poker sites cheating?

[darn]

Ive been putting money on like every poker site lately looking for best tourneys and payouts...my buddy tells me i shouldnt use alot of these less known sites becuase hes heard of them cheating. He says they have people working for them and that they can see either everyones pockets or turns and rivers before they come. hes says there is also alot of other players playin in cohoots. meaning they are talking to each other somehow and pretty much hustlin me.i dont think that this is true but there are times when seriously messed up crap happens and it makes me think...either these people have super human donkey powers or they really had some kind of advantage.

[grimReaper]

There was cheating on Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet: look up "potripper." Since I made my first AP account, the site looked pretty ghetto and seemed shady. No concrete reason, just instinct.

But IMO I'm pretty sure PokerStars and FTP are safe. They make way too much money to risk their businesses going down. As for players colluding against you, I've read FTP tries to detect that by seeing if the same two accounts consistently sit at the same table. Not sure how effective they are on detecting that though.

What stakes do you play? I doubt it would be worth it to someone to cheat at stakes less than 1/2NL or tournaments w/ buyins less than $10.

[EliminateU]

There was cheating on Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet: look up "potripper." Since I made my first AP account, the site looked pretty ghetto and seemed shady. No concrete reason, just instinct.

But IMO I'm pretty sure PokerStars and FTP are safe. They make way too much money to risk their businesses going down. As for players colluding against you, I've read FTP tries to detect that by seeing if the same two accounts consistently sit at the same table. Not sure how effective they are on detecting that though.

What stakes do you play? I doubt it would be worth it to someone to cheat at stakes less than 1/2NL or tournaments w/ buyins less than $10.

There is no way they could detect collusion if there was a team, a la the MIT blackjack team, doing a system. Let's just hope no one takes it that far. As far as poker sites cheating...they definitely do when I'm on a downswing. When on an upswing, who cares.

[grimReaper]

There is no way they could detect collusion if there was a team, a la the MIT blackjack team

True, but the # of games they can cheat is constrained by the size of the team. The smaller the team, the less you can cheat, otherwise you risk getting caught (FTP/Stars probably have programs/features that check IP addresses to see if players repeatedly play the same tables). And imo the bigger the team, the more unstable it'll be, e.g disputes on profit etc.

[C8H10N4O2]

I was questioned by PokerStars a while back about a person I regularly played with at the tables. I wasn't aware that the MIT blackjack team played online either. But anyway, I had to explain my relationship with the other person to PokerStars and I told them they were welcomed to check out all hands we played against each other, because if anything, we played harder against each other than anyone else. I'm not sure if they ever checked it out or anything, but there wasn't any collusion going on for them to get upset about. We did play from the same college, so they might have picked up on a similar location and the two same names playing at the tables with each other a lot.

[lildogg1214]

i think all sites have cheaters on them at sum point of time. i think its bs they cant play real poker

[EliminateU]

Seriously, it'd be very easy to cheat. Alot have done it. One thing I question is how the same player can perform so differently on different sites. It's why I had abandoned FTP until the $500 bonus for this month. I have cleared about $200 so far and will clear the rest, but funny things happen.

Nanonoko, probably the best online player right now, has made Supernova Elite two years running on Pstars. Last year he nailed like 2.5 million hands for $1,000,000 on Pstars, plus got nearly 40% rakeback from their rewards. Better than what we get from anyone. However, on FTP, he LOST $144,000 on like 350,000 hands or so. How is that? He runs 3.2-BB/100 on Pstars playing 24-tables, but gets continually cracked at FTP...seriously?

Right now, unfortunately for me, since I can play only a limited time there is no way to hit SNE on Pstars. So, FTP, AP, and UB are what I have to do to get rakeback. But when I can finally reconcile how I can utterly dominate SNGs and turn that into competency in RG I'll definitely go for SNE. At 2/4 NL playing 2.5 million hands a year at 0.90-BB/100 plus their rewards will net you $300,000...then your head will explode from looking at 18+ tables for 40 hours a week.

[travz21]

Seriously, it'd be very easy to cheat. Alot have done it. One thing I question is how the same player can perform so differently on different sites. It's why I had abandoned FTP until the $500 bonus for this month. I have cleared about $200 so far and will clear the rest, but funny things happen.

