Rehashing a familiar complaint
Just joined PokerStars two days ago. I was excited. Enter 1cent/2cent cash game:
Dealt pocket Queens twice in a row. Three times overall in like a half hour. Witness two all-ins of pocket Aces over pocket Kings. Endure two or three really strange, peculiar, tough beats I've never experienced before.
That was the first session (only about an hour long).
Following three or four sessions (highlights):
In the span of about 45 minutes, I was dealt way too many low pocket pairs. Like lots. As far as I know you shouldn't be dealt a pocket pair of any kind too too often. Then, I know I only went all-in with pocket two's, but still the fact that my opponent always seems to beat me with a better pocket pair all-in is pretty strange (he had pocket Kings). My last one was my pocket Queens losing to pocket Aces after some post-flop battling I end up all-in on the river and lose.
Weird.
I know this has been discussed perhaps to its limit already, but I didn't see any definitive thread on it and like some I suppose I wanted to quietly vent and get some feedback. Is it like most def rigged or what? Seems kinda hard to believe for a legit site like PokerStars. I sent customer service an email, if anyone's interested I can relay the response, I gave them all the same examples you see above.
Lol, please help me out! Life is so much more fun when it's not rigged.
"cheers:
Dealt pocket Queens twice in a row. Three times overall in like a half hour. Witness two all-ins of pocket Aces over pocket Kings. Endure two or three really strange, peculiar, tough beats I've never experienced before.
That was the first session (only about an hour long).
Following three or four sessions (highlights):
In the span of about 45 minutes, I was dealt way too many low pocket pairs. Like lots. As far as I know you shouldn't be dealt a pocket pair of any kind too too often. Then, I know I only went all-in with pocket two's, but still the fact that my opponent always seems to beat me with a better pocket pair all-in is pretty strange (he had pocket Kings). My last one was my pocket Queens losing to pocket Aces after some post-flop battling I end up all-in on the river and lose.
Weird.
I know this has been discussed perhaps to its limit already, but I didn't see any definitive thread on it and like some I suppose I wanted to quietly vent and get some feedback. Is it like most def rigged or what? Seems kinda hard to believe for a legit site like PokerStars. I sent customer service an email, if anyone's interested I can relay the response, I gave them all the same examples you see above.
Lol, please help me out! Life is so much more fun when it's not rigged.
"cheers:
Comments
Mark
Lol
Hint: Google pp vs pp odds
Just jumping on the bandwagon eh GTA? Thought you were more original than that
On second thought, you're not being sarcastic at all are you?
Absolutely man, glad you're interested. No response yet as far as I know, I'll definitely post it (hoping some sort of decent response comes).
I'm interested lol... What exactly is this? Sorry, don't feel like googling it at the moment.
Thanks for the responses guys, rigged indeed I guess, it just seems like such a sad thing, but I guess on the brightside it's still sorta fun, better than attempting to play online poker with play money. One remedy I created was switching to Limit Hold'em, at least you don't lose your whole stack on a bad beat that way.
This is not an angry complaint (haha). More of a "wondering." I've just had perhaps one too many peculiar situations come up so far in my two-day old online poker career with PokerStars. I've logged maybe a little over two hours altogether at cash tables, playing in like five separate sessions.
At first, I was dealt pocket Queens twice in a row, which as far as I know should be incredibly rare. Not only that, a few hands later I got pocket Queens again!
I've witnessed in a single session and not that far apart two players going all-in against each other and both times it was pocket Aces over Pocket Kings. I've read that it should be incredibly rare that Aces are dealt with Kings in the same round, and it was Daniel Negreanu saying it in his book.
In a most recent round, I was dealt what honestly was an insane amount of low pocket pairs, to be realistic it was probably somewhere like 18-20% of my hands seemed to be low pocket pairs and I just don't think that's mathematically sound (I think pocket pairs of any kind are a little more rare than that). Not only that, towards the end of a session I went all-in with pocket two's and came up against pocket Kings. Just seems strange...
I've taken a number of peculiar and tough beats as well and it's just all adding up to be a bit of a strange experience. I may not have thought anything of it, but before I got involved in online poker I remember a friend of mine commenting on the sometimes "rigged" nature of some online poker sites. Honestly I'm totally willing not to believe it and realize this is very unlikely given an upstanding legitimate site such as this, I was just wondering if there's a better explanation for what I think is pretty blatantly odd situations that come up with great frequency at PokerStars tables so far, Should it just sorta "smooth out" eventually or something?
Again, just a "wondering..."
Thanks!
Hello Joseph,
Thank you for your email.
We are sorry to hear you have suffered some bad beats recently. Please keep in mind bad beats are a part of poker and happen to all players, whether they play poker in a live casino, at a friend's house, or online at PokerStars.
Please understand that if there is a low probability of any event happening that this does not mean it is impossible.
For example, the chance of picking an Ace out of a deck of 52 cards, four times in-a-row (provided that you reshuffle the cards after each time you pull a card out) is is ((4/52) * (3/51) * (2/50) * (1/49)) or 0.00000369%. However, if you tried it 50 million times (the average amount of hands we deal on PokerStars each day), regardless of how seemingly low the probability may be, you would mathematically expect to pull out an Ace, 4 times in a row, just over 184 times!
Low probability events *will* occur given a large number of attempts. At PokerStars we deal around 50 million hands per day, so the low probability hands you think are impossible actually happen many times, simply because of the enormous number of hands we deal.
Think of it another way; If low probability events never happen (and our opponents never outdraw us by catching their one or two-outers) it would actually indicate a shuffle was NOT random. For a shuffle to be legitimate, low probability poker
hands must also happen sometimes.
PokerStars deals the cards in a fair and honest manner. Once the deck is shuffled, it is set, and the order in which the cards are dealt cannot be changed. The software that shuffles and deals the cards cannot control who wins and loses; it just deals the cards, and the rest is up to the players in the game.
Our software produces a shuffle that is completely random and favours no player over any other. The methods we use ensure complete randomization of the cards and complete unpredictability of the cards to come:
PokerStars Software Security - Secure Online Poker
We arranged for Gaming Laboratories International, a widely recognized independent gaming product testing laboratory, to review PokerStars' shuffle. Their investigation found the shuffling to be fair and random:
Random Number Generator - PokerStars Randomly Generated Numbers - RNG
This information is also described by Lee Jones, Head of Poker Communications, in a video called 'How does PokerStars shuffle the deck?’, which can be found at:
http://www.pokerstars.tv/channels/2014/10/inside-pokerstars---episode-3.shtml
We encourage you to review your own hand histories and to perform your own analysis using widely available poker tracking software. We have dealt over 100 billion hands and freely give real money hand histories any time someone requests them. If you want, we can send you a copy of every single real money hand history that you have played.
*Every* proper investigation of our shuffle has found the same thing: our cards are randomly shuffled. Many who have conducted such studies have posted their findings to the Internet. You can find two of them here:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.gambling.poker/OtsfsNSLx3E/f0rcZ_4tCJAJ
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.gambling.poker/JJin8F9J4Mg/a0yfh6QQcBcJ
We hope this information helps you to understand that PokerStars' games are fair. We value all of our players and take the integrity of our site very seriously.
Regards,
Mick
PokerStars Support Team
How did Mick do?
(If you guys help me out, we can work to make another response for me to send out if you guys are as unfazed by this response as I am.)
