids play the game. You say "the field is good nowadays"... TD, cmon. I mean, do you believe this?

In the total sample you show Johnmir you only run $44 below EV so you are pretty much getting what you deserve. And claiming you have a 100% after only 55 sng's is crazy, you need a way way bigger sample but its like you say, you RARELY play poker

also, if you say that you RARELY play online, how can you make the claims you are making? and an even more important question, why do you feel the need to spend so much time talking about a game you RARELY play??

and what are those screenshots even showing that should be off in your opinion? its 4 hands without a board where you get dealt ak, kk, aj & jto.... wowow its must be rigged then

to answer your question if the field is good. I dont play as low as you but at midstakes the games are easily beatable (for me) and I dont study much, just use logical thinking. You can still easily make a decent living out of poker if you focus on your game instead of thinking everything is rigged. And i actually play big enough samples to say something about it. If you only get an ROI of 2% while running a supersmall $44 under EV its just because you aren that good. If you spend all the time you have spent making weird excel sheets about all sites being rigged on making your game better you would have been better.

and btw you still havent shown where the variance calculator comes to the conclusion that are 2 possible cases which are you being a profitable player but not winning much or you play rigged rooms (somehow all of them)

magrail pro you actually seem like a real human its kinda nice to see. I know exactly what you are saying and going through

although you do have a point that he should have used I instead of we. He is making a valid point hough.

In what format did you run 200 buy ins under ev? There are some variance heavy games out there where this can happen every now and then.

That being said based on your post I immediately jump to the assumption that you are not as good as you think and that you probably play over your head.

Just the whole way you tell the story. The way you absolutely refuse to even consider you might do something wrong.

Did you play all of these tournaments against the same people? Did you play the same?

There are way to many variables to say it can only be these 2 cases. Maybe you played well at first but then changed something about your game. Maybe you start out paying attention to the way you play but later on just go on auto pilot.

Mate 50 cent tournaments are not necessarily the most competitive games around.

Neither are 7 dollar sngs although i would stay away from one table and husng these days.

I cant help wondering how you came to the conclusion that you are an expert level poker player.

Have you at any time actually played somewhat competitive stakes?

It's only small piece, Slugant.

In 2015 I played 89 tournaments on Pokerstars. Buy in = 7$. ROI = 94%. Profit = +595$

In 2018 I played 80 tournaments on Pokerstars Buy in = 7$. ROI = 84% (just the same, yes). Profit = +470$

Total profit = +1055$, total ROI = 89%.

55 SnGs - this is what I shown just to prove a part of information. Cause you asked. But before 07 june 2018 I hadn't got Holdem Manager installed on my PC. You can request tournament history in Pokerstars, lol. If you feel someone lies. Or just ignore this information, if you think that I lie.

A chance to play 89% ROI (169 SnGs) and, then, 341 next tournaments with a ROI of 2%

= 0,035% or 4 times of 10 000 replays of 510 tournaments played.

Have you got any specific comments? Do you agree? I'm talking about poker maths at the moment. It is not like "an opinion", my statement - is a fact.

I have played 16 hours a day from 2018 to 2022 (with small breaks). All the limits from 1,5$ to 109$ (on Party poker, on Pokerstars).

Do you mean that situation has significantly changed in the last 3 years?

(I think you don't read attentively enough, sorry. I have said, I haven't played for last 3 years often enough.)

Here, again, you just didn't read attentively, but still decided to react.

I say:

"TD, I rarely play online. But I just played a game to spend time.

Yeah, the field is too good nowadays, i'm far behind.

That ATo, 99 limping is GTO mix poker genius"

Slugant, I say to TeflonDawg that the field is just awful. And it was awful. I don't talk about rigging in the message.

You talk about rigging, ok, but not myself.

It's good you manage to win stably, and it's good that you found this way to earn. I'm serious.