Nanonoko, probably the best online player right now, has made Supernova Elite two years running on Pstars. Last year he nailed like 2.5 million hands for $1,000,000 on Pstars, plus got nearly 40% rakeback from their rewards. Better than what we get from anyone. However, on FTP, he LOST $144,000 on like 350,000 hands or so. How is that? He runs 3.2-BB/100 on Pstars playing 24-tables, but gets continually cracked at FTP...seriously?

Right now, unfortunately for me, since I can play only a limited time there is no way to hit SNE on Pstars. So, FTP, AP, and UB are what I have to do to get rakeback. But when I can finally reconcile how I can utterly dominate SNGs and turn that into competency in RG I'll definitely go for SNE. At 2/4 NL playing 2.5 million hands a year at 0.90-BB/100 plus their rewards will net you $300,000...then your head will explode from looking at 18+ tables for 40 hours a week.

I guess you didn't look at the types of games he played on Full Tilt. Almost all the money he lost was from limit hold'em, which isn't his game. The only sizeable sample size he has at Tilt is nl400 6max where he beat it for 2.75 BB/100 over 140k hands. The games are also tougher at Full Tilt, which could account for a lower winrate if he actually put in more hands there, which he won't.

[EliminateU]

I guess you didn't look at the types of games he played on Full Tilt. Almost all the money he lost was from limit hold'em, which isn't his game. The only sizeable sample size he has at Tilt is nl400 6max where he beat it for 2.75 BB/100 over 140k hands. The games are also tougher at Full Tilt, which could account for a lower winrate if he actually put in more hands there, which he won't.

Why would the games be tougher at FTP?

[travz21]

Why would the games be tougher at FTP?

Because you have rakeback pros instead of -2BB/100 fish regs.

[keanosdog]

I had the pleasure of meeting a local musician here in Bangkok the other night. Actually I had seen him playing over at Moonshine’s once or twice but he stopped in to say hello to my friend Jack and we were introduced formally.

Tony is an older American guy. How old, I don’t know but he’s got a look that says he’s been around before. Nice guy though and always quick with a laugh.

Several months ago Jack told me an incredible story about Tony that I wanted to share. It was a few years ago and Tony was playing a gig in one of the local bars in Bangkok. During the set he noticed a young guy sitting in the audience wearing a US Army fatigue top with the same unit patch as his old unit in Vietnam.

Obviously the man was too young to have been a vet (at least a Vietnam Vet) but it intrigued him so when he finished his set he went over to the young man’s table and introduced himself saying that he had served in that unit during ‘Nam. As the man stretched out his arm to shake his he saw that the nametag on the top was the same as his last name, which he mentioned to the younger man.

The young man explained that he had purchased the fatigue top at a small market on some side street in Bangkok just that afternoon. He thought it looked cool and was able to bargain down the price to something fairly cheap so he bought it.

Tony said, “Well, can I ask you a small favor? Can you open up the jacket pocket and see if there’s anything sewn inside the pocket?” The younger man obliged and there was Tony’s name on another nametag sewn inside the pocket.

Tony had sold all of his gear to a military surplus shop when he finished his military duty after Vietnam and had been traveling around the world since. But somehow his fatigue jacket had followed him around the world and ended up in the same bar he was playing a gig in.

The reason I bring this up is so many people argue that online poker must be rigged because something with a low statistical probability occurs to them. Maybe they have been dealt aces three times in a row or whatever. To them that proves the game is rigged.

But anytime the probability of something is greater than 0, given enough trials, it is expected to happen.

If my math is correct, getting dealt pocket aces three times in a row should happen approx every 1 in 2,385,443 hands. That means that the chances of it happening are still greater than 0. And if you take a room like PokerStars and let’s say they deal a billion hands per year, it is not unusual for that to occur 419 times a year.

So, your opponent catching pocket aces three times in a row has a low probability but it’s expected to happen to 419 people per year (assuming 1 billion hands dealt). Does it prove anything about whether or not the game is rigged? No.

I mean, what are the odds that Sammy Farha with AT would flop AAT against Oliver Hudson with pocket tens in the very first hand in the WSOP main event at the featured table? I’m not even going to do the math but it’s not very likely.

But because it’s live people are willing to accept that it’s just poker. When it happens online many of those same people assume it’s because the game is rigged.

That’s one of the reasons when anybody says something like “You never see anything like that ever happen in a live game,” I immediately dismiss anything else they’ve said or are going to say. Because I can post YouTube videos all day long showing highly unlikely events occurring during televised programs.