I thought Mick's answer was a bit robotic and emotionless and not rooted in the situations I had described. I still remain willing and actually wanting to believe that the RNG is legit. I don't want a rigged game anymore than you don't. It's just that my gameplay experience so far have been so far removed from the usual poker I play in terms of the sheer oddity of it at times. As I mentioned in my original email I hope it's possible that it could "smooth out" and normalize. I just think that Mick's reasoning that odd hands may "seem" to be dealt more often due to the incredibly high volume of hands being dealt online at PokerStars each day is a bit faulty. Technically, when I play at home with friends/family or live at the casino, I am part of the vast body of poker games happening around the world, but my games and situations that arise are very very different than some of the things I've seen in only a very short time on PokerStars. Again, I'm honestly trying to make this an impassioned argument, I'm not angry, but I am interested in talking about this a little more and hope that it's not too much of a bother. I also happen to think that I am speaking for many people on this issue, as I've heard from people both online and offline that they think online poker is rigged. I realize you may get this complaint lodged often, but I do hope you are willing to continue to dialogue with me on this. Keep in mind I'm going to keep playing on PokerStars because no matter what it's still pretty fun!
The reason that it seemed non-tailored and robotic are these:
- Pokerstars is NOT rigged
- They get 10,000,000,0000,0000 emails like yours daily
- It's a quick, non-offensive response showing that IMPOSSIBLE is not the same as IMPROBABLE
- People and their memory are terrible at statistics.
Mark
Mark
Naw, not enough smarts or dumbs, you decide...
I dunno, I hear the jews control the cards
I knew it!
The high number of rigged-related emails may directly relate to the fact that it is rigged?
Do casinos deal with the same number of complaints?
I think the "impossible is not the same as improbable" is a weird argument.
My memory is pretty good as I'm still young and I had only logged a small number of minutes on PokerStars.
BOOM! he fucking got you there!
#truefacts
I'm aware that pocket Jacks can be beat by a better pocket pair, but how legitimate of a threat is that in legitimate poker? Is it very rare, fairly common, or in-between? I emailed PokerStars asking about the exact odds that pocket Jacks lose to a better pocket pair; not exactly out of rage but more curiousity to see if my situation makes sense. Like I said I've seen fairly big pocket pairs battle it out quite often in my online play and I sorta suspect it's too often.
Didn't mean to rehash the rehashed thread but this just came up and once again I wanted to vent and you guys are just so awesome so I knew you'd care about me, my well-being and my burgeoning poker career, online or otherwise. Any thoughts are appreciated much, thanks guys!
EDIT: I know some people mentioned it already, but is it a general consensus/opinion here on this forum that a lot (if not all) of online poker is rigged? I'm still hesitant myself to fully believe it despite my experiences, since sites like PokerStars are so legit and well-established, it seems impossible. Plus, I want to be able to play poker online and it's still sorta fun either way, so I'm rooting for it.
I'm pretty sure you're going to disregard me.. but 90% of the people agreeing that it's rigged are fucking with you. Nobody believes that unless they do not understand that impobable /= impossible as I said earlier. It is not rigged. These things happen. Go play 10k live hands and you'll see it happens about 1/3 as often per house as it does online, and that's because online is faster so you see more hands (In this example, about three times as many).
Mark
Easy solution, FOLD ALL POCKET PAIRS NO MATTER WHAT and you will never lose another dime to the conspiracy!
FU rigged poker sites!
fyp
>> I'm aware that pocket Jacks can be beat by a better pocket pair,
>> but how legitimate of a threat is that in legitimate poker?
>> Is it very rare, fairly common, or in-between?
You don't state how many players are playing, but the chance of one opponent having QQ, KK or AA when you have JJ is about 1.47% [ (4*3/50/49)*3 ].
With 5 opponents it is ~ 7.13%.
With 7 opponents it is ~ 9.84%
With 9 opponents it is ~ 12.47%
Of course, this has nothing to do with the likelihood that your opponent has one of those hands when they shove over the top of your raise!
But, if you are dealt 1000 hands the chance of this happening at least once is 2.03%
5000 hands - 9.73%
10000 hands - 18.51%
15000 hands - 26.44%
20000 hands - 33.6%