At the same time, it shouldn't be too hard with a help of the software though, since it's (the software of the room) oriented to keep active players who play many tables, in game. No proofs here, just my opinion. This is what I saw in game in 2018-2022.

Btw, my normal limit in 2008-2022 was 7$-100$ SnG/MTT, looks like you play something more expensive. Ok.

I am a professional level player. I don't need to be better to earn money in fair gaming against amateur players. I don't also need to be better to earn money online, i just need to open more tables. But I decided not to play low level quality gaming not to spoil my game. At the same time I got a good profitable job (a tennis coach).

I had to waste my time for this excel sheets, man, because there are some bastards own players all over the world in some crazy way, I decided to help and to stop this fraud. This is the key reason I published my matherials.

Man, I have already answered this, but you didn't read me attentively. Variance calculator doens't show this kind of info.

This conclusions are simple maths + easy logic. And I explained the logic. You just ignored.

Ok, now WE can clearly state you are delusional. That is not an opinion, its a fact based on logic (just like how you "prove" stuff)

You aren't and never was good enough, not even close. That is the only conclusion here. But you also said you aren't here to debate rigging.... you might want to take a took at the thread title once more

Professional level LMFAO

The only thing you're "professional level" at is having a severe lack of reading comprehension

I wasn't going to mention this because I can't retrieve my hands from 2023, but I missed over 30 (I think it was 32) front door flush draws in a row at GGPoker. I couldn't believe it. It only happened once but things like that should never happen.

Well, the software of iPoker, Pokerstars and Partypoker (especially Party) just changes different "types of aggression" towards the player.

I mean, now (10 tournaments in a row) you almost always get involved in

JJ vs KK situations (pocket top pair vs pocket top pair better)

Then you get involved into a flop missing. In stead of 32,4% you start to "hit" 10%. And 10 tournaments like that.

Then a wave of a card dead (only garbage is coming)

A wave of allins losing.

And you can predict all this!

So I downloaded the trial version of PokerTracker and was hoping to generate my All-In Adjusted Differential, similar to Holdem Manager, but PT4 doesn't seem to have a way to generate the same stat. So instead I looked at AK, AQ and AJ hole cards to see what percentage I connected with the A, K, Q, and/or J on the flop. Out of 36479 hands I drew AK, AQ or AJ 1327 times and saw the flop 1037. Even though GGPoker always shows the rabbit flop the software does not. Out of the 1037 hands I connected 306 times (29.51%, 2.92% below the mean and 2.272 standard deviations below the mean). That's not extreme but the odds are about 87 to 1. Too many stats at GGPoker are over 2 standard deviations over the mean.

fact, you 2 are delusional. On a professional level actually, unlike your poker skills
And this holds true for 100% of your posts so there is no room for error

If you really think you can predict board outcomes, how come you are not a huge winner?

It's a casino.

That is why I ask other players to check what is going on.

Once you start to use "outcomes" you will stop winning at all. And Pokerstars - top number 1 to discuss.

Right after I started to fold huge hands to avoid losing vs better KK/AA/AK huge hands. Software just blocked all-ins winning, I lost 20 of 21 all-ins on buble of 45 afs SnG.

After this, I just stopped trying.

Once again - it's a casino. You CAN'T win more, then they allow you.

A good example of this - Partypoker also.

I decided to play 1000 players 10$ buy-in tournaments there.
I managed to get top 30 4 times of 30 tries. And all of them I lost with AA/KK hand. Same as some regular players lose closer to final table of Pokerstars in Sunday Million. They just lose with AA hand.

It's everywhere. It's a casino.

They consider prize pool as their own money. In spite of it's players money.

Because once you withdraw, these money leave the room. But the idea of any room is to equalize players to melt down their money into the room's commission for playing the game.

Thanks for your analysis.

How are you getting along not playing online poker any more?

