The new internet poker conspiracy "Perfect hands"

[Runner Runner]

Check it out, apparently Party Poker is rigging their tournaments so they are over faster and they collect more tournament fees. Whatta joke!!

http://www.pokerpages.com/articles/archives/mark-burtman43.htm

[SmileyEH]

ha! I beat you by 2 minutes.

-SmileyEH

[Alobar]

guess even pros can be idiots....thats kind of inspiring

[willie]

are you being sarcastic?

[wdbaker]

[ QUOTE ]
Check it out, apparently Party Poker is rigging their tournaments so they are over faster and they collect more tournament fees. Whatta joke!!

http://www.pokerpages.com/articles/archives/mark-burtman43.htm

[/ QUOTE ]

I must admit that I'm quite suprised that this would come from a site that promotes online poker /images/graemlins/confused.gif

Either they should put their money where their mouth is and thouroughly check for this type of thing by doing some data mining so as to hopefully debunk it, or they should fire the guy who wrote this.

sheeesh, just what we need, someone stirring up the water and it isn't with bait.

One Street at a Time
wdbaker Denver, Co

[rickw]

Seems to me the "perfect hands" theory fits in the category of those conspiracies which are "needlessly complicated." I think Party's SnG blind structure (which bumps things up pretty quickly, at least compared to UB) works fine as a way of getting the tournaments over with. . . .

[meow_meow]

[ QUOTE ]
Check it out, apparently Party Poker is rigging their tournaments so they are over faster and they collect more tournament fees. Whatta joke!!

http://www.pokerpages.com/articles/archives/mark-burtman43.htm

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, thanks for the laugh.
Answer this one: how does party make more money by busting people out faster?
Less server load - insignificant
Bust-outs playing other games instead - very small effect.

C'mon, this is just another example of someone taking anecdotal evidence and extrapolating a whole conspiracy around it. Plus, 2 of his 3 quad hands were Omaha.

[dogmeat]

I understand the point of the article about "perfect hands" running into each other. I have felt that way about hands on tables I have played - it is always more soothing for my ego to assume I am being cheated than to admit that I don't play really good poker. However, I have heard this mostly about regular cash games, and the believers have the same feelings about getting big pots going for more rake. For anybody that believes this, if you were the online casino, would you rather:

a) Have many of these "big-hands" to pump up the rake (but bust out many players)

b) Have an absolutely fair and random game that allows moderately skilled players to win-some, lose-some and keep paying an average size rake until it eventually swallows up their bankroll like a black hole.

Dogmeat /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[Justin A]

[ QUOTE ]
Just keep track of how many perfect hands you see in the course of 30 hands and compare it to your live action games. The results may bare me out. I know I'll be tracking it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't know, that seems like a pretty large sample to me. Wouldn't ten hands be enough?

Justin A

[BreakEvenPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
By Dr. Mark Burtman

[/ QUOTE ]


He must have got his P.H.D. at ITT Tech.

[Equal]

lol at this article. Good stuff.

[Yod]

/images/graemlins/laugh.gif my ribs ... /images/graemlins/laugh.gif /images/graemlins/laugh.gif...they hurt ...what an (gasping for breath) idiot ! /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif tard of the year...oh God...

[MelchyBeau]

He said compare my next 30 hands. Well they were all crap. the next 30 a few were playable. and the next 30 I got a 4 of a kind. obviously it is rigged cause I got a 4 of a kind in 30 hands. sheesh.

I don't want to even try and calculate how many hands are dealt in even just one SnG, but I imagine its alot. I thought poker pros were supposed to be good with statistics.

Melch

[cov47]

I can vouch, this is 100% correct. Just today I was playing online and I was dealt AK. The flop came AK9, and one of the other guys had 99! These tricky internet poker sites will do anything to generate action.

[CountDuckula]

[ QUOTE ]
I can vouch, this is 100% correct. Just today I was playing online and I was dealt AK. The flop came AK9, and one of the other guys had 99! These tricky internet poker sites will do anything to generate action.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I got a hand recently where I had JJ, and flopped a set. The board ended up something like JxKQ8, with the 8 and Q showing up on the turn and river, giving my opponent with JT a runner-runner straight. It must have been rigged.

