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Skypoker fixed? i think not
i was on another massive poker site and honestly the beats on there were worse than they are on here i used to think it was fixed but after spending some time on another site i see its clearly not, anyway what are your thoughts on it?
Comments
I vote not fixed, my reasoning is that all cards are random but it is possible to pick up unusual sequences as you need 1,000,000 hands + for a proper sample size whether it is correct. Again its all random so funny things happens they dont know if you have been outdrawn last 5 times with Aces it just happens
This should be interesting thread
Not fixed, poker is just one of those things that sometimes the (nearly) impossible is possible!!!
FWIW when I very first started playing, I was convinced it was fixed.....then I realised I was just Cr@p
What I will say is I play live around 35+ hrs a week and have been keeping a little geek notebook tracking 10%< suckout hands. They are there pretty regular gents. People put themselves into spots to get lucky, then...get lucky.
I'll go as far to say that I used to 100% sure online was set up for action, but am slightly reformed now. I still believe that as consumers we should keep demanding realtime (answerable) impartial adