good Lee Jones article [Archive] - Two Plus Two Older Archives

Shoe

12-08-2005, 02:23 PM

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In his 989-1 shot example he forgot to mention that running deuces splits the pot. Sure you didn't win, but you didn't lose either.

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He specifically says it is 989-1 for the QQ to defeat KK. That is correct. Yes, 22 would cause a push but that is not the point of the article and still doesn't make anything he said incorrect.

You guys really need to start cutting Lee some slack.

BigBrother

12-08-2005, 02:35 PM

Online poker is definitely rigged. I flopped 4 of a kind and got beat on the river by a straight flush. You know how unlikely that is?

edit: Thanks for the link. Good article.

felson

12-08-2005, 03:17 PM

Lee would rather write a simulation to estimate the probability of being dealt a deuce than do the math? Ugh.

BigF

12-08-2005, 03:18 PM

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Online poker is definitely rigged. I flopped 4 of a kind and got beat on the river by a straight flush. You know how unlikely that is?

edit: Thanks for the link. Good article.

[/ QUOTE ]

Live games are definitely rigged. The first money hand in my life, I was dealt a pocket pair and flopped quads. Oh it was quad 4's no less. You know how unlikely that is?

Tom Bayes

12-08-2005, 03:24 PM

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Lee would rather write a simulation to estimate the probability of being dealt a deuce than do the math? Ugh.

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Yeah, I'm sure it took less time to code the simulation than to use the binomial distribution function on a TI calculator or EXCEL or a stats package. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Arnfinn Madsen

12-08-2005, 03:33 PM

It is no wonder online poker is rigged, when real life is rigged. Today, when I was going to cross the street I had to stop for a black car, followed by 2 red cars, followed by 2 black cars and then a white car. If there is 10 different car colors the chance that exactly that would happen is 1/10*10*10*10*10*10=1/1 000 000! No way that could be just a coincidence.

augie00

12-08-2005, 03:58 PM

Great article, Lee.

gabyyyyy

12-09-2005, 03:03 AM

If you have the best hand preflop at pokerstars you will lose almost everytime unless you cause everyone else to fold.

QQ will beat KK a hell of a lot more than 1 out of 989 times there.

MyTurn2Raise

12-09-2005, 03:08 AM

didn't you quit this forum?

gabyyyyy

12-09-2005, 03:10 AM

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didn't you quit this forum?

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Yes

gabyyyyy

12-09-2005, 03:21 AM

Ok a serious question for Lee, doubt he will read this but here goes.

Say everything is fair, deal is 100 percent random im just a paranoid player... Ok that said.. Say I constantly get sucked out on. I mean AA losing to AK, KK losing to QQ like in his article.. I MEAN CONSTANTLY.. Am i just the unluckiest player in the world?

By his article I must be. FYI when I played online I didnt play many hands.. Say maybe 500 a day which would equate to about 12 hours of live play.

So should I just deal with the fact that I am the unluckiest player in the world? I mean that in it of itself seems far less likely than the deal not being totally random. The preceding logic is where I come to the conclusion that their deal is fishy. I think the odds of me being the most unlucky player in the wolrd are far higher than their shuffle being flawed.

Jimmy The Fish

12-09-2005, 04:18 AM

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I think the odds of me being the most unlucky player in the wolrd are far higher than their shuffle being flawed.

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Lots of people think they can't possibly be the unluckiest player in the world.

One of them is wrong.

Analyst

12-09-2005, 10:55 AM

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So should I just deal with the fact that I am the unluckiest player in the world?

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No, that is not right at all. The premise of "online poker is rigged" is that the sites are redistributing money from the good players to the bad in order to maximize rake, right? So if they're giving you the most bad beats, it must be because YOU ARE THE BEST POKER PLAYER IN THE WORLD! You should feel very, very flattered everytime you get sucked out on - the sites know you are the king!

Zetack

12-09-2005, 11:23 AM

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If you have the best hand preflop at pokerstars you will lose almost everytime unless you cause everyone else to fold.

QQ will beat KK a hell of a lot more than 1 out of 989 times there.

[/ QUOTE ]

I certainly the hell hope so, otherwise the site would be rigged. In fact QQ will beat KK about a fifth of the time. Can you see that that is a LOT more than one out of 990?

--Zetack

12-09-2005, 11:56 AM

good article... and first time i played B&M, the same person had pocket aces twice in row and had a straight flush beat an ace high flush. sort of shot down my concerns about "internet poker being rigged".

but why is everyone so sure that a major site wouldn't juice the card flow a little bit? and i underline "a little bit", just to spice things up.

i mean, would anyone be shocked to pick up the wall street journal or new york times next week and see that there's an investigation of a major poker site for a rigged card flow? would you really be shocked? especially in this environment of major fortune 500 corporation like enron and adelphia running huge scams. for gosh sakes, these companies were pillors of their local communities

silvershade

12-09-2005, 12:11 PM

I have no reason to believe online poker is rigged, that said it's big business and i wouldnt be at all shocked to wake up one morning to find the headlines exposing an online poker site for having a distorted shiffle.

The arguements that they wouldnt do it because the rake is profitable enough anyway are incredibly naive given the types of things that go on in big business day in day out.

Dave H.

12-09-2005, 12:45 PM

The only time I'd really worry is if something like KKK fell on the board and I tied an opponent with quad kings.

shakingspear

12-09-2005, 02:47 PM

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The only time I'd really worry is if something like KKK fell on the board and I tied an opponent with quad kings.

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What if the turn was the fourth king?

bocablkr

12-09-2005, 03:06 PM

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Thought this was a great article by Lee Jones in this month's Card Player. It's basically a very polite (and persuasive) smackdown to all the "online poker is rigged" people out there (probably written after Lee got his billionth "your site is rigged" e-mail).

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/showarticle.php?a_id=15159&m_id=65578

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Good article. I was playing live two weeks ago and got at least one deuce 7 out of 10 hands. That really must be rigged.

12-09-2005, 03:10 PM

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but why is everyone so sure that a major site wouldn't juice the card flow a little bit? and i underline "a little bit", just to spice things up.

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What does the site gain by messing with things?

12-09-2005, 03:34 PM

My poker dev team loves these "juice the cards" theories and how they like to shield themselves with the always popular "and if you don't believe this, you're naive."

This very topic is almost like the debate between science and religion. The believers in theories are the "faithful" and as such, they will not be convinced of otherwise, even when shown facts. However, the non-believers (you damn heathens) demand facts and will only be converted by them.

So, who's for starting a Church of Poker is Riggedology? More importantly, how can I make money off of it?

revots33

12-09-2005, 05:19 PM

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but why is everyone so sure that a major site wouldn't juice the card flow a little bit? and i underline "a little bit", just to spice things up.

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Because the sites are making millions of dollars running honest games. Why would they jeopardize that just to "spice things up"?

Anyway, I think the theory that dealing more bad beats somehow increases the site's earnings is false. The sites don't know or care who's a fish, who's a shark, or who wins a hand. They make their rake either way. Good players are the customers who generate the most rake for them - so why would they intentionally alienate their best customers, to try and entice the fish with a few extra suckouts here and there? It makes no sense at all from a business perspective.

HRFats

12-09-2005, 07:13 PM

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Say everything is fair, deal is 100 percent random im just a paranoid player... Ok that said.. Say I constantly get sucked out on. I mean AA losing to AK, KK losing to QQ like in his article.. I MEAN CONSTANTLY.. Am i just the unluckiest player in the world?

[/ QUOTE ]

Simply post your pokertracker stats so we can analyze them and be convinced. If you don't have pokertracker then please answer these simple questions - What percent of your AA lose to AK? How often does your KK lose to QQ? "CONSTANTLY" does not answer the question. We need hands played and hands lost please.

12-09-2005, 07:55 PM

As Bill Rini wrote a week or so ago in his blog, this is really about the psychology of why people would speculate that online poker is rigged without any evidence to support the claim.

http://www.billrini.com/index.php/2005/12/01/motivations-for-rigging-online-poker/

