Coincidence or more...an online observation

Iago

Something has come to my attention recently while playing on VC Poker online, and I don't mean that the majority of players seem to have no idea as to how to play or that the worst hand in an all-in bet tends to hit more often than the best hand, we all know that already

Actually funny story on that, my mate was playing on VC and had pocket Q's, made a substantial raise preflop and had one caller, flop comes Qh Qd Kd, so he checks, caller bets 1,000 my mate calls, turn is Kh, my mate checks the other guy goes all-in for about 5K, my mate calls with c4K. Other player turns over Ks rag for the full house, river is Kc to give him quad K's and knock my mate out with his quad Q's...well I thought it was funny, he wasn't so impressed!!

Anyway, back on topic, ove the last few weeks I've noticed what seems to be an anomoly on VC although it may just be coincidence. I tend to play on 2 or 3 tables at a time in STTs and MTTs and I've found that the cards overlap on the tables. for example

Table 1 I'll have JJ
Table 2 I'll have 4s 5s
Table 3 I'll have 72o

Table 1 Flop is 3s 6s 7s
Table 2 Flop is 7 J 2
Table 3 Flop is J A J

so if this happens once it's strange but you laugh it off, twice is unusual, but this is happening 10-12 times a night. Time after time the flop on one table is perfectly matching the hole cards on another table that I'm playing on. I have to check and recheck before betting my hand.

Has anybody else noticed this?

Hyzepher

I have noticed this too but you have to realise that if you are playing 3 tables then you have a total of 6 hole cards - 6 out of 13 is a big percentage and it's likely that those card will appear on on of the 3 tables.

However, it's still abit creepy.

Hyzepher

Hectorjelly

The human mind is great at spotting patterns, even when there is none. You dont notice the 999/1000 times when the cards bear no relation to each othern only the odd time that they do.

DeVore

True and most likely thats the cause. However computers are notoriously poor at creating true random numbers and patterns can emerge like that. Even humans are notoriously poor at it, Bletchley Park was set up during WWII to crack the Germans encryption (encryption is based on randomness). They were able to determine which dispatcher had coded the message because of the small traces of predictability in the way they each drew out letters.

I doubt there would be such a glaring problem with their Random Number Generator as it would have been spotted by now but there always seems to be a lot of people bringing these sites into question. (The biggest I've heard is that theres a conspiracy to produce bad beats against chip leaders....)

DeV.

Hectorjelly

DeVore wrote:

True and most likely thats the cause. However computers are notoriously poor at creating true random numbers and patterns can emerge like that. Even humans are notoriously poor at it, Bletchley Park was set up during WWII to crack the Germans encryption (encryption is based on randomness). They were able to determine which dispatcher had coded the message because of the small traces of predictability in the way they each drew out letters.

I doubt there would be such a glaring problem with their Random Number Generator as it would have been spotted by now but there always seems to be a lot of people bringing these sites into question. (The biggest I've heard is that theres a conspiracy to produce bad beats against chip leaders....)

DeV.

Wow, I expected better from you Tom! The reason these sites are constantly brought into question is that most people are pretty stupid, and have little idea of:

Statistics
Maths
Probablility
How to play poker

There are a plethora of real life examples showing how most people dont understand even simple logic or maths; The lottery, scratchcards, a belief in a divine afterlife*, ignoring pot odds etc etc.

So what happens is people lose, and instead of blaming themselves, they blame something that cant really be proven one way or the other (to themselves), like the RNG.


* Joke

Hyzepher

Most of the main site will go out of their way to ensure that there is no 'discrepancy' in their software. Business like these are made/broken by word of mouth and integrity.

Online play has the effect of appearing to inflict more bad beats compared to 'live' poker, but don't forget that online players - like Iago - play multiple tables and there many many more hands - more hands, more bad beats. Especially if you are a poor player and seem to get involved in every hand.

Hyzepher

Iago

ok this was more a thread around the apparent coincidences and patterns that can be found on online sites. Although as Hector said you only notice the hands that form a pattern rather than the ones that don't. But would you not agree that you generally see better hands online than offline? Again this could be a product of the number of hands you play online as opposed to offline, but I think that there are generally better hands online than off. Theres also unexplained anomolies like getting the same two hole cards 2 or 3 times in a row, and I mean same suit etc. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the RNG, after all the whole piece about random is that it can produce anything even the same two cards any amount of times in a row...

Hectorjelly wrote:

So what happens is people lose, and instead of blaming themselves, they blame something that cant really be proven one way or the other (to themselves), like the RNG.

I think as well you have to allow for the fact that sometimes people lose without actually playing badly, you can play a hand completely right and still lose..

Online play has the effect of appearing to inflict more bad beats compared to 'live' poker, but don't forget that online players - like Iago - play multiple tables and there many many more hands - more hands, more bad beats.

I attribute a high proportion of this to the quality of player you're playing against online as opposed to offline. Generally speaking unless you are at a reasonable level say $25 or higher on the tournament tables then there is a high number of players at your table who will call almost any bet with any two cards. They'll chase their straight and flush draws all the way to the river.

This leads to the perception of more bad beats, although what's actually happening is the same as would happen offline in that circumstance. Difference being that generally offline players won't make those bad calls. I think the nearest thing I can see to it is the freeroll in the fitz, no matter what you bet at the early stages the odds are you'll be called...

Hectorjelly

Iago wrote:

I attribute a high proportion of this to the quality of player you're playing against online as opposed to offline. Generally speaking unless you are at a reasonable level say $25 or higher on the tournament tables then there is a high number of players at your table who will call almost any bet with any two cards. They'll chase their straight and flush draws all the way to the river.

This leads to the perception of more bad beats, although what's actually happening is the same as would happen offline in that circumstance. Difference being that generally offline players won't make those bad calls. I think the nearest thing I can see to it is the freeroll in the fitz, no matter what you bet at the early stages the odds are you'll be called...

As regards the quality of players, recently I have found the quality of play to be far superior online rather than off. I played the 100FO in the merrion and saw gigantic mistake after gigantic mistake, and I dont think that was a one off.

DeVore

Ooops, sorry HJ, didnt want to give the idea that I bought into those rumours (though I dont doubt that the deck can/is sometimes stacked by deliberate decision).
Those machines deal millions of hands a day. Which means you are going to see 1-in-a-million shot EVERY DAY. indeed if you *didnt* then alarm bells would ring in my head.

As you say, they get reported more then the "oh my AQ hit a Q-high-flop and I bet and everyone folded... OOOOOOOOOOH CALL FOX MULDER QUICK!!" hands...

I just went on a tangent because I find the production of truely random numbers an interesting topic and is more difficult then people realise. However we are talking about a very different scale from a few people noticing "weird stuff" with their hands

DeV.