ITH Poker Forum

[dazzammm]

I am one of these people who is still not convinced that poker is not fixed.

I know all the probabilities of getting a pair, hitting the flop etc but still the actual results leave me bewildered.

yesterday, I played 60 hands (i know its a small sample), best hand was A8o, saw the flop 10 times and didnt hit it once. this is not a one off, this happens most of the time but not this bad.
I play short sessions, like above, and find your luck is "set" from the minute you sit down - you either have a rush or hit nothing for the next hour.

Please convince me if paranoid.

thanks

[dazzammm]

sorry, should say convince me IM paranoid

[philhux]

you are right - this game is rigged!

Please send me your 60 hand database, I'd like to analyse it and try to prove our theory.

[dazzammm]

youre lucky im also british and understand sarcasm

Are you saying 60 hands is not a sample size you can give any credibility too. ???

[Damien]

That is exactly what he's saying. Much, much too small to conclude anything.

[Zenjo]

I am one of these people who is still not convinced that poker is not fixed.

Quite right mate. There are lots of deluded poker players out there who keep trying to convince themselves it's random, but it's all a fix.

I know all the probabilities of getting a pair, hitting the flop etc but still the actual results leave me bewildered.

yesterday, I played 60 hands (i know its a small sample), best hand was A8o, saw the flop 10 times and didnt hit it once. this is not a one off, this happens most of the time but not this bad.

60 hands is a decent size sample. There's no way you could have been this unlucky had it been random.

The poker site is cheating you out of your money! There are "insider" players working for the site who get all the good cards dealt to them and hit all the flops. That means all the good cards are taken so you have to make do with rubbish ones.

I play short sessions, like above, and find your luck is "set" from the minute you sit down - you either have a rush or hit nothing for the next hour.

That's the way to do it. It's either your lucky night or it isn't. So if you don't double up in the first 10 hands you should call that it.

Please convince me if paranoid.

Everyone is out to get you. Poker sites don't only take all the money you deposit. The software hacks into your computer to steal all your credit card and bank details. They will rob you of every penny you own. You will have to sell all your posessions and they'll steal that too. And when they've bled you dry they'll set you up for a crime you didn't commit.

So when poker has left you a broken, worthless, man rotting away in a cell, remember when you started off playing and you thought "It's just a bit of fun isn't it?"

[Misunderstud]

Please convince me i'm paranoid.

thanks

I play short sessions, like above, and find your luck is "set" from the minute you sit down - you either have a rush or hit nothing for the next hour.

Think about it - what you are describing is variance, and exactly what might be expected in a game with so many variables.

Although you're asking to be scoffed at (and duly have been) by even suggesting that a 60-hand sample could in any way be representative, I do have some sympathy with you, since variance is just about the hardest thing in poker to get your head round.

Your admittedly few other posts here indicate that you at least spend some time thinking about your game. Concentrate on that and leave the conspiracy theories for the Vent, Rant and Rave forum, where most of us put on the tinfoil hat from time to time.

[toronexti]

I bought an aluminum hat for $300 to make the aliens get out of my head but they're still there.

What am I doing wrong?

This is the model I got:



Please help!

[poker_Elmo]

I don't know what site you play on - but it almost certainly is OK.

Plenty of winning players on this site (me included) have had downswings of a month or longer of thousands of hands - just the nature of variance.

Handling the bad luck is not easy though - the key, as mis said - is to just just do your best to focus on what you can control.

[chrisjp]

I remember when my friends and I first came to Las Vegas to play BJ. We learned to count cards in college, and we knew we had a tiny but significant edge if the game were honest. We also knew that with a tiny edge the swings were going to be huge. What if we had a big downswing to begin with? We certainly would have been very worried we were being cheated, but we wouldn't have really known.

Luckily, we started out on a pretty big upswing. We were overbetting our bankroll considerably and just got lucky, quite lucky. One thing it proved to us early on....we were very unlikely to be cheated. Fortunately we realized the error of our ways in our br management before the inevitable horrendous downswing occurred. We were prepared for it thank goodness.

Online poker is similar. When I began about 5 years ago I really didn't know what to expect. But I knew there were winning players, both here and at other forums, and I found it hard to believe they were all lying. Also....I began by playing $11 SNGs and I started winning. Always a clue you aren't being cheated.

Plus you get a feel for the playing ability of others. You see others making more mistakes than you, and you get a pretty good idea you can beat the house rake. But there is this thing called variance. And who knows when you get in a downswing. Is it completely normal, or are you being cheated. Have the games gotten tougher. Has a persistent period of bad luck actually gotten you to play more poorly?

I just know that there are many long term winners. I have been a long term winner even though I've not racked up 1% of the number of hands that many have played here.

But I'm confident from my experience and from that of others like elmo that there can't be a lot of cheating going on because we have won too much for too long.

Don't get me wrong. There have been scandals especially at some higher stakes. Check out Prahlad Friedman and what happened to him. Not fun.

So you have to keep alert if you are playing the highest stakes. But down where us mere mortals play I feel quite confident you don't have to worry.

Oh yeah, I've had my share of terrible downswings. Part of the deal.

Chris

[dazzammm]

thanks for the comments - i know i need a virtual slap but as said previously about variance im having trouble getting my head around it. just never seem to experience the upswing.

im a maths and a computer man so if im told that i should be getting a pocket pair every 16 hands and if i dont im asking questions (i know this statment is worded incorrectly and makes a very big assumption about probability).

I know i should be concentrating on making the right decisions and be less results orientated.
And sitting down with 10 big bets for an hour and then moaning when im blinded away is not a good way to play.

As a side question, in the short term, how much of this game is luck ???

[dazzammm]

one other question - do you think there is anything in theories that US based sites still operating are ripping off non-US based players. This is one of the only situations where it would be benificial to rip off some players. (i.e. money flows to US players encouraging more US players to play on that site, increasing their desirability WHEN US players are free to player anywhere. The last thing the US want is US based palyers going back to Party poker et al).