How do online poker sites determine cards?

[CraigJ]

How do online poker sites (such as Party Poker where I play) determine the cards delt. Before every new hand do they randomly determine the 52 card order? Does the computer then burn a card before the flop, turn, river? Maybe its just me, or maybe its normal, but I've seen an awful lot of great hands beat by incredible hands on Party Poker. Straights, flushes, full houses, seem to be the minimum you better have not to fold. Just myself the other day I had 4 aces. The next game or so later another person had 4 kings. I am fairly new to poker and don't seem to see this much "power" when we play with real cards. Plus I've seen an awful lot of bad beats determined by the river. Is this normal? And again does anyone know what determines the cards delt?

Thanks,

Craig

[DyessMan89]

I have no idea ... but I agree with what you said. It seems like you make a lot more "big hands" playing online then you do off-line.

[Stork]

Online decks actually have a 14th spade.

[cardcounter0]

True. But it is always the burn card, so you never see it.
[img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[cocarondelle]

I'm not quite sure about the whole burning a card on the turn/river, but i've seen the results of the probability that certain cards are dealt out, compared to the actual results on pokerroom.com and have noticed similar numbers. So it can't be any different than a live game, so i'll take my chances playing them [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. I also believe you see more bad beats online because the amount of hands you play in an hour is significantly a lot more than in a live game.

[shawn_p]

Bigger hands win in a full ring game than in a short handed game because more hands are dealt out.

When playing online more hands are played per hour than when played live.

Therefore one may perceive that very powerful hands occur more frequently online.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

It seems like you make a lot more "big hands" playing online then you do off-line.

THat's for one simple reason. You see more hands online.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

There's no need for a burn card online. The only reason a card is burned live is too offset the chance that a player got a glimpse of the next card during the preceding action.

[CraigJ]

Why a 14th spade? What is the purpose? Why not just have the computer randomly generate a 52 card deck then burn the proper cards as in a "real" poker game? The mathematics of creating a program to do that don't seem that hard. I studied BASIC progamming back in high school on ancient Commodore computers. I could even make a program to do that and I am by no means a computer whiz.

[Dov]

It was a joke Craig. You need to re-tune your sarcasm detector.