Ok, now I am not sure.

I have always stood on the side of ambivalence. I cannot prove that there is a problem with pp nor can I prove there isn't. However, in the past three days I have come to understand where the accusations are born. I have somehow managed to take top pair against bottom pair 13 times and lost 11 times. This is not an exaggeration. If I do not improve to 2 pair or better, top pair just does not win. (by the by, they all made trips at the river) I have had KK 7 times and LOST THEM ALL. I have run into 9 sets and two kinds of quads. I have had AQ 19 times and yup...LOST THEM ALL. I have had 99 three times, 10-10, 4 times and JJ 4 times. I won with 10-10 one time when I flopped a set and turned a tight. The rest I lost. Ak 7 times, won once. (The rest I simply missed).(As I type I just won with KQs from the small blind against 5 players). I flopped a set of K's once with a flop of K 9 5. I lost the hand to AJ. Flopped a set of 6's and lost to a gutter. Flopped a set of 9's and lost to turned set with q's. Flopped fours full of jacks once and lost to a turned boat with queens. It has been a very painful ride. I lost 110 big bets in 9 hours of play. If you look at the hands that I lost with you could probably ascertain that I am not a loose shooter in the game. I tried slow play, checkraise, backraise capping and trapping. All to no avail.

Oh yeah, once I called a steal raise with Q9 and fluked a straight. I was a little on tilt and didn't believe the raiser. For my efforts I got berated. I said nothing. In fact, I said nothing during the whole miserable ordeal. Nor would I. In many cases I was getting 8-1 up to 23-1 from these guys, they just kept catching up.

I understand variance and I am quite rational. Nonetheless, even I wondered how it was possible to experience the kinds of beats I was taking for such a long period of time.

I could probably use some words of encouragement about now so feel free.................lol


Larry

Clearly you have had a very bad run. But you also seem to lose with top pair a lot. Which brings up this question. Are you doing enough to knock players out? By just straight forward betting, especially if the pots are large, the bad players with bottom pair will still be there to draw out on the river. Furthermore, if the pot is fairly large they may be playing correctly given your hand.

Fair question. Generally in a larger pot I will often attempt a checkraise comfortable that there will be a bet attempt. My hope is that it is in later position so that I may isolate. If the bet comes early, I will often call and look for a blank on the turn and then depending on the number of callers either fire a bet out as a new bettor or take the checkraise opportunity if there are a number of players to knock out. I was finding though that players became "motivated" to call bets that I was making. I would certainly appreciate any advice that you could give that might help. Frustration was setting in and it is possible that some passivity crept into my game. (although, as I analyzed my play later I only found a few glaring errors that I am aware of) You may find more for certain. The instances that I had kings was deviation. Aces continually hit flops and I usually had a bet and a few callers facing me so I just got away from the hand as cheap as I could. Does this appear to be a table image problem and if so, how can it be repaired prior to enormous damage being done?


Thanks again,


Larry

When I hear complaints like this you need to understand that given the run of cards you were going to lose. But the real question is whether you lost more than you were suppose to or put another way would an expert have lost less?


As for additional advice, I have discovered that when things have gone bad for me that it never hurts to play a little tighter. Now some of those marginal hands which I might be playing into losers get thrown away.

LL: "I have somehow managed to take top pair against bottom pair 13 times and lost 11 times."


MM: "But you also seem to lose with top pair a lot ... Are you doing enough to knock players out?"


Are 11 out of 13 losses of high pair to low pair on the river a mathematically "acceptable" number whatever the betting circumstances? (Just asking; not criticising.)

a little bit tighter?99,1010,AQ,AK.WHAT CAN BE TIGHTER THAN THAT.Hold`em AT PARADISE IS RIGGED.There is no doubt about that in my mind.I just foolishly keep coming back hoping for god knows what. BELIEVE ME STAY AWAY.You are not the only one.Read older messages from other good players.Are they all stupid?Liars?Save your money.

Hope dies last and then u follow.


yours,Chav

IF I have a problem its would be the oposite.I play tight and wait for a good hand and then play it a little fast with betting or checkraising and I feel everybody folds a little to much on me but I do ok so I don't worry about it.Sorry to say but I bet your playing to many hands and hopping ,wishing and fishing around to much.Your 19 AQ,3 99,4 10 10,4 JJ are not necessarily good hands IF played poorly and I would not even see the flop or go past the flop at times with these hands in the higher limits against good players.Good Luck.

This seems like a good opportunity to set the record straight as far as you are concerned, Mason.


In your opinion, as a well-respected author and player, are you absolutely certain, as far as any third party can be, that the games provided by ParadisePoker are 100% honest with regard to cards dealt?