Hoping to play offline more often 😀

You say you deliver a good example, but you dont. You dont know what a fact is. You just create stories in your head. Please get the help you need
I wonder who would hire such a mentally ill and paranoid tennis coach btw. "You only win the games the ATP allows you" But then again, that you coach tennis for a living is probably a figment of your imagination too

Man ))
I got your point, seriously. Your reaction - "you are saying bullshit" with no arguments. It's your RIGHT to do it.

Read your comment. You just try to insult me with no real thoughts regarding the topic. And i'm not alone who see this.

Hi,

thank your reply, I do hear you.
And @donjonnie, I when I played 200 buyins under EV on Stars, I played the games that have the almost the least amount of variance: NLH 9 and 18 max SNGs.
Mixed Turbos and Normal. Back in the days these games were considered the best way to build a bankroll without going broke quickly. Even Jonathan Little advices them to build a roll these days. I wanted to duplicate the boku87 challenge.
For everyone that doesn't know Thomas Boekhoff aka boku87. He is an online micro stakes legend.
Look him and his challenges up.
I knew I was good enough to replicate his challenges with a pokerstrategy ICM Trainer score of 97 over good sample sizes.
But Stars did not let me.

...For the rest of your answer: Yes you are right, you are assuming and claiming. So there is basically no fundamental truth in your words, and I also did not say that I believe I am
doing everything right. You just made that up out of thin air, to probably build a frame base for following discredits. Who knows. Usually disinformation answers and engagements work like that.
Probably the next thing will be, to look at older posts, and somehow try to give an impression that what I have to say has no base.
Although I am a sucker at even basic math, I was always a winning player/crusher, that was highly under EV. Means: I was even better than my profits and winnings.

...But we are talking rigged rooms here, not if I give you an impression weather I have the right mindset or not. Or If you like my attitude.

I will give an answer to the whole community now:

I believe if we talk about the idea of the games being rigged by the rooms, we should not put things like:
Bankrollmanagement
Mindset (You can only control your thoughts etc)

into the dispute.
These guidelines only apply to loosing players, and would be a step stone to overcome, to even participate in a discussion like this.

I gave you the examples of plenty of deposit upswings that I had in my career, funny enough I had another one yesterday and the day before.
After having my PokerBros account on zero, I received 300$ rakeback (Deposit), and now I am at 1.150 $ already again. It took me 48 hours and around maybe 8 hours of play do quadrouple my roll. And there is probably more to come...
Viktor Blom ALERT 😀

I sat with 20$ at a 0.20/0.40 PLO 5 table and left with 400 $. (20x buyin)
I also sat with 30$ at a 0.50/1 PLO 5 table and left with 250 $+ (8x).
So the day before yesterday I:
28x ed my buyin within maybe 4 hours.
Then yesterday I added some flakes to it.

Â… Now transport that into live poker with the adjusted hands per hour in relation, and look for an example, where that was happening the last time you played, if it was even happening at all on a regular basis. Well I experience these things on a regular basis almost every time I cash in somewhere.
This somehow does not apply for the rooms where I might have insulted the owner/CEO/and support
...Scheinberg probably got the worst curses I could throw out. ^^
Nagy takes the number 2 spot, for wasting my life energy.

Look: I am a winning player over the longrun. I train with Upswing Poker, and RaiseYourEdge material. You can assume, that I am not stuck in 2010.
Just the fact that I was in the Spin Legends Gold team, around 2019 or so should raise awareness.
Not everyone got in there. You needed credentials and results.
And being in there turned you into a Breathing Poker Crusher Machine at the tables!

Normal poker players have no idea how much work these teams put into poker.

I just say: Homework, and theory zoom calls, sim analysis on an almost daily basis! That is the stuff people like Fedor Holz did to step up their game.

So do I have your attention now?

I want to make something clear here:
If someone runs under EV it means he IS crushing, but not winning.
And he is not just crying like these payed forum desinformants want YOU to believe, so you just blame yourself for getting screwed.

Many people who want you to believe that crap also enjoy seeing people suffering.