And out of all of the hands played how many have been televised? A low percentage to be sure. So if you can see these low probability events occurring from a rather small sample size then people saying they’ve never seen it in a live card room either aren’t playing very many hands or their experience is the true statistical anomaly.

[C8H10N4O2]

I had the pleasure of meeting a local musician here in Bangkok the other night. Actually I had seen him playing over at Moonshine’s once or twice but he stopped in to say hello to my friend Jack and we were introduced formally.

Tony is an older American guy. How old, I don’t know but he’s got a look that says he’s been around before. Nice guy though and always quick with a laugh.

Several months ago Jack told me an incredible story about Tony that I wanted to share. It was a few years ago and Tony was playing a gig in one of the local bars in Bangkok. During the set he noticed a young guy sitting in the audience wearing a US Army fatigue top with the same unit patch as his old unit in Vietnam.

Obviously the man was too young to have been a vet (at least a Vietnam Vet) but it intrigued him so when he finished his set he went over to the young man’s table and introduced himself saying that he had served in that unit during ‘Nam. As the man stretched out his arm to shake his he saw that the nametag on the top was the same as his last name, which he mentioned to the younger man.

The young man explained that he had purchased the fatigue top at a small market on some side street in Bangkok just that afternoon. He thought it looked cool and was able to bargain down the price to something fairly cheap so he bought it.

Tony said, “Well, can I ask you a small favor? Can you open up the jacket pocket and see if there’s anything sewn inside the pocket?” The younger man obliged and there was Tony’s name on another nametag sewn inside the pocket.

Tony had sold all of his gear to a military surplus shop when he finished his military duty after Vietnam and had been traveling around the world since. But somehow his fatigue jacket had followed him around the world and ended up in the same bar he was playing a gig in.

The reason I bring this up is so many people argue that online poker must be rigged because something with a low statistical probability occurs to them. Maybe they have been dealt aces three times in a row or whatever. To them that proves the game is rigged.

But anytime the probability of something is greater than 0, given enough trials, it is expected to happen.

If my math is correct, getting dealt pocket aces three times in a row should happen approx every 1 in 2,385,443 hands. That means that the chances of it happening are still greater than 0. And if you take a room like PokerStars and let’s say they deal a billion hands per year, it is not unusual for that to occur 419 times a year.

So, your opponent catching pocket aces three times in a row has a low probability but it’s expected to happen to 419 people per year (assuming 1 billion hands dealt). Does it prove anything about whether or not the game is rigged? No.

I mean, what are the odds that Sammy Farha with AT would flop AAT against Oliver Hudson with pocket tens in the very first hand in the WSOP main event at the featured table? I’m not even going to do the math but it’s not very likely.

But because it’s live people are willing to accept that it’s just poker. When it happens online many of those same people assume it’s because the game is rigged.

That’s one of the reasons when anybody says something like “You never see anything like that ever happen in a live game,” I immediately dismiss anything else they’ve said or are going to say. Because I can post YouTube videos all day long showing highly unlikely events occurring during televised programs.

And out of all of the hands played how many have been televised? A low percentage to be sure. So if you can see these low probability events occurring from a rather small sample size then people saying they’ve never seen it in a live card room either aren’t playing very many hands or their experience is the true statistical anomaly.

This was copied from another website online. There are a few that have it listed though, but one source is http://www.billrini.com/

[travz21]

I had the pleasure of meeting a local musician here in Bangkok the other night. Actually I had seen him playing over at Moonshine’s once or twice but he stopped in to say hello to my friend Jack and we were introduced formally.

Tony is an older American guy. How old, I don’t know but he’s got a look that says he’s been around before. Nice guy though and always quick with a laugh.

Several months ago Jack told me an incredible story about Tony that I wanted to share. It was a few years ago and Tony was playing a gig in one of the local bars in Bangkok. During the set he noticed a young guy sitting in the audience wearing a US Army fatigue top with the same unit patch as his old unit in Vietnam.

Obviously the man was too young to have been a vet (at least a Vietnam Vet) but it intrigued him so when he finished his set he went over to the young man’s table and introduced himself saying that he had served in that unit during ‘Nam. As the man stretched out his arm to shake his he saw that the nametag on the top was the same as his last name, which he mentioned to the younger man.

The young man explained that he had purchased the fatigue top at a small market on some side street in Bangkok just that afternoon. He thought it looked cool and was able to bargain down the price to something fairly cheap so he bought it.