12-09-2005, 07:58 PM

"so why would they intentionally alienate their best customers, to try and entice the fish with a few extra suckouts here and there? It makes no sense at all from a business perspective."
It makes a hell of a lot of sense. I'm not saying that the sites are rigged, all I'm saying is, yes, it would make sense to entice the fish. Why? To keep them coming back for more. Think about it, if they never hit their longshots, they'd become disenchanted and stop playing altogether. However, if you notice, when players like that suck out, the suckout tends to award them a nice-sized pot. That's what they remember. It's like those lemmings that keep popping quarter after quarter into the slot machines. At the end of the trip to Vegas, they're in the red. In fact, they probably lost more money than they brought because they went to the ATM five times to reload. Why do they keep doing it? Why do they keep returning to Vegas to go through that again. Because every now and then they win $1,200 bucks and believe the illusion that they can become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Clank, clank, clank....more quarters into the slot. Fish are the same way. They remember that big pot they won (actually, sucked-out) and believe they know what they're doing and that they can do it again. They don't realize that, in reality, they've lost more money playing poker than they've won.
I'm not saying that online poker is rigged, I agree with you that it doesn't make sense to jeopardized a good thing by juicing the card flow (although greed makes people do stupid things) but to say there would be "no" incentive to do it is wrong IMHO. I belive they don't do it because they believe there will always be fish to replace those that lose heart in donating to intelligent 2+2ers.

fluff

12-09-2005, 09:17 PM

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Think about it, if they never hit their longshots, they'd become disenchanted and stop playing altogether

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Duh, they hit their longshots as often as probability says they should. They're longshots, not impossible shots.

[ QUOTE ]
It's like those lemmings that keep popping quarter after quarter into the slot machines. At the end of the trip to Vegas, they're in the red. In fact, they probably lost more money than they brought because they went to the ATM five times to reload. Why do they keep doing it? Why do they keep returning to Vegas to go through that again. Because every now and then they win $1,200 bucks and believe the illusion that they can become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Clank, clank, clank....more quarters into the slot.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you're saying that Vegas slots are rigged to go off more than they should? Whaaa??? Of course Vegas doesn't rig their slots to pay out more than they should, and yet the fish are still coming. So why again does a pokersite need to rig their longshot?

There might be other reasons to "rig" the game, but yours isn't it.

gabyyyyy

12-09-2005, 09:21 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Think about it, if they never hit their longshots, they'd become disenchanted and stop playing altogether

[/ QUOTE ]

Duh, they hit their longshots as often as probability says they should. They're longshots, not impossible shots.

[ QUOTE ]
It's like those lemmings that keep popping quarter after quarter into the slot machines. At the end of the trip to Vegas, they're in the red. In fact, they probably lost more money than they brought because they went to the ATM five times to reload. Why do they keep doing it? Why do they keep returning to Vegas to go through that again. Because every now and then they win $1,200 bucks and believe the illusion that they can become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Clank, clank, clank....more quarters into the slot.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you're saying that Vegas slots are rigged to go off more than they should? Whaaa??? Of course Vegas doesn't rig their slots to pay out more than they should, and yet the fish are still coming. So why again does a pokersite need to rig their longshot?

There might be other reasons to "rig" the game, but yours isn't it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you not read? Oh ya this is the zoo what am I thinking.

He did not say they rig them to win more often. He said it's the WAY they rig them. Big win here and there to keep you hooked.

Learn2Read

You lose at life.

fluff

12-09-2005, 09:54 PM

lol

Wyers

12-10-2005, 12:26 AM

Gabyyyy,

I'm truly torn as to whether you are actually a regular High Stakes poster who created this gimmick account for kicks, or if you really are this lonely, bored and dillusional.

If you are the former... it's kind of cute but time to let it go bro.

If you are the latter... time for that mental health assessment.

For the record, if it wasn't for denial of r***b**k, I'd be all over Stars like white on rice. I'm looking forward to more details on the VIP program Lee has been touting.

revots33

12-10-2005, 12:29 AM

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The arguements that they wouldnt do it because the rake is profitable enough anyway are incredibly naive given the types of things that go on in big business day in day out.

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My point isn't that businesses never break the law or do unethical things to make more money. My point is they wouldn't do it if it COST them money. Running a crooked game makes absolutely no sense in an operation where the site's only reason for existence is to provide a venue for a fair poker game.

Sites do not need to program in suckouts to keep the fish happy, because suckouts are already a part of poker. The luck element in poker keeps the fish coming back all by itself.

gabyyyyy

12-10-2005, 12:31 AM

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My point is they wouldn't do it if it COST them money. Running a crooked game makes absolutely no sense in an operation where the site's only reason for existence is to provide a venue for a fair poker game.

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How does it cost them money when idiots like you come to their defense anytime someone makes an accusation?

Guthrie

12-10-2005, 01:41 AM

The operative words:

"Here in the world of online poker, we’ve sped up time, so even relatively unlikely events happen all the time."

All these suckouts and oddities people use as absolute proof that online poker is rigged are nothing more than the result of being dealt lots and lots more hands. I play more hands of poker in an hour online than I used to play all day at the Bike.