People who put their money in bad, ARE suckers, but winning anyway/or MADE winning on purpose by the rooms, to potentially (it is not proven yet, but highly likely) create an equity balance to print 10x !!!! more money for the room.
Keep this in mind as I go on and give a major argument to wrap your head around.

I can say that I ALWAYS ran under EV when I tracked my online play, even with Spin Legends where we had massive, massive volume when we grinded on WINAMAX.
I was running under EV on every freaking poker site I have played on and printed money.
Even when I was crushing Party in MTTs over a 12 months period, grinding hardcore 6 days a week.
When I played on stars also grinding like a monster etc.
There was NEVER such thing as running according my EV or let alone running over EV in the longrun. I really, really wish this can happen one day. Seriously!

Here is the main thought to think about:
If variance is such a thing that needs a zillion hands (which indicates, that poker is just gambling, which the payed forum trolls contradictory reject) than I challenge you to show me massive amounts of graphs that show players running massively over EV over a substantial volume and long period of grinding.

I highly, highly doubt that this exists on a substantial scale (So I mean a lot, not just a few dudes on high stakes).
If variance is that freaking harsh, than the opposite should exist on a frequent basis.
Braindead zombies, grinding and winning excessively, putting in volume. Not just one or two MTT sunruns. I mean playing massive volume, and being over EV.

Seriously, just the thought that many players playing 6 days a week, 10 hours a day with high volume and running massively over EV is an absurd idea to me.
Where are the massive amounts of players showing these cases?

The culties and payed disinformant trolls in the poker forums want to make us believe we are all sooooo bad at poker, and just crying babies, when we are under EV.
According to them it is allllllll just variance, and we are juuuuuust not mentally strong enough to eat that. LOL?

I know Bens (bencb's) opinion about this and his story of variance over time etc. He is not one of these trolls, but I disagree strongly with him.

I hear you: Now show me the opposite cases on a regular basis.
Not on high stakes, where everything is fair and square, because these players have financial access to tools, that could doom a room when rigging their games. These people are almost all millionaires and can spot a rat very fast.

Show this to me on small and mid-mid stakes.
You don't have them on a massive scale? Then just be silent. Get your paycheck from PLAYTECH or whatever creepy company and we are fine.

This doesn't exist on a big scale, because the online players that constantly drag a crusher under EV are :
1. Huge amounts of Suckers that are pushed by the room in the short run, by spreading the crusher EV amongst them, to make more profit and bind them to poker.
2. Housebots of the rooms

They don't use housebots?
Well William Hill already admitted it back then. So the whole iPoker network aka PLAYTECH is full of house bots! Pokerstrategy.com btw is owned by that company now, in case some don't know. It was sold by Korn to these people.

Party Poker secretly separated the player pool, into fish and winners back then. And when it came out, we had a scandal. They said sorry, and shortly after that implemented anonymous tables, with weird arguments. LOL?
I know, one has to connect a dot here, that is excelling some peoples capability.
Bless you anyway.

You think Pokerstars that is runned by this criminal amya gaming (look at their court cases) is not using bots, just because they have not admitted it yet?
You do believe in Santa Claus, do you?

...I wanna see Ultra suckers, that are running like gods, on a massive scale, with high volume etc.
And not just a few examples. I mean lots of them.
Where are these flip side of the coin variance examples?

They do not exist on a massive scale like the under EV examples, because the sites are fixing their games. And all the bs about variance and mindset, and work on what you can control is just that.

„The games got better argument/myth“
Well although this is true on the surface, it is not true when looking deeper into this topic.
I started 2007. If you transport a 2010/15 player into 2025, he will just get destroyed. True that.
For him everyone would just be a calling station, and the game would be labeled as a 50/50 gambling fest, where you can not win anymore. Because they will just call everything.
Gus Hansen is right now facing this issue, and has to work on his game to get around the change that the game has made. But he will get there for sure. And so will i once a pokerroom lets me win what I should win, and maybe even over EV.