I know what you're going through, anyone who's played poker any significant amount of time has gone through this! My positive story is at the bottom after the mistakes I make section:


Some mistakes I make when I'm losing badly to hands I shouldn't be losing to are (I'm not saying you do this stuff, I just find myself doing these things!):


1. Playing a "little" loser than usual. Like limping that KTo on the button after 2 limpers. Or at least I feel I'm not playing too loose, when in fact I am. (what I try to do: play tighter than normal)


2. Giving opponents less respect. When I see them win with T8o, I think, "I deserve to win, look at the crap he's playing", and I limp/raise with hands like KTo (see #1), thinking I can outplay them. (what I try to do: give opponents more credit, and just plain play tight/plain solid poker, less fancy plays, this may be wrong advice though)


3. Wanting to end the session "up". I play longer than I should, and either play sleepy, or play on semi-tilt. (what I try to do: don't play to win money, play to make +EV decisions, I try to not have a set goal. I don't constantly watch my stack, in fact, I bring a "random" stack to the table like 47BB so it's harder to know if I'm up or down)


My recent positive session: I was playing poker tonight (don't ask me why I'm still awake, I'm going straight to bed after writing this!). I was getting creamed by 2nd best hands. For example, flop A high, A3o to my right bets, I raise with AKo, and keep the pressure on till the river. River is a 3. None of my pairs become sets. Ok, I'm down like 30 big bets. Then I find AA! KK! And they flop sets! And hold up! Then, the most amazing part, I get quads! Twice!!! Both times there's capping action! One time it was capped till the river by a guy with a straight! The other time someone caps it but folds to my river raise (??? draw?).


Anyways, I go on a 60BB winning streak over a 1-2 hour period (mostly due to idiots who are capping/raising when I have the nuts or close to it). Best of luck.


- Tony

He didn't say they all happened on the river. If you give them 5 clean outs with their bottom pair, the odds of them winning by the river are about 20%. The chances of that happening 11 times out of 13 are about 0.11%. So it's mildly unlikely, about 1 in 1000. The thing is that things that are 1 in 1000 to happen happen in poker quite regularly. There are any number of incredibly unlikely things that could happen on a sequence of hands. Human beings only notice the ones that actually happen.


Note that if 1000 players get 13 top pairs vs bottom pair, the odds shorten to about a 2/3 chance of one of them having 11 of them lose. With 3000 players the odds are about 95% that someone will experience this run of bad luck. (Someone check my maths here as this result was pretty surprising to me too).


So you're the 1/1000, or 1/3000, or whatever.


Chris

Don't expect a fair deal at Paradise. It just won't happen. I've been playing regularly for the last two weeks on the buy in bonus freeroll and I can't believe how often some pigeon connects with his inferior kicker or rivers a set with his POS pair. There is a total disconnect from real poker. Since I'm still above water in the small tournaments I continue to play but I'm getting fed up. It's just unreal.

David and I have both made it clear that we are not knowledgeable enoughtto vouch for anyone's random number generator or their computer routines that govern how the cards are dealt.

Been winning on Paradise over 550 hours, up 3500 on the low limit games.

About a month ago, cashed out and had 800 in the tank. The beats started raining down.

Had 14 pocket pairs of KK and QQ run into bigger pockets in a row. ALL the boards were totally random undercards.

AK, AQ hit about 1 in every 12 flops.

Some just made me laugh. I open raised ATo from the sb, bb defends. Flop A22 turn A river 2 he shows 23o. :P LOLOL

Sets cracked.

Top 2 smished.


Lost the lot. Rebought a few times.......playing tight as a rock.


Over the last few days.....

AA cracked the last 7 times I had it.

Came 4th in tournies 9 times in a row! NINE! Then I logged in last night, came 4th again, 4th again, 4th again (up to 12 in a row!)...then I went all in a 30 tourny.....had a set cracked on the river by a gut buster to come 5th.


BRING ON THE BEATS. YOU CALL THIS A BAD STREAK......

HAHAHA I LAUGH IN THE FACE OF MY 300 BB DOWNSWING. BRING IT ON YOU #$%^#^$%^S /images/smile.gif/images/oh.gif/images/biggrin.gif


This is poker man.....THE BEATS.....CAN YOU FEEL THE BEATS TONIGHT...HAHAHAHA TURN THE FIX UP PP. YOU THINK YOU CAN CRACK ME....WELL THINK AGAIN YOU DAMN BASTARDS! YOU CAN'T GET RID OF ME THIS EASILY.......


Miles...So What?