MikeTexas

12-10-2005, 03:20 AM

My opponent hit one of those 989-1 shots just yesterday on prima after I had flopped a set of Queens.

I chekced my set to slwoplay which is something I NEVER do in low limit games since you typically get action regardless.

Anyways, a four comes on the turn and I decide to bet. The guy calls and then the river is another four. I bet, he raies, I re-raise, he caps.....sure enough the guy flips over pocket fours for runner runner quads.

I was shocked....but not because the odds of him hitting runner runner quads is so remote.....but because the one time I decide its safe to slowplay a hand (and this is a heads up pot mind you) the guy goes runner runner for quads. I never slowplay....ever.....its usually unecessary....but the one time I decide to do it this happens. LOL.

12-10-2005, 12:09 PM

[ QUOTE ]
So you're saying that Vegas slots are rigged to go off more than they should? Whaaa??? Of course Vegas doesn't rig their slots to pay out more than they should, and yet the fish are still coming. So why again does a pokersite need to rig their longshot?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sorry, did you even read what I wrote? If you actually read what I wrote and think that I believe that online poker is rigged, or that slots are rigged, you need to improve your reading comprehension skills.
All casino games favor the casino (roulette, blackjack, craps, slots). There's no question about that. However, if the players of those games didn't win occasionally, they would lose hope and stop playing altogether, however, they have tasted "victory" and keep coming back.
I did not say that online sites are rigged to provide the same psychological illusion for fish, I merely said that if they were to do that, then that would be the reasoning for them to do it.
The OP said they have no incentive to cheat since they make millions legitimately. That's nonsence. Ken Lay had no reason to be dishonest since he was making tons of money legally as was Martha Stewart. They had millions, and they had the capacity to continue to make enormous amounts of money in an honest manner, so, by that logic, it would be unreasonable to think that they are capable of dishonestly earning more money. However, greed affects even the wealthiest of people. They had no incentive, but they did it anyway. That's corporate America. $100 million is not enough.

timprov

12-10-2005, 12:15 PM

I am amused at the rigging accusation Lee was defending against, which really was nonsensical. I hope we can all agree that none of the poker sites are going to rig the game to make you fold more often preflop.

fluff

12-10-2005, 01:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sorry, did you even read what I wrote? If you actually read what I wrote and think that I believe that online poker is rigged, or that slots are rigged, you need to improve your reading comprehension skills.
All casino games favor the casino (roulette, blackjack, craps, slots). There's no question about that. However, if the players of those games didn't win occasionally, they would lose hope and stop playing altogether, however, they have tasted "victory" and keep coming back.
I did not say that online sites are rigged to provide the same psychological illusion for fish, I merely said that if they were to do that, then that would be the reasoning for them to do it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man you're dense. Yes I know you said you don't believe the sites are rigged. But you said that the "psychological illusion" could be one incentive for the sites to rig their games if they were to rig their games. You then go on to compare this to winning slots in Vegas (note: Vegas also not rigged, yet "psychological illusion" still there)

To which I counter, the "psychological illusion" already
exist because longshots do get hit, as statistics require (you seem to think they don't for some reason?).

So creating this so-called "psychological illusion" is not an incentive for the sites to rig their games. Again, in one sentence: There can be no incentive to rig games to create something that already exist. In other words: Your premise that this could be an incentive is flawed. (Note: the last 2 sentences is the main point of this and my previous post, which you seem to have misunderstood. Probably reading comprehension related).

If you counter with "they have incentive to make it happen more often than they should for a stronger psychological effect", please don't bother. You really think the fish will notice if a 900-1 shot comes in 850-1?

As for pot size of suckouts: duh, the very definition of a suckout makes it almost necesary for the pots to be big.

college_boy

12-10-2005, 02:04 PM

People like you are why the games are so good.

adanthar

12-10-2005, 02:11 PM

I'll say the same thing I said in the last gabyyyyy thread: if Internet poker's rigged, so, apparently, are my cashouts.

Amazingly, though I got called a wannabe microlimit player or something, she mysteriously disappeared after I posted screenshots.

Lee Jones

12-10-2005, 02:14 PM

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Yeah, I'm sure it took less time to code the simulation than to use the binomial distribution function on a TI calculator or EXCEL or a stats package.

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When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Regards, Lee
"I rock at simulation. I suck at math."

