First Online Poker is Rigged thread of the New Year.

NickyOD

Mark Strahan is a genius.

jhegarty

He makes some good points (not)...


You see the computer knows what cards are going to come out before the flop.... its very different to live play where the deck is reshuffled between flop , turn and river.... oh wait a minute.....:rolleyes:

mocata

He seems to be a bit of an "attention whore" IMO, probably uses forums as a substitute for interacting with real folks lol

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

i want the 10 minutes back i lost reading that garbage

strewelpeter

Who is this moron or what has he done to make that tripe worthy of comment?

bohsman

Mark Strachan used to run a poker school in the Fitz - Paddy Hicks one of his pupils, also wrote an idiots guide to poker type book that made hilarious reading and used to own ukpoker.com. http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=s&n=375

Glowingmind

Live poker is rigged.

Reason 1: When a dealer or player makes physical contact with the cards it alters their shape on a minute level, this changes the way it's shuffled, thus decreasing randomness. Some dealers squeeze the cards a little harder if the table's being abusive to them.

Reason 2: The earth's gravitational pull has a direct effect on the cards. Because picture cards have more printed on them they're heavirer and tend to stay nearer the bottom of the deck. This was offset in 1978, with the introduction of equally weighted plastic cards, thus rigging the deck against the natural/gravitational order of poker.

Reason 3: Card rooms don't really want you playing poker at all, they think if you win, you won't play blackjack because when you win at poker it tends to be in the early hours of the morning, thus decreasing their potential profits.

"I had to call, have you not seen the way the flops have been coming?"

zuutroy

Jesus thats ****e....0th level thinking.

Mellor

wow, just wow

valor

that guy is pretty good looking

Hitman Actual

Hilarious read, just what I needed for my first day back in work. If anyone else had written that I would have thought it was a spoof post, but Strahan has always been an idiot of the poker world. A shockingly bad player too, from what I remember of him in the Fitz. You'd think by now he would have realised he's not very good at the game... but he's obviously not very bright as that post proves.

smurph

The hendon Mob website is sonic firewalled thingy so could someone copy and paste the article please.

Cheers

zuutroy

Voila....
For many years now I've played online poker, as I'm sure 99% of readers of this forum has.

In all those years playing I've won & lost but never made a consistent profit, as I'm sure 99% of readers of this forum have not. The question is...WHY?

There have been thousands of posts in hundreds of forums about IF on-line poker is rigged in some way. Well as a person that understands how on-line poker is put together I honestly believe that it IS and here I'll explain as to WHY I believe this!

Lets start with the basics...

Online Poker is a COMPUTER PROGRAM.

Whereas in 'live-play' true randomness is achieved in poker as cards have no memory in the world of computer programs randomness cannot be achieved as the computer KNOWS what has happened once any card is dealt.

e.g In live play a dealer deals you an Ace of Clubs as your first card. The 2nd card you receive will be absolutely random (in fair play) as the cards themselves have no clue as to what your first card was. In computer play the computer KNOWS that the first card you received was the Ace of Clubs (as it needs to know for determining the winning & losing hands) and so therefore the computer program has knowledge of your hand.

In any online game therefore there are PROCESSES designed by humans that allow for winners & losers to be determined. In order for there to be a winner then there has to be a loser.

So how do we make a winner?

In my opinion winners are designated at the time the deal commences. Of course the ACTUAL winner may not be the one that was pre-designated as human actions may, or may not, help to ensure that this is the case but in general I believe this to be the case.

Processes programmed in are sometimes farily obvious in the way they are achieved. Hands like KK v AA will 99 times out a 100 initiate player reaction where all the money is in the middle at SOME STAGE during hand play whereas if you're given a hand like Q-2 then its 99% likely that you'll be folding.

This is also true of live-play and because of this owners and software developers can always state that 'thats poker' and thats the way it is...but is it?

Of course winners in general need to be identified as such and to the system they're possibly flagged by way of a rating system which allows players to be recognised as a 'winner' or a 'loser'.

Rating systems may work as follows:

Winners-> New player, regular player (daily)
Losers -> Just cashed out, irregular player

Between the player types of winners & losers there are those catagories that most of us fall into and that is one of neither winner nor loser to such a degree as we'd care too much about!

With a rating in place for every player on site then the software can ensure that winners are those players that are 'supposed' to win. After all...winning players have more money to play with and therefore have more chance of being involved of raked games.

Remember...online poker operators are in business to make money. What costs them money is withdrawals and they discourage withdrawals as much as possible by ensuring that you do it as little as often!

As software has become more sophisticated then the games you're playing on-line become ever more experienced in determining who should win and who should lose.

If you doubt any of this to be untrue I offer you the following experiment...

1) join a COMPLETELY NEW on-line poker site with $100
2) Cash out when you get to $500 (as you undoubtedly will)
3) redeposit $100
4) see how quick you lose it!

Questions welcome!

Glowingmind

Stuff like this makes me sad.

I used to work for Paddy Power and would get calls on a daily basis from people saying the same thing.

I mostly found it very hard not to shout "IF YOU THINK ITS RIGGED, THEN WHY DO YOU KEEP PLAYING YOU UTTER TOOL"

"You site is rigged" = "I'm a terrible player, with no interest in attempting to improve and I reckon having a moan is boud to help"


Then there was the folks who actually thought we could blacklist their accounts guaranteeing that they'd lose............


Paddy Power Poker is not rigged. BCB eats babies.

NickyOD

How many people on this forum have phoned PPP to tell them their site is rigged?

Glowingmind

NickyOD wrote: »

How many people on this forum have phoned PPP to tell them their site is rigged?

Me!