Tony said, “Well, can I ask you a small favor? Can you open up the jacket pocket and see if there’s anything sewn inside the pocket?” The younger man obliged and there was Tony’s name on another nametag sewn inside the pocket.

Tony had sold all of his gear to a military surplus shop when he finished his military duty after Vietnam and had been traveling around the world since. But somehow his fatigue jacket had followed him around the world and ended up in the same bar he was playing a gig in.

The reason I bring this up is so many people argue that online poker must be rigged because something with a low statistical probability occurs to them. Maybe they have been dealt aces three times in a row or whatever. To them that proves the game is rigged.

But anytime the probability of something is greater than 0, given enough trials, it is expected to happen.

If my math is correct, getting dealt pocket aces three times in a row should happen approx every 1 in 2,385,443 hands. That means that the chances of it happening are still greater than 0. And if you take a room like PokerStars and let’s say they deal a billion hands per year, it is not unusual for that to occur 419 times a year.

So, your opponent catching pocket aces three times in a row has a low probability but it’s expected to happen to 419 people per year (assuming 1 billion hands dealt). Does it prove anything about whether or not the game is rigged? No.

I mean, what are the odds that Sammy Farha with AT would flop AAT against Oliver Hudson with pocket tens in the very first hand in the WSOP main event at the featured table? I’m not even going to do the math but it’s not very likely.

But because it’s live people are willing to accept that it’s just poker. When it happens online many of those same people assume it’s because the game is rigged.

That’s one of the reasons when anybody says something like “You never see anything like that ever happen in a live game,” I immediately dismiss anything else they’ve said or are going to say. Because I can post YouTube videos all day long showing highly unlikely events occurring during televised programs.

And out of all of the hands played how many have been televised? A low percentage to be sure. So if you can see these low probability events occurring from a rather small sample size then people saying they’ve never seen it in a live card room either aren’t playing very many hands or their experience is the true statistical anomaly.

I only read your last 3 paragraphs because I can't see straight, but they made a really good point.

[grimReaper]

Interesting story keans.

Though just want to add that by the same token just because something can occur and it does occur, still doesn't disprove sites are possibly rigged (and to clarify I'm not saying they are). The only arbitrators are statistical tests. Senior honor thesis maybe?

[grimReaper]

Interesting story keans.

Interesting plagiarized* story keans lol.

[keanosdog]

Interesting plagiarized* story keans lol.

it was an email i got form a blog i susbscribe too.

[C8H10N4O2]

Interesting story keans.

Though just want to add that by the same token just because something can occur and it does occur, still doesn't disprove sites are possibly rigged (and to clarify I'm not saying they are). The only arbitrators are statistical tests. Senior honor thesis maybe?

I agree. I liked the last 3 paragraphs as Travz said. The problem is, so many people "feel" as though they have proof that the sites are rigged because of something they feel is a "statistical anomaly" and it just isn't at all. It offers 0 proof that something is rigged because they experience something very unlikely to happen. But saying that in no way assures that online poker isn't rigged. However, having tracking software and seeing that statistically things are falling into place, and when sites like PokerStars have independent auditors, and when other things are done similar to this, it raises the level of assuredness that a site isn't rigged.

It very much seems that people who cry PokerStars is rigged or FTP is rigged are usually people who simple cannot handle the ups and downs of poker. Since these sites are online and it's much more difficult to "prove" that it's not rigged since there is nothing tangible in front of them, claiming they are rigged is simply easier than accepting that they have experienced variance, or even that they need to work on their game. Placing the blame elsewhere means nothing is wrong with their play, and so it's not their fault they have lost money. Owning up to the fact that one is getting outplayed instead of placing the blame on the site being rigged is a lot faster way to becoming a winning player.

[bsg]

it was an email i got form a blog i susbscribe too.

funny how you mention it now.

[keanosdog]

funny how you mention it now.

Yeah. i know. i'm a bad man. i even tried to claim the sistine chapel was my own work once.

[keanosdog]

Placing the blame elsewhere means nothing is wrong with their play, and so it's not their fault they have lost money. Owning up to the fact that one is getting outplayed instead of placing the blame on the site being rigged is a lot faster way to becoming a winning player.

yep. like negranue said on a blog i read the other day."lose the ego. if your results are continually bad, do something. read a book, chat on forums, ask a friends opinion etc.but by blaming luck or other things you get nothing"