Poker Stories: Full Tilt Poker is Fixed!

Catching 2 perfect cards is only ~950 to 1, scratch off tickets have lower odds than that for $1,000 winners but it still happens, just not very frequently. Anyway, just wanted to add: get ready for a lifetime of failure in poker (oh and video poker too). The rest of us will continue fighting over the cash you left on the site Thanks a bunch and come back soon you action junkie!

Okay, this happened to me this past Saturday at my local casino.

I have a pair of tens, which is an overpair in this case (7 high on the flop). So I lead out and bet a pot sized bet of $20. One guy calls me. On the turn i bet about $60, another pot sized bet. He called me again on the turn. It turned out that he called me on the flop with no pair or draw, only to hit runner runner straight flush, A-5 of clubs.

From that hand, I could never even begin to think that any sort of poker is rigged. I know that this will not change the minds of anyone here, but just an example of how things can happen.

KB

I would play @ a crap site if someone paid me to, as well.

Go play in a real live tourny,,, play close attention to the cards and hands, then come back and play here and be prepared for the wake-up call.

...and please dont tell me about a bad beat hand you saw on a TV poker show..because yes bad beats happen, but not at the consistency, frequency and brutality they do here..it's mathemtaically impossible!!! to see it all the time and everytime..

The TV shows show you the most exciting hands, you might see 30 hands during a 1 hour show, meanwhile those poor saps have been at the table for hoursss and played 10x that..so get a clue people!! clue In!!

Every poker site I've been on has people complaining about bad beats and how the site is fixed.

Some advice... Learn probability. Then try to complain about bad beats.

The 3 biggest reasons that I have for believing that the site is NOT rigged;

1. When I first started playing poker, I played almost exclusively online. I was a horrible player. I reloaded several times. As I got a little better I was reloading less, then I became a break even player. After some time of doing this, reading, studying, gaining more experience, I became a winning player. I certainly didn't get any long term wins from consistent bad beats I was delivering when I was a weak player, and the bad beats I get right now are not significant enough to keep me from still making a profit.

2. There is little incentive for the site to rig. They can have a completely honest, worry-free environment and make millions. The advantage to rigging wouldn't make enough money to be worth risking the solid income the site has off of just being fair. As mentiond earlier, it's like winning the lottery but then going to rob a store so that you can get a little more money.

3. I do not have any mathematical evidence to prove that the site ISN'T rigged, but I will say that the beats I've seen online are consistent with live games. If beats are holding you down in the long term, it is more likely that you are either a. making mistakes in your play or b. playing beyond the limits of your bankroll.

Just as a player who sucks out once in awhile can't maintain income from suck outs and lucky draws, and player who loses to bad beats should not being going broke over them. If bad beats have busted you or foced you into smaller limits, then you're having a play AND/OR money management problem.

I agree with griffon as well, I know keller's mind or perspective is not going to change on this, but I'm responding for the benefit of others who are unsure about this theory which has been put forth.

If there really is some kind of bad beat system to consistently deliver beats, why post on the boards about it? Just play your game the other way around. For example AA, KK are the worst hands. Always call an all in pre flop with 72o or 82o. You can play suited connectors as long as they're low, 2-3 or 3-4 max. Take advantage of this undeniable system and make millions! laff

This sounds vaguely familiar. I was in Germany in 1942 playing a high stakes poker game, and this guy with a thin moustache expressed similar views on online poker...

I think it was in this thread, maybe another. But I've already pointed out that the fastest way to hook people is to let the RNG do its job. Basic behavioral psychology tells us that variable reinforcement schedules...the type that result when you let the RNG do its job....create the strongest reinforcement for behavior.

The payout schedule of the slot machines is pure random numbers and people just sit and play those things for hours. The only way to make the slots more effective is to give players the illusion of control.

The best possible design for addicting people to online poker uses an honest RNG. Any attempt at rigging would be less effective. I'll say that another way: rigging the RNG would be counterproductive to the goal of addicting people to online poker.

If the site wants to increase their revenue they do not need to rig the RNG, they need to make it as truely random as possible. That's what casinos do with the slots and it works marvelously (for the casinos).

Why would the site cheat when the most profitable option is the honest one?

Id like to use this thread to offer my new service.

For just 100$ i will make an Anti-Suckout TinFoil hat. Made from the same materials that are used to stop aliens from reading your mind, leading researchers have found that they also will prevent poker sites from fixing the games and dealing you bad beats!![

What numbers would convince you it's not rigged? Between myself and others there are hundreds of thousands of hands logged - what do you want to see?

Yeah, I hear ya. I definitely don't play it for income. I like to get out and socialize and drink beer and smoke cigarettes and play poker, and that place gives me the opportunity to do all of the above. I'm trying to gain more experience before I take a stack of benjamins to the casino... That's kind of why I wanted your critique of my play, since you're obviously already at that level of play.

Quick question: Have you ever tried dealing out thousands of hands and seeing how often set-up hands show up? Before you challenge anyone else to do this you should try it yourself. You might be surprised.

Do you have any idea how often AA will show up at a nine player table? I'd like to hear your guess before providing the mathematically correct answer because your clearly feel that it is much less likely than it is.

We'll make it simple. 400 hands dealt at a table of 9 players. How many times should AA show up on average? How many times does AA show up in actual play in 400 hands on a full table at FT?

Unless you know exactly how often it actually happens relative to how often it should happen you have no idea if it is happening too often or not.

ok, I guess I've actually seen a couple of straight flushes and heard someone call out royal flush at a table near me, but I haven't hit one or had one hit against me...

Hey, Deadmoney, I won both tournaments last night at the Point. $100. But more importantly, I beat all the players that I play with 4 nights a week twice on the same night.