Bandara

NickyOD wrote: »

How many people on this forum have phoned PPP to tell them their site is rigged?

There's no point I hear they have trainee bots answering the phones.....

5starpool

This bit of his argument in a subsequent post is priceless'

'Action flops' are also a source of player wins & losses.

Lets assume the SB is dealt Qd-Jd and the BB Ac-10c. No raising occurs and just these players remain after the 'initial' round of betting.

Flop is 10d-7d-4h.

Who goes skint here? Answer...someone!

The interesting thing about this is not that the cards came out the way they did but it just so happened that they came out appropriate to the only two players left playing the hand.

Yes it DOES happen live but not as often as you think!

mocata

That quote is mind boggling, just HAS to be a wind-up. If it aint, i am gonna start stalking him in cash games!

Hectorjelly

maybe he is joking


that said theres beeen a few boardsters who have written illogical stuff on the hendon mob

brianmc

To think that when I was starting out, I used to feel a little awkward when he sat at my table because he had written a book and I was a newbie.

Hitman Actual

Hectorjelly wrote: »

that said theres beeen a few boardsters who have written illogical stuff on the hendon mob

Please elaborate. Don't leave that hanging...

Lazare

I have a book of his upstairs somewhere, prob the one Oscar mentioned, it's called 'how to win at texas holdem poker'. I bought it about 5 years ago and at the time I thought it was pretty good. I was an absolute beginner then. I opened it recently for a laugh, and OMG, his advice is so so bad, his opinions in that link are no surprise to me.

YULETIRED

To the online poker is rigged article....Is he not abviously joking with you? After all what better way to get some readership than to stir the hornets nest of the poker arroggant. His comment on people who withdraw being doom switched is a hint he is joking surely that makes no sense whatsoever if you are trying to grow a business.........Expect his LOL smiley very soon.


Online Horse racing is even more rigged. Every time I back a horse to win via an online site he not only loses but gets put down after the race due to a horrendous injury. . My record is 2nd to none in this regard. I make it about 20 over the years... rigged rigged rigged. ...I'd like to apologie to the owners of Mac Joy for my latest jinx bet, he was killed in action Dec 19th. ...(with a name like Macs he was doomed from the start)

sickpuppy

Had the pleasure of sitting on Mr Strahans table on friday night in th fitz.
The good news is hes back in ireland for the forseeable future.
So any one with any questions wikll probably be able to ask him in person,
if you ask him nicely he may even autograph his great book he wrote afew years back.

cooker3

Well it's rigged in my favour so it's all good

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

sickpuppy wrote: »

Had the pleasure of sitting on Mr Strahans table on friday night in th fitz.
The good news is hes back in ireland for the forseeable future.
So any one with any questions wikll probably be able to ask him in person,
if you ask him nicely he may even autograph his great book he wrote afew years back.

your one sickpuppy

DeVore

There's one thing I don't get about the "its rigged" argument (obviously its rigged, ask any of the Serie A players, but thats not the point ).

What I don't get is the "action flop" conspiracy theory as described above. Ask any casino or site, the LAST thing they want to do is have their players go broke. Consider that the rake tops out at something like 3 dollars (its a percentage yes, but it has a ceiling at about 3$ on most sites...).
Surely then it would be extremely sub-optimal to "break" a player while only getting 3 dollars from the pot in rake. Most sites will pay 50-150 to gain a player (called a CPA, cost per acquisition deal in the industry), so why the hell would they then do their utmost to lose that player for as little rake as possible.

The entire thing makes no sense, but that bit is inconsistent even with the rest of the conspiracy...

DeV.

gondorff

Online poker makes for great comedy.

Jayminator

cooker3 wrote: »

Well it's rigged in my favour so it's all good

Well of course it is. It is you afterall.......

Dev's post makes complete sense dont ya think. Why oh why would any casino or online site deliberately try break their players.

Anyhow online poker aint rigged, its just fixed thats all..

Doc Farrell

bohsman wrote: »

Mark Strachan used to run a poker school in the Fitz - Paddy Hicks one of his pupils, also wrote an idiots guide to poker type book that made hilarious reading and used to own ukpoker.com. http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=s&n=375

Is that the same Paddy Hicks who shared the 270 game last week, a man feared by Nazi's and other cinematic villains world-wide? Paddy was playing 5 card stud for 30 years before holdem and will deny all association with that school!

Actually that book, though a source of ridicule, got a great supermarket distributor in the states and probably made Mark between 30 and 50 grand. Or, taking in account reality, possibly slightly less.
Mark does love to have his bellied tickled in public on the Interweb all the same.

hotspur

Speaking of cheating, here's a fun website I came across:
http://richardmarcusbooks.com/index.php

RoundTower

lol he always reminded me a little of Nicky.

nicnicnic

RoundTower wrote: »

lol he always reminded me a little of Nicky.

me to

ZZR1100

i used to read his blog in ukpoker.com years ago and was always good for a laugh.

he has improved since then though as a player .

(from the Ops link)
'Action flops' are also a source of player wins & losses.

Lets assume the SB is dealt Qd-Jd and the BB Ac-10c. No raising occurs and just these players remain after the 'initial' round of betting.

Flop is 10d-7d-4h.

Who goes skint here? Answer...someone!

The interesting thing about this is not that the cards came out the way they did but it just so happened that they came out appropriate to the only two players left playing the hand.

Yes it DOES happen live but not as often as you think!

1st reply ..Mark your example hand tells me why you might be losing.

On further reading of the thread / Marks posts / It has to be a prop bet of some kind.

strewelpeter

ZZR1100 wrote: »

On further reading of the thread / Marks posts / It has to be a prop bet of some kind.

He's going to claim something like that (Nap)