Oh, BTW, this was at Foxwoods, just in case you want to avoid that site.

-Mike

[cov47]

If x != A or 9, avoid Foxwoods.

[schwza]

wow.... i checked out the site's forum to see if they would have discussion of this idiotic article. i stumbled onto this post:

[ QUOTE ]

Live Pot Limit tourney - final table of 10 - first 5 get paid - but 4 and 5 just get their buy-in money back and a beer. Place to be is in the first 3. Table asks for 'savers' but one guy says no deals, he's playing for first place. I am in it to win it then.

I've got 10,500 which is about =4th highest stack. No-one has a monopoly of chips. Blinds are equal 600. (1200 pot).

First hand after the compulsory 10 minute break. I am in mid late position. Solid guy in mid position bets the pot now 3600 (sb600+bb600+{600+raise of 1800}). I pick up AJ - it's 2400 to call.

FOLD or CALL or RAISE ?

PS Whatever you do - you do get a chance to see the hand - so I'll let you know the outcome.
Steve


[/ QUOTE ]

(btw, PFR covers hero)

5 responses, 4 say fold. the last one says call. even the people advocating fold were comparing folding to cold-calling.

this looks likes a no-brainer push - am i wrong?

[Lori]

That's one hell of an April fool's joke. It's not even April.

Lori

[CountDuckula]

[ QUOTE ]
If x != A or 9, avoid Foxwoods.

[/ QUOTE ]

Heh.... Sorry, the 8 was a mental lapse; it was actually a 9. The x was something like a 4 or 5, IIRC.

-Mike

[benfranklin]

I'm curious as to what this clown is a doctor of. (I am obviously not a doctor of English.)

[ QUOTE ]
These tournaments are commonly starting with over 1200 players. That's a lot of players that the website needs to bust before the tournament ends, and before they start putting their money in play elsewhere.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, all 1200 of them sat there and watched to the end to see how it came out? How many of those 1200 players busted out in the first hour, and immediately started playing rings games or another tournament or SnG?

In an RGP posting debunking online cheating, one of Paul Phillips' points was:


[ QUOTE ]
2) SELECTION BIAS. We notice quads. We notice doubles. We feel like we know how often they happen because we know that we notice them, but we do not know how often unnoticeable events take place. We therefore lack the necessary data to do analysis, but we have so much faith in our brains as pattern recognition machines, we try it anyway.


[/ QUOTE ]

How often was this guy dealt J963 or K855 during the tournament? If he got one of those hands twice in 30 hands, and he had noticed it, would that be evidence that the game was rigged?

And as another poster pointed out above, this was Omaha. I know I am guilty of selection bias, but it's rare to go more than several hundred hands of low limit O8 without seeing quads. How many hands are dealt in a 1200 seat tournament?

The only thing perfect here is the good doctor. A perfect maroon.

[MaxPower]

He is a medical doctor, which explains why he doesn't understand statistics and probability.

[fnord_too]

[ QUOTE ]

He is a medical doctor, which explains why he doesn't understand statistics and probability.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, MD's should understand these things. Medical research requires rigorous use of statistics, and doctors are supposed to be able to understand the papers they are supposed to be reading. I find the lack of understanding of statistics that some doctors have truly terrifying. Even some medical researchers are horrible at things like subject selection (e.g. asking subjects if anyone else in their family meets the subject requirements and trying to get them into the study. Not the random sampling you want.)

[MicroBob]

When I dealt BJ at a casino I dealt to a table full of ER-doctors who kept thinking that I was a 'hot-dealer' and that the 'shoe was running really cold'.

"That dealer has pulled 21 the last 5 hands in a row." (which was incorrect). blah blah blah.

They were probably decent doctors I suspect, but they were really throwing some tamtrums when they would bust-out or when I would hit my 21.
"I can't believe he caught another 5 on his 16. The odds of that happening are like 1-in-a-thousand."


