online conspiracy test

i like the argument that it's loosing players who feel that they must have been cheated; but at the same time, i've never read a post about how the deal is rigged in any given b&m cardroom. it seems like there would be a few of those here unless the majority of online players hardly ever play in the real world.


i like the argument that the cardrooms could keep a large customer base and many tables going by giving random hands a slight edge against quality ones. but would they need to do this? would the quality players soak up the weaker ones and reduce the total number of players? this doesn't happen in the real world... (in limit poker, anyway).


i've never played anything but the micro-limits($.5-1/$1-2) at paradise, and, to be honest, get bored quickly with winning a few bucks an hour and begin to play sloppy. could this same pattern be the one that causes the initial winning and then eventual losing that many people report? (i'll never play a higher limit online, btw)


anyway, it seems that this is the main topic of discussion on the online board and you'd think someone would have figured out a way to test the various conspiracy theories.


do AA-JJ hold up as much as they should?


does AK hit the flop as often as it should?


do big suited connectors make their flushes as often as random suited cards?


do good hands that survive the turn get chopped down on the river too often?


are the 2-outers and 4-outers hitting more often then they should on the turn and the river?


this isn't the loch ness monster, right? it's right out in the open in plain view. so has anyone tested any of the conspiracy theories?

Total hands you were dealt cards: 13456


All suited starters dealt: 3142 (23.35%)

All suited starters expected: 3166 (23.5%)


All connected starters dealt: 2164 (16.08%)

All connected starters expected: 2111 (15.7%)


Suited connector starters dealt: 529 (3.93%)

Suited connector starters expected: 528 (3.92%)


Paired starters dealt: 832 (6.183%)

Paired starters expected: 792 (5.88%)


AKo dealt: 136 (1.011%)

AKo expected: 122 (0.905%)


AKs dealt: 44 (0.327%)

AKs expected: 41 (0.302%)


Any AK dealt: 180 (1.338%)

Any AK expected: 162 (1.21%)


A's dealt: 74 (0.550%)

K's dealt: 60 (0.446%)

Q's dealt: 59 (0.438%)

J's dealt: 69 (0.513%)

T's dealt: 52 (0.386%)

9's dealt: 59 (0.438%)

8's dealt: 67 (0.498%)

7's dealt: 65 (0.483%)

6's dealt: 56 (0.416%)

5's dealt: 70 (0.520%)

4's dealt: 57 (0.424%)

3's dealt: 78 (0.580%)

2's dealt: 66 (0.490%)

Each pair expected: 61 (0.452%)

(Note that only data for hands where a flop was dealt are used.

Hands where no flop was dealt are skipped.)


Total hands you were dealt cards: 13456

Times a flop dealt when you were dealt cards: 12102 (89.94%)


When user dealt AK, flops at least one A or K: 59 (35.33%)


expected: 54 (32.4%)


USER HAS ANY TWO SUITED CARDS (dealt 2899 times):

Using both user's hole cards, flopped a:


3 flush: 1146 (39.53%) expected: 1206 (41.6%)


4 flush: 332 (11.45%) expected: 317 (10.9%)


5 flush: 33 (1.14%) expected: 24 (0.842%)

Three cards on the flop make up a:


3 straight: 93 (3.21%) expected: 92 (3.18%)


2 flush: 1629 (56.19%) expected: 1598 (55.1%)


3 flush: 162 (5.59%) expected: 151 (05.22%)


any pair: 504 (17.39%) expected: 491 (16.9%)

Hand user flops:


High card: 1513 (52.2%) expected: 1526 (52.6%)


Pair: 1193 (41.2%) expected: 1171 (40.4%)


Two pair: 110 (3.79%) expected: 117 (4.04%)


3 of a kind: 31 (1.07%) expected: 46 (1.57%)


Straight: 18 (0.62%) expected: 12 (0.412%)


Flush: 32 (1.10%) expected: 24 (0.835%)


Full house: 1 (0.034%) expected: 3 (0.0918%)


Four of a kind: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.0102%)


Straight flush: 1 (0.034%) expected: 0 (0.00589%)


Royal flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.000654%)


USER HAS ANY PAIR (dealt 789 times):

Using both user's hole cards, flopped a:


Underpair (to flop): 195 (24.71%) expected: 185 (23.5%)


Overpair (to flop): 193 (24.46%) expected: 185 (23.5%)