MarkSummers

12-10-2005, 03:29 PM

nice article lee. Don't listen to the troll.

MicroBob

12-10-2005, 04:00 PM

calling everyone idiots when YOU are the one who is losing is somewhat...well...ironic I suppose.

Everyone has bad-beats...I would be willing to bet that a winning player would turn a profit with the exact hands and cards that you had.

You can post your p-tracker stats if you want to try to convince people that you really are unluckier than everyone else.
Or you can post some hands to try to see if you are playing them correctly.

If you are losing then it is unwise to assume that you are playing your hands correctly.

Also...did I somehow get confused on "I'm leaving the forums" means?
Welcome back again I suppose.

bpb

12-10-2005, 04:16 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
My point is they wouldn't do it if it COST them money. Running a crooked game makes absolutely no sense in an operation where the site's only reason for existence is to provide a venue for a fair poker game.

[/ QUOTE ]

How does it cost them money when idiots like you come to their defense anytime someone makes an accusation?

[/ QUOTE ]

People who live in glass houses ....

12-10-2005, 05:03 PM

You're right, Einstein, big corporations that make large sums of money never do anything corrupt in order to eek out that last couple of dollars when they don't really need to.
No online site has any incentive to ensure future business from idiots that shouldn't be there in the first place. That's a ludicrous idea. I mean, it happens every day in the real world, Enron, Toys R Us, etc. There's never an incentive to lie, cheat and steal, yet it happens constantly. So, to say there is no incentive is, well, dense.
You play at certain sites, and not others, why? Because you feel that the games are easier at site A than at site B. In order to maximize profits a site needs more customers, both donkeys and good players, which, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are since you are here. So, they do have an incentive to make sure there are fish there so you will play at their site. The more players, the more they make.

silvershade

12-10-2005, 07:11 PM

[ QUOTE ]

My point isn't that businesses never break the law or do unethical things to make more money. My point is they wouldn't do it if it COST them money. Running a crooked game makes absolutely no sense in an operation where the site's only reason for existence is to provide a venue for a fair poker game.

Sites do not need to program in suckouts to keep the fish happy, because suckouts are already a part of poker. The luck element in poker keeps the fish coming back all by itself.

[/ QUOTE ]

The sites exist to make money, end of story. Even things like customer service are simply about getting your cash in the end.

On the subject of fish, they continue to play live year after year for many reasons, not all of them related to winning. A lot of those reasons ( socialising for instance ) simply dont exist online, online poker is a poor way of meeting that desire. Others such as a desire for competition could equally be served by any number of other online games and once people get tired of losing or just bored of the game probably will be. It's a huge assumption to believe that in a couple of years once the poker boom is dead and gone fish will continue to log on in any numbers to play, not everyone who loses is a compulsive gambler. Sites have a huge incentive to try and keep them playing, if rigging offered a way to help with that then human nature being what it is it wouldnt be a shock to find someone out there succumb to temptation, of course its quite possible no one will succumb but the temptation is out there nevertheless.

As for the assertion that rigging would cost them money, that seems slightly absurd, good players dont really pay the rake even though PT might fool you into believing we do, in fact the fish pay for both our winnings and the rake, the industry needs them more than it needs us, not less. Poker is a zero sum game, if there are no losers there is no game, that's the bottom line. The sites can probably lose some sharks quite happily if it comes to a choice between that and losing too many fish.

revots33

12-11-2005, 01:39 AM

[ QUOTE ]
As for the assertion that rigging would cost them money, that seems slightly absurd, good players dont really pay the rake even though PT might fool you into believing we do, in fact the fish pay for both our winnings and the rake, the industry needs them more than it needs us, not less. Poker is a zero sum game, if there are no losers there is no game, that's the bottom line.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your logic makes no sense. "The industry needs them more than it needs us?" Who's "them"? Are we talking about some other species? I'm pretty sure what the industry needs is poker players, which is what we all are. A player is only a fish in relation to his skill vs. the skill of his competition - there is no group of players called "fish" that the sites are trying to recruit.

You make it sound like the poker site execs are sitting around a conference table saying, "We've got lots of players - but not enough fish! We need to sign up more fish!!!" The whole thing is ludicrous.

Poker sites need players. Players generate rake. Especially frequent players, and high-limit players. The large majority of these players want to play where they trust the game is fair. The idea that more people would intentionally choose to play at a site because the games are crooked, is ridiculous.