But if you put a good amount of work into your game, especially in GTO preflop fundamentals, and board structure analyzing, as well as betting strategies it becomes obvious very fast, how bad players still are!!!
Most of them have no idea to analyze your range on certain board structures, with regard to the positional awareness of a preflop action. They might have heard of nut/range advantage but have no idea what it really means, and still call off, because they are dumb fish!

And the evidence is their hands that they have at showdown.
People still suck! Like they always did. In 2010 as well as 2025. Because they are behind!
Bencb looks at this the same way btw.

I would never use Mtts as an example, because you can always blame it on variance that you just busted a zillion times in a row close to the money ranks that really make a difference, not just flipping...
But never get that AA vs AK through in an allin situation.
Or that AA vs 55. Or that AK vs AQ.
It somehow always miraculously stops, when it really matters, no matter how much volume you put in. I know, because I grinded Mtts hardcore. I had an extreme ROI, but still was just making basically change in the longrun. The big ones never got through.

Busting 13th in the Sunday Million.
Busting 8th in the Sunday 200K on Party Poker with AK vs AQ on the river, as he hit the Q
I reached that FT twice btw. Winning it the first time. But that also has its own background story.
I played Mtts with 22000 Starters and couldn't get past the last 150 people.
I have tons of stories.

Only a few are allowed to get their hands through and become massive winners, and become promoters and then establish on HS.

Spins!
They are an excellent example of how rooms fix their games, because you will mostly make it to the headsup as a good player, and see the ridiculous programming of the poker rooms rngs in action, and just be amazed how the chance of hitting one of your cards (30%) turns more into a 50/50 fest.
Ok I am overexaggerating here, but you get the point.
You will not get anywhere with your skill, because the majority of good player will always run under EV, always run bad, always be a victim of the variance, and never really move up.
You will mostly (with few exceptions of course) experience extreme Ups and Downs, and waste huge amounts of time.
No format is better than Spins. The action that these rooms create in these is so insane, it is funny. No sane mind will label this as random, especially, when you compare the Spin flop textures and hand dealing to other formats.

Why are there no massive over EV examples, if variance is such a thing?
And if variance is such a thing, how can poker even be regarded as a skill game?
(It is a skill game, because live variance is way less harsh than online)
Why are payed poker forum trolls, blame good under EV running players for being terrible at the game, indicating the game is a skill game, and at the same time just blaming variance which takes out the skill factor, which is grotesc as an argument. Plus ignoring that these players are indeed good otherwise they would run over EV. Plus showing zero empathy just using ad hominem attacks all the time? It only shows that they push a on sided agenda. Which is making everyone believe they can win with skill, when in reality these players already should be winners and the rooms are rigging the games for their soulless greed.

Finally I'd like to make you aware of something here:
People you should be aware of one thing when looking at poker companies, and big companies in general and many of the people/CEOs/owners that run them:

There are a lot of humans walking this earth (more than you'd think) that have no empathy at all, and all they live and die for is power and control through money.
Their greed is bottomless, and they waste not 1 second of a thought, weather you go down or not
or if you are suffering, or not.
They simply do not care about you!
For them you are just something that can be sacrificed for their own benefit.
Furthermore they even enjoy seeing you going down, because it will support their only the strong survive mentality. It will feed their ego and their identity. It will confirm them!

They don't understand anything but their own good, and they are willing to to EVERYTHING to come out on top.
There are even some very powerful cults in this world, that even believe everyone except them is like an animal and not human. And guess what.. they also have great power over the online poker world. The payed forum trolls are financed by this corner.

Childish ideas like:

Yeah but they already make so much money through rake duhhhh.

is coming from an infantile one sided mindset that has never experienced the various facets of human existence, and is totally ignorant for what is real in this world.
Opinions like this show the lack of being able to accept the duality of the world we are in.