Set: 69 (8.75%) expected: 91 (11.51%)


Quads: 3 (0.380%) expected: 2 (0.245%)

Three cards on the flop make up a:


3 straight: 42 (5.32%) expected: 25 (3.18%)


2 flush: 431 (54.63%) expected: 434 (55.0%)


3 flush: 44 (5.58%) expected: 41 (5.16%)


any pair: 148 (18.76%) expected: 135 (17.1%)

Hand user flops:


High card: 0 (0.0%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


Pair: 577 (73.1%) expected: 567 (71.8%)


Two pair: 137 (17.36%) expected: 128 (16.2%)


3 of a kind: 61 (7.73%) expected: 85 (10.8%)


Straight: 0 (0.00%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


Flush: 0 (0.00%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


Full house: 11 (1.394%) expected: 8 (0.980%)


Four of a kind: 3 (0.380%) expected: 2 (0.245%)


Straight flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


Royal flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


USER HAS OFFSUIT CONNECTORS FROM 54o to JTo (dealt 820 times):

Using both user's hole cards, flopped a:


Open ended: 80 (9.76%) expected: 70 (8.55%)


Double belly: 6 (0.73%) expected: 4 (0.531%)


Straight: 13 (1.59%) expected: 10 (1.26%)

Three cards on the flop make up a:


3 straight: 32 (3.90%) expected: 26 (3.15%)


2 flush: 461 (56.22%) expected: 451 (55.0%)


3 flush: 39 (4.76%) expected: 42 (5.16%)


any pair: 119 (14.51%) expected: 139 (16.9%)

Hand user flops:


High card: 447 (54.5%) expected: 432 (52.6%)


Pair: 324 (39.5%) expected: 331 (40.4%)


Two pair: 30 (3.66%) expected: 33 (4.04%)


3 of a kind: 5 (0.61%) expected: 13 (1.57%)


Straight: 13 (1.59%) expected: 10 (1.23%)


Flush: 0 (0.00%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


Full house: 1 (0.122%) expected: 1 (0.0918%)


Four of a kind: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.0102%)


Straight flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


Royal flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


ALL FLOPS SEEN BY THE USER:

Three cards on the flop make up a:


3 straight: 414 (3.42%) expected: 386 (3.19%)


2 flush: 6783 (56.05%) expected: 6663 (55.1%)


3 flush: 641 (5.30%) expected: 626 (5.18%)


any pair: 2078 (17.17%) expected: 2050 (16.9%)

Hand user flops:


High card: 6012 (49.7%) expected: 6065 (50.1%)


Pair: 5168 (42.7%) expected: 5114 (42.3%)


Two pair: 583 (4.82%) expected: 575 (4.75%)


3 of a kind: 224 (1.85%) expected: 256 (2.11%)


Straight: 57 (0.47%) expected: 47 (0.392%)


Flush: 32 (0.26%) expected: 24 (0.197%)


Full house: 20 (0.165%) expected: 17 (0.144%)


Four of a kind: 5 (0.041%) expected: 3 (0.0240%)


Straight flush: 1 (0.008%) expected: 0 (0.00139%)


Royal flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.000154%)

(Note that only data for hands where a river was dealt are used.

Hands where no river was dealt are skipped. This will bias the

data to include only times where a showdown was seen.)


Total hands you were dealt cards: 13456


Total final boards seen when you were dealt cards: 8083


USER HAS ANY TWO SUITED CARDS (dealt 1947 times):

Four flushes flopped: 236 (12.12%)


expected: 213 (10.9%)

When flop four flush, got flush: 77 (32.63%)


expected: 83 (35.0%)

Hand user has at river:


High card: 334 (17.2%) expected: 339 (17.4%)


Pair: 840 (43.1%) expected: 830 (42.6%)


Two pair: 414 (21.26%) expected: 430 (22.1%)


3 of a kind: 87 (4.47%) expected: 84 (4.33%)


Straight: 101 (5.19%) expected: 89 (4.56%)


Flush: 128 (6.57%) expected: 127 (6.51%)


Full house: 42 (2.157%) expected: 43 (2.22%)


Four of a kind: 0 (0.000%) expected: 2 (0.126%)


Straight flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 1 (0.0663%)


Royal flush: 1 (0.051%) expected: 0 (0.00781%)