Hi. I am not Mason, and I know I cannot answer for him, but I do have degrees in mathematics and computer science, and I am pretty smart. I analyzed the first 5 million hands which Paradise posted

to their website and reviewed the evals of the next 25 million hands done by Bill H. here (see the archives for our results). Based on that analysis alone, I am 99.99999% sure that the hands are random. If I add my playing results, I am just about 100% sure. I say just about, since I would never say 100% unless I could read their code, logs, etc.


Mark

yep, that's what I needed. A good laugh. Thanks to all those that responded. I am honored to be the 1/1000. (sort of) I have managed to recover about 55 BB in the last day or so. How I managed to avoid looking for a bridge in the middle of the city I'll never know. I actually did tighten up and toughen up even beyond what I already was. I refused to call a raise with AQ suited and didn't care what the results were. I might have won one or two had I played but I didn't care. I brought my hand selection down to four hands. AA, KK, AKs and QQ. It was tough but then as things straightened out and a few hands held up I let myself play a few extra hands again. All I have to do now is find a way to replace the hair I tore out the other night.


Thanks again


Larry

Hi Larry, I used to play at Paradise. I started with $50 and through hard work managed to get up over $900 after a couple weeks. I started at $1-2 and played some $5-10. Well things came crashing down and I had to come down to small limits again and I lost it all. Talk about a roller coaster. I started noticing that the board paired up so often, there was almost always a flush draw, and in a $5-10 hand I had the cruel fate of getting KK while someone else got AA. This happened again at $2-4 a few days later on my crash and burn. I play at UltimateBet.com now and am getting used to the scene there. They have NL and pot limit games with small blinds and small buy ins which helps a great deal to get rid of people with trash drawing out on you. When you defend your pair with a huge bet any guys with a flush or straight draw or bottom or middle pair are going to pause before calling you. You can make bigger raises and get more respect. Give it a try and perhaps you'll like it better than PP.

What I can't understand is that everyone seems to complain about PP so much but keeps playing there. If you even doubt the legitimacy of their hand dealing a trifle, then go somewhere else.

... I only asked for your opinion, not a guarantee!!!


If someone asked me the same question, I would answer, "Yes, from what I have seen and experienced, I believe the hands are random and honest, and nothing out of the ordinary has occurred to make me feel suspicious in any way," -


or,


"No, from what I have seen and experienced, I do not believe the hands are random or honest, as I feel I have seen far too many extraordinary occurrences not to be suspicious that all is fair."


Please let us have your opinion, if you wouldn't mind?


Thank you very much.

How about I don't know.


It seems pretty obvious to me that you are unhappy with your results on Paradise and that's why you are asking this question. Since I have played very little Internet poker I don't have an opinion. However, there are so many people playing on Paradise, and their business continues to grow, that I find it hard to believe that there are any of the problems that a few people claim there are. But again, since I haven't been participating, I really don't have an opinion.


Best wishes,

Mason

I shouldn't have started my post in the way that I did. If I accuse pp of wrong doing and then admit to playing there, that would make me a bit dimmer than a burnt out light bulb I think. The gist of the message was that I could now at least understand why people thought something was wrong. I have been playing hold'em for about 11 years now and I am very familiar with variance. Usually it take a few losing sessions for me to lose 100 BB but this time it just happened so fast my head was spinning. I don't mean to belittle anyone, but I am always amused at people who say "I can't beat the game at low limit, I have to play bigger". Why? not losing fast enough? Moving to a site that offers pot limit is good if you like pot limit not so good if you are just trying to escape a venue where you were losing. As I write this, I have recovered 95 big bets which I fully expected to do.


To those who have been losing at PP. Listen to Mason's excellent advice. Tighten up your play and plug a few leaks. Oh, and prepare yourself for some variance because it's going to happen.


Luck be with yall.

Larry

I am curious. Everyone speaks of your success on PP and offers accolades for your play. Have you gone through anything like I described in my original post? If so, how did you handle it?

... that is a far more explicit answer than your first few words. Thank you for that. I am sure a lot of your readers will appreciate your taking the time to comment.


(On a personal note, I think it is a pity that you had to try to add a spiteful sting with your "It seems pretty obvious to me that you are unhappy with your results on Paradise and that's why you are asking this question."

I would have thought that most people would think it was pretty obvious from the consistent content of your forum that there are a great number of people here who have doubts about the validity of hands dealt in the site in question, and that the only reason I asked the question was merely to read the informed opinion of someone who might be expected to know a great deal about the largest internet poker provider in the real world owing to his wide circle of friends and associates in the poker world of players and businesses.