I have also talked with people who have aced statistics and/or probabilities classes who still think they can beat Craps by varying the size of their bets when the 'table is hot' or 'never losing more than $100 in a session, that way they will HAVE to be a winner in the long-run'. etc etc etc.

I am specifically thinking of my sister's boyfriend who is a pilot, flew in the first gulf-war, etc etc. Supposedly they have to take a variety of statistics classes but I really don't know that much about it or about him for that matter.


I knew a dealer who was pretty sharp at math. Could multiply 4-digit numbers in his head (hey Jerry...what's 4,592 X 6,239??).
He has told me about playing roulette at other casinos and 'bet on red because it had hit the last 5 times in a row'.
He frequently deals roulette and has told me that 'on most wheels, if 23 comes up then 32 will hit within the next 2 spins. And vice-versa, when 32 hits then bet on 23 because it will usually hit within the next two spins.'


Some people are pretty smart in certain areas. And obviously you have to be pretty smart to get your PhD in ANYTHING.

But it is no guarantee at all that you won't fall for the same general gambler's fallacies that most others do.

Some people just don't get it. Period.

It really is kind of scary.

[MicroBob]

This guy ROCKS!!!


[ QUOTE ]
Let me get back to the internet, which is what initially inspired me to write this article. I have seen much discussion on the streakiness of the internet. I have certainly experienced it first hand. Despite reassurances from the official poker pundits that these are just normal variations that are magnified by the increased randomness of the shuffle and shear volume of hands dealt, I just don't buy into that theory. Let me give you an example. I was playing two tournaments simultaneously on Partypoker. In the pot limit Omaha tournament I was doing fairly well. Then I caught Quad Jacks. It resulted in a perfect hand as I trapped some poor fool with a big fullhouse. On the very next hand I again was dealt Quad Jacks. I couldn't believe my good fortune. That is until the board put a pair of Aces up as well, and I found myself staring down Quad Aces. As I was writing in the chat section how strange things like that happened on the internet, to which I actually received a dissenting opinion, I was dealt Quad Queens in my hold-em tournament. Thus in the span of ten minutes I was dealt Quads three times. In each hand I had another person all-in with me. And I only won 2 out of 3 of the hands, but the pundits all say that that's just a product of normal variance magnified by the shear volume of hands...IN TEN MINUTES? How many times do I get Quads in a year in live action? And then with callers...

I think it comes back to perfect hands. What do perfect hands do? They generate action. Card rooms make money when there is action. Computer generated card rooms program the action. Suppose a 9-8 is in a hand with an A-K and the flop comes A-2-6. What happens? A-k bets and 9-8 folds. House has very little to cut from the pot. But what if the flop comes A-9-8. Fireworks fly, pots grow, profits soar for the house. But why generate that kind of action in a tournament? That's easy. Once the tournament entry fees are collected the house doesn't make anymore money until players are busted and brought back to another tournament or the ring games. Nothing helps get a tournament over faster than perfect hands trapping competent players. These tournaments are commonly starting with over 1200 players. That's a lot of players that the website needs to bust before the tournament ends, and before they start putting their money in play elsewhere.

Anyhow, I can never definitively prove this assertion, but it is certainly logical. Just keep track of how many perfect hands you see in the course of 30 hands and compare it to your live action games. The results may bare me out. I know I'll be tracking it.


[/ QUOTE ]

[Blarg]

It IS scary.

Most people by far that I've run into think that if you haven't rolled, say, a 7 in the last X number of tries, a 7 is more likely to come on the very next roll because "it's due." The truly foolish ones believe that the 7 probably will not come because the dice are "cold," but the ones who think they're a bit smarter than that "realize" that actually a 7 is more likely to hit if one hasn't been rolled for a while. (sigh)

Almost everyone seems to instinctually feel that past events influence future outcomes, and also that the long term will be reliably reflected in the short term. And it's almost impossible to convince them otherwise.

That's why when friends tell me about seeing the latest poker show on t.v. and wonder if it's worth a try to see if they could go kick some butt in the casinos or online, I never encourage them. Most don't have the discipline to study, and aren't psychologically prepared for anything but throwing away their money.