USER HAS ANY PAIR (dealt 564 times):

A set flopped: 54 (9.57%)


expected: 64 (11.3%)

When flop set, got boat or quads: 17 (31.48%)


expected: 18 (33.4%)

Hand user has at river:


High card: 0 (0.0%) expected: 0 (0.00%)


Pair: 195 (34.6%) expected: 200 (35.5%)


Two pair: 237 (42.02%) expected: 223 (39.5%)


3 of a kind: 57 (10.11%) expected: 66 (11.7%)


Straight: 11 (1.95%) expected: 11 (1.90%)


Flush: 12 (2.13%) expected: 11 (1.95%)


Full house: 46 (8.156%) expected: 48 (8.54%)


Four of a kind: 6 (1.064%) expected: 5 (0.842%)


Straight flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.0160%)


Royal flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.00182%)


USER HAS OFFSUIT CONNECTORS FROM 54o to JTo (dealt 547 times):

Flopped open ended: 58 (10.60%)


expected: 47 (8.55%)

When open ended, got straight: 19 (32.76%)


expected: 18 (30.7%)

Hand user has at river:


High card: 87 (15.9%) expected: 94 (17.2%)


Pair: 247 (45.2%) expected: 234 (42.7%)


Two pair: 118 (21.57%) expected: 122 (22.3%)


3 of a kind: 17 (3.11%) expected: 24 (4.35%)


Straight: 59 (10.79%) expected: 50 (9.12%)


Flush: 12 (2.19%) expected: 11 (1.95%)


Full house: 7 (1.280%) expected: 12 (2.22%)


Four of a kind: 0 (0.000%) expected: 1 (0.126%)


Straight flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.0209%)


Royal flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 0 (0.00110%)


ALL RIVERS SEEN BY THE USER:

Hand user has at river:


High card: 1381 (17.1%) expected: 1407 (17.4%)


Pair: 3621 (44.8%) expected: 3542 (43.8%)


Two pair: 1868 (23.11%) expected: 1899 (23.5%)


3 of a kind: 367 (4.54%) expected: 390 (4.83%)


Straight: 395 (4.89%) expected: 373 (4.62%)


Flush: 236 (2.92%) expected: 245 (3.03%)


Full house: 199 (2.462%) expected: 210 (2.60%)


Four of a kind: 14 (0.173%) expected: 14 (0.168%)


Straight flush: 0 (0.000%) expected: 2 (0.0279%)


Royal flush: 2 (0.025%) expected: 0 (0.00323%)


Four to a flush on board 315 (3.897%)


expected: 347 (4.29%)

This is good stuff, what site offers this?


Dirk

Paradise, indirectly. The statistics are from Tony H's excellent PokerStat program (or at least they bear an uncanny resemblance to it).


I am not affiliated with Tony H...blah, blah, blah, just a satisfied customer.

You're getting some good cards there Speedy!

I think you're "in on it". /images/smile.gif

Ha! One stat that I have been mildly upset about is how often I flop a set. Seems I never get my set in a nice big multi-way flop. Oh well, I guess in another 15,000 hands I will level out and start hitting them. /images/biggrin.gif

"i've never played anything but the micro-limits($.5-1/$1-2) at paradise, and, to be honest, get bored quickly with winning a few bucks an hour and begin to play sloppy. could this same pattern be the one that causes the initial winning and then eventual losing that many people report? (i'll never play a higher limit online, btw)"


--- I WOULD SAY YES ---

OKAY!


that's the first thing i thought when i went through the archives and found a lot of posts reporting that the person experienced a winning streak when first signing up and then a losing streak afterwards when it seemed all the strange, random hands were sucking out on them.


my experience at $.50/1.00 and the like is that i'll go on a little streak and be up $30 or $40 bucks in the span of, say. three hours; and then it evens back out to a little over $10 during the next hour. this is over 2.5bb an hour which isn't too bad at that speed, but it's still frustrating as hell; and you find yourself calling AXs and K/Jo in early position trying to catch up to where you were before...


so the solution is to play higher limits(which i'm not going to do online) or stop playing, because i can't maintain the same amount of discipline online that i do in b&m cardrooms.


but that's just me.