If you want to know what some people are willing to do to get power and money, just investigate what people do to each other in the cartel wars in Mexico.
But I warn you. These realities can be very traumatic just by looking into it, if you are somewhat sensitive and emphatic.
I would highly suggest just looking into surface information, and not deep into the actual things that happen there.
You will get a different perspective of what people are capable off.
There are NO limits to them to get what they want. The normal rules of what drives you and me do not apply there.
Maybe this will help you getting a different perspective when looking at money, and power and the dynamics behind the curtain that is invisible to you when looking at the surface of the dynamics of generating profits to companies.
Not all of course.

I really really hope that the scams of the poker rooms themselves will be revealed quickly, and truly save rooms will rise, that offer fair RNGs and no house bots.
Normal bots can still be crushed, because they have certain patterns that can be exploited.
But I doubt that, because the power behind this is huge.
So lets all run like gods from now on. GL

So why do u still play? Only someone not right in his mind stays longterm where he feels he is getting cheated at.

Just quit and that's it. U will never understand how Variance works if u didn't get it in the last 17 years.

Because I am still winning. It is that simple. And just because you claim that I don't know how variance works, doesn't mean that you know.

Added:
And for the record lets say that I believe that the majority of the rooms are probably, potentially and likely rigging the games, because the the indices are overwhelming.
I will give them the benefit of the doubt, but for sure there are certain rooms, I would never play on again.
Pokerstars is one of them for sure!

Well yes maybe I missunderstand it too but I certainly won't put up any conspiracy posts online.

Those Mtt swings u posted seem completely normal to me. Why is such an accomplished player like u surpised about it? As far as I know if u decide to play Spins and Mtts and play a large volume u literally sign up for this kind of stuff.

who said beating variance takes a zillion hands?

its just not worthy posting small samples of bad luck

"It's a casino" lmao

In 2023, I played on 2 casinos. Casino 1 I made five figures profit. Casino 2 I made another five figures profit
In 2024, I played on the same 2 sites. Casino 1 I made five figures profit. Casino 2 I made another five figures profit
In 2025, I crossed $10k profit in March. Roughly even split profit tally between the 2 sites

On site 1, I've seen players blame the site all the time. Been told I work for the site all the time by fish who are so bad they might as well play with their cards face up

On site 2, I've seen players blame the site all the time. Been told I work for the site all the time by fish who are so bad they might as well play with their cards face up

Site 1 is Global Poker and site 2 is PokerStars PA

Not that it matters, because I've been playing online since 2002 and on dozens of sites. You can repeat above for all sites I've ever played on because it's always the same thing on repeat. Am I owed as massive amount of backpay? Lmao...

There is no way I'd be able to make well into six figures profit, lifetime, if sites were controlling who wins. Am I the luckiest guy on Earth? I can tell you without equivocation that I am not lol. I don't even think I'm that good of a poker player. Just disciplined. Keeping in line with the vague Rounders reference, I'm like Knish. And you can't be Knish if the sites' RNGs are shifty and the sites control how much you win or lose. I rarely deposit unless it's for any and all bonus offers and I withdraw profit on basically a weekly basis. I don't get cursed on a weekly basis...I never go broke. If a player is going broke, then they don't know how to manage a bankroll and/or aren't disciplined enough and/or simply aren't as good a player as they think they are, or simply have a true loss rate as opposed to win rate which would render the concept of bankroll management moot

Variance obfuscates the true skill level among all participants which is why so many people end up making excuses instead of looking in a mirror. It's also very tricky for even experienced and winning players to understand what is happening and why. I think maybe it's more of an emotional stability thing than intellectual, though some level of intellectual capacity is probably required to even be capable of comprehending the concept itself

Or at least that's my theory. It explains why I've seen players I tag as strong players who I'd have thought were generating consistent profit but go broke and/or quit bc of running cold extended periods of time and/or tilting off stacks. The human brain isn't really built for brutal downswings, and especially not if the individual has the wrong mentality or is oblivious to how it is being affected in real time