I am very sorry but i just cant help myself i have to reply

you say you go to a live casino and see 1 suckout in 100 hands and 10 suckouts online every hundred hands( i would bet everything i have that you have ZERO proof your just throwing numbers out)

I have two things to say that blow your argument out of the water

First 100 hands isnt nearly a big enough amount of hands to compare try several hundred thousand and i might believe you.

Secondly like i said before live play has far less showdowns then online play. People at a real casino usually wont call to the river with a gutshot straight draw because they dont want to look stupid in front of everyone and get laughed out of the place. online this has no such affect on people.

no one cares what the guy to their left thinks hes a thousand miles away and wpnt remember your name 20 minutes from now

so to be perfectly clear less showdowns = less suckouts whereas more showdowns = more suckouts

do you see how that math works or are you to ignorant to even understand it

IS THERE SOMETHING YOU SEE THAT I AM DOING WRONG BY ASKING PEOPLE TO JUDGE FOR THEMSELVES???

I'M POINTING OUT SOME OBSERVATIONS I HAVE MADE,ALONG WITH OTHERS, AND THEN ASKING THEM TO GO TO A CASINO AND BE ENLIGHTNED AS TO HOW CROOKED THIS SOFTWARE IS....

AND YOU SEE A PROBLEM WITH THAT??..INTERESTING...

lmathis421, your an idiot. Honestly how could the site profit from bad beats? especially the ones you mention.

A fixed site would be one that has board cards like Jh,Th,Kh,Jc,X constantly. And they'd dish out the players cards for straights, flushes and fullhouses. This would up the betting and feed the rake.

But people like you being pissy about a few suckouts are just stupid, your not gonna play at FTP anymore... which completely shoots the idea down of it being rigged, coz if it is rigged, they've done it so that they lose players, which is ridiculous.

Thank you. I thought so.

Occam's Razor has to do with the quality of the explanation, not the thing being explained. As always, the simplest explanation that is consistent with the observations is the best. In order for a more complex explanation to be warrented there must be some degree of misfit between the facts and the explanation. In this case there is no misfit to explain.

Dig out your psychology books....there is no such qualification. Random interval reinforcement works. The variable skill levels of the players doesn't alter that fact.

of course is fixed. there are far too many good hands, every hand at every table. if you play it for long enough you will notice it and it deceides who gets what in the community cards due to how they play i.e agressive raises etc. its a lot more obvious when your playing in tournaments when trying to play a little more conservatively and the turn and river constantly ruin you.

A couple of points here;

1. I've seen just as many beats and crazy river cards in live games as I've seen online.

2. It makes no sense whatsoever to give a losing player the edge, being that it's the losers that are constantly reloading. The site maintains quite a revenue simply out of there being more deposits than withdrawals, rake not included. Most of the money people have invested is tied up with the site, the rake is just a way to reduce the amount the site should have to pay out provided there is the uncommon circumstance of someone doing a withdrawal.

3. The site can make millions upon millions of dollars by being completely fair, and by being unfair any potential gain would be dismal enough to not make it worth the risk.

4. I notice that the people that complain about the site being rigged are people that lose. I don't see any people on here talking about how much money they've won on bad beats, and after all if people are consistantly losing money to bad beats, then somebody must be consistantly gaining money from them.

The site is not rigged, and there is little if any motive for it to be. It really is that simple.

Griffin:

I understand Occam's Razor. I am saying you using it to defend your argument here is baseless. You are USING it as the basis to say that my theory is not likely....

Yet Occam's Razor used when the argument is millions of dollars a day/gambling/poker/history of integrity of gambling

Says that a rig is most likely!

It all depends on what the argument is about.....

Lets see, 2000 players average and being generous we'll say they are all on 9 handed tables playing an average of 70 hands / hr (6max of course speeds things up but I'll be conservative proving my point--as well as the 70 hands / hr).

Thats 222.22 tables on average playing 70 hands / hour 24hrs a day. So, 222.22 x 70 hands/hr x 24hrs = ~373,330 hands. Royal flushes in holdem are about a 1 in 30,000 chance if played to the river, so with this player base you should expect over 12 royals a day--except that not all royals are made because of folding so 3 per day is either too low or just right but NOT too many.

stop posting rigged threads and spend some time in the strategy sections ... when you learn what hands to play and how to bet you will start to win more.

I don't have any illusions that I'll change kellerbaker's mind. What I am hoping is that by keeping my side of the conversation calm and rational folks who are undecided can see a clear difference between the two sides:

The rigged folks who make sweeping generalizations backed up with no more than a handful of examples and lots of caps locks.

The not rigged folks who who provide specific details involving mathematics, psychology, and the different rates of play.

kellerbaker and friends are welcome to believe what they wish. What I want to avoid is their misleading others to share their beliefs because those of us who know better failed to speak up.

I wonder if the bad beat complainers would shut up if everytime someone won a hand that was a favorite they posted it here. Just because you get 2 bad beats doesnt make a site rigged (especially since one was pocket 7s beating pocket 6s, who woulda guessed??)

If I had been drinking something it would have come right up my nose this is soooo outrageously funny.

The RIGGED folks have yet to provide any, any, legitimate statistical data. All statistical data to date has been consistent with unrigged.

Hi guys, if you want to see the distribution of hole cards, flop cards, turn cards etc. for a little over 100,000 hands take a look at this link

http://www.pokerpartys.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9054

Its not a lot of hands in retrospect but even with that many things fall into the expected values. It will be interesting to see an even more detailed analysis on millions of hands this summer when the team of players doing this are done.

Good luck and keep grinding it out