Finding yourself calling with Ax and KJo in EP to catch up? Are you insane. Please, and I mean this without trying to be an asshole, but that is very stupid. This is serious, why would you play those hands . . . EVER? Do not go up in limits until you have the dicipline to muck those no matter how you are doing. If anything, buy a book and sit down and try to understand why I say that. Those are terrible hands in EP. I never get frustrated and play those hands and understanding that will improve your game very much.


Good luck.

uh, that was my point... at those limits it gets very boring and i find myself playing hands that i would never play in a b&m $4/8 or $10/20.


were you following the thread or did you just feel like venting?

1BB = 1BB = 1BB


no matter if 1BB = $1 or $100. Sorry about the insulting post, I just think that if you are getting bored and playing those cards you should expect your variance to be high and often lose. You will lose if you "gamble" - I'm sure you know that, so treat a big bet as a big bet and improve your game and let the fish get hooked with those weak hands.


Again, sorry for the rude post, it just should seem obvious why there is a problem with this. I have gone down 15+ BB and just sit there and wait, often playing much tighter than needed from EP and get on a little run and squeeze out a win. What you are describing to us is "tilt."

no biggie... but that has been the point of many of my post: that i can't maintain the same level of discipline playing in the low limits online. something about staring at that screen and clicking the mouse just makes go, "screw it! i call!".


i think others might have this same difficulty and ,instead of admitting it, it gets translated as "the deal is rigged."

Discipline and patience gets the money, in anyone’s opinion. I will repeat that I am not playing online to make my house payments, but those kind of plays are very common. You point out a huge hole in many otherwise fine players’ game. There is now doubt about this. I have decided that playing “excellent poker” is more important than money. Often I watch a movie or read a book to pass the 3-5 hours I will play in a session. Some will argue that this is wrong and are likely very right, but being bored is being bored and as many have pointed out is the largest leak in their game. The LL players in the games I’m in don’t give a rat’s ass what I am doing and are probably STILL enjoying the thrill of the 2 outer they hit vs. another player the night before do not be that guy. This is why I never consider a bet money - only as a ½ bet or BB, this keeps me from making some mistakes that destroy my overall profitability and stray me from solid poker. If you are there for entertainment, I understand as I am there for it as well. Just be careful, any winning player will tell you that if you are patient and play tight, you should do ok in the LL games online. I have heeded the advice and only thrive to play well. Cashing out profits once a week is more fun than playing KJo or any suited ace from EP, I promise.


Good luck, woo and I hope to see you at the tables some day.


PS: I hope all will forgive the rants the past day. I am trying to post less and read more and today I was all over the map.

here's the best test I could be bothered to make, I'm a scientist so don't need to be told that this is hardly conclusive; but it was enough for me.


I've been playing in live cardrooms and home games for a little over 2 years now, for the last 13 monthes I've been keeping very specific statistics of every session I play. Excel spits out my hourly rate overall, for every limit, game, and casino. I've been very consistant for some time now(it's almost spooky how it works out sometimes). I've also been playing online quite a bit. I make no claims to be making a fortune at online play(personally when someone says to me "I'm making $800/week playing $.5/$1" they lose any and all credibility) but I've kept very careful track of that too and I am happy with my win rate over the 200 hours or so that I've logged at various sites. I decided to commit to playing paradise for a while. I was going to put in 200 hours there and see how close the rates would be. Yeah I know it should be more like 500-1000 hours in both arenas but I have a career and a life so that's not practical. Well it didn't work, I got 87 hours into it at Paradise when I decided I couldn't take their bullshit anymore and cashed out. I won there but my rate was ~ 45% of the big bets I was making on other internet sites and significantly slower than my live big bet rate as well. This isn't conclusive and there are swings in the game but it was enough for me to decide to hitch my wagon to a different star.


If anyone finds this interesting or informative I'm glad, if you want to flame about how there must be holes in my game, knock yourself out. I'm very secure in my ability.


aym

im just curious what limit you were playing on paradise.


my local casino $10/$20 is like a passiver/ looser/easy paradise 3/6.

86 hours isn't conclusive evidence Mr. Scientist.


How's mensa by the way?

laugh it up all you like that group is getting me a discount on car insurance.


Maybe I should use your system of "I'm winning it's legitimate"/"I lost for a couple hours, I've been hacked"

I was playing from $.5/$1 --> $3/$6 and $10/$1 tournaments.


Incidently I'd say that my local 10/20 is looser than Paradise at every limit listed above. More aggressive though.