Seriously, is PokerStars rigged?

F1 · 10-25-2008, 07:56 AM

Not asking this because im a losing fish, but a winner on stars, i just find my casino poker vs pokerstars completely different.for example, I have multiple independent poker pals that subscribe to the theory, "first one all-in must win", which seems to hold on pstars, regardless of starting hand.another observation; a big stack, with any mediocre hand, will bust out small stack if all in on bubble in a torn.another, in low hand games, (eg omaha hi/low), low flops come down more frequently, than in a high hand game (hold'em or omaha).I have a theory that stars have reduced the combinations possible to speed up their system... i mean, there should be approx 2.5 million community card combinations, what if on stars there was only 1 million... with the boring hands deleted (e.g. high card king is the best hand)... could you tell? backdoor full-houses and flushes are much more fun than winning with a single pair, right?what do you guys think?got any 'crazy' stars observations/theories of your own?

HappyHelper4U · 10-25-2008, 03:23 PM

I see this way to often. Let me try to explain.1. A poker site gets no extra money rigging hands. They make rake on every hand no matter what. In fact, it would actually hurt a poker site to "setup" players with very strong hands to go against each other. Every poker site has a set % of rake with a cap. Once the pot goes past a certain amount of $$, the site gets no more rake. So if a poker site was rigging hands, they would rig it for medium strength hands that make medium sized pots to maximize the amount they make in rake.2. The reason you recall more strange things in online poker is because you simply play more hands than you do in a Casino. You don't have to wait for dealers, drunks, etc. You can also play numerous tables online. I usually play 400 hands an hour online while only about 20-30 hands an hour live at a Casino.3. In a tournament, the short stacks are getting desperate and go all in with a bigger range than the big stacks who are calling them. Therefore, they will lose more often than they will be winning because on average, their hands will be weaker.4. Poker is a game that can have high variance(luck factor). Because of the variance, you might notice strange things happening in the short-term. However, if you were to keep a database of 100 million hands from Pokerstars, you would see that everything is normal.5. These theories come about after people lose a lot of money due to playing bad. So don't believe what you hear. Especially when humans have very selective memories. Ex: I remember both times I lost to 1 outer river cards which gave my opponents quads and a Royal flush but I don't remember anytime that I hit a 2 outer on someone to beat them. And I assure you, I have done it many times.

isthisarhetoricalquestion · 10-25-2008, 10:49 PM

PokerStars' shuffle is certainly not "rigged". They have dealt over 20 billion hands and freely give all real money players their entire hand history for statistical analysis if they so wish. If you want yours, simply send an email to support@pokerstars.com and ask for them. You can, and other people have (there are people with hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars at stake - so they care enough to look properly), run any analyses you like on your hand histories to see if you there are any anomalies. Thus far nothing whatsoever has been shown other than a fair shuffle.Check out the following links if you like: http://www.pokerstars.com/security.html http://www.pokerstars.com/rng_audit.htmland for some studies by other players, check these ones out: http://tinyurl.com/32ajma http://tinyurl.com/2wu99wWith all real money hands histories available, not to mention the tracking software used by many regulars, any anomalies would be easily spotted. Why would PokerStars jeopardize their entire business and undoubtedly be found out?All of the theories that circulate exist primarily for two reasons; they come about as a result of inaccurate observation - people are pretty bad at estimating statistics, and when they get bubbled by a bad hand it *really* hurts and they overestimate the frequency of it as a result (this is a cognitive bias); they have other reasons for happening that the observer doesn't realise - big stacks seem to win more because they have enough chips to gamble and get in more pots where they have an opportunity to knock shorter stacks out.Have a browse around the net, go to some of the respected forums such as twoplustwo and see what people have to say. There are no incentives for PokerStars to rig their shuffle, and every incentive not to.