Ironically, I have been a steady internet poker winner for over a year at four different sites, playing every day, and not having had to buy in again since October 2000. That has nothing whatsoever to do with my question, and I am somewhat disappointed that, in my opinion, you had to spoil your answer with an attempted snide aside just because you felt that I had put you on a spot where you were "forced" to answer a question that you do not normally seem to wish to address.)

A loss of 110 big bets in 9 hours of online play does not seem unusual to me. Nine hours of online play is probably equivalent to over 20 hours of live play.

I think a losing table image can be detrimental...especially in those tight Paradise games which normally present steal opportunities. OTOH, I think that online players may generally be somewhat less aware of who is running bad than B&M players. Nevertheless, you could try buying more chips or switching tables.

Larry,


Personally knowing how solid a player you are in real life cash games, I think the question to be asked, which is truly unanswerable, is whether or not in real life if you were to play the exact same cards, against a reasonably similar field, would the results be the same...


Personally, after taking, on many, many occasions, triple, and even the occasional Quadruple digit losses within short time frames. I believe that that emotion (Obviously) has played me quite well... Especially in times that the game has not only become iced, but PREdictable...


I've had to make many adjustments, not only to my "net" game, but to my "net" emotions... It's not been easy, but among the biggest are game selection, and maybe the most obvious strategy, complete avoidance alltogether...


And for the conspiracy theorists in all of us, by giving the computer the understanding that you don't like being "toyed" with and leaving for a period of time, It will eventually be nice to you when you come back... /images/wink.gif

... I didn't see the hands they posted. Did they show the entire deal, all down cards whether or not shown at the end?


If so, and I assume they did, then your analysis should put a few minds at ease.


Of course, that was then ...

No. Only flop cards were shown, because:


(a) You can't publish 1 million hands showing everyone's hole cards. That would allow incredibly detailed analysis of a player's play patterns. On Paradise, as in a live casino, hands not calling on the river may not be subject to scrutiny.


(b) Turn and river cards are non-random, because (just as an example; the cards are non-random in a few different ways) there is a greater likelihood of everyone folding the flop if nobody has any pairs. Hence if turn and river cards appear players will often have pairs. This skews the odds of the board pairing on later streets.


Of course, this lead to claims of Paradise concealing the non-randomness of their hole cards and/or turn river cards. I even saw claims that the data showed "even distribution, but not randomness" - that is, the cards were randomly distributed, but that was only because they were being carefully stage managed by Paradise, who were managing to not only rig flops but maintain an even distribution of cards anyway (this idea courtesy of resident conspiracy kook Tom D. - how's it going Tom?). I guess nothing will satisfy some people.


The amazing thing about the Paradise conspiracy theories is that everyone has a different theory on what is wrong with the game. Some people claim sets and quads appear too frequently, some people that new players are dealt better starting cards, some that draws make too frequently on the turn or river, some that flushes occur too much, some that cashing out leads directly to experiencing a big downswing (although this particular theory seems to have gone out of vogue recently, no doubt theres a revival just around the corner). The recent 20,000 or so posts by conspiracy theorist BadBeet claimed that "coordinated boards" appeared too frequently on Paradise. The theorists don't seem to notice this lack of consensus, though, because they all flock together under the banner of "the games don't feel right".


The fact that so many people post here about "the games not feeling right" prove one of two things:


(a) that the game is in fact being fixed, or


(b) that people are notoriously and consistently bad at making intuitive mathematical judgements and that most people don't know the first thing about variance in poker.


I've made my choice.


Chris

You sure defend here a lot for a disinterested reciever of advertzing funds. Suffice it to say that the FBI will be formally notified in defense of the homeland. Not that they don't already probably know.

You probably think the sun shines out of PP's ass cos you have never lost more than 5 bb in a session. Wait until you have a real downswing and then tell me how you feel about PP!


I can't stop LOOSING. /images/wink.gif


Miles...So What I lost it all?

LOL, I thought about that once. Teach the ol' puter a lesson. At the end of the day, I don't think it is reasonable (read rational) to blame external events for losing. I have had others tell me they are losing and after having watched them play for about 10 minutes I was able to ascertain why. The fact is, excessive losing is usually a product of leaky play which was the purpose of my post. By putting my misery in writing I had the opportunity to look at my play a little differently - as an outsider almost. That might sound a little strange but it worked nicely. I even asked myself, "if I was being asked what to do by a player having these experiences, what would I say to him/her". I found myself coming up with some pretty good answers. My Don Cherry tip of the week "kids, you gotta remove yourself from the situation and take a look at things objectively"

No. He never loses and makes excuses for the criminals. He is a crook. There is no other explanation. It doesn't bother him that people know either. He is the type of crook that takes pride in advertizing the fact. Crooks like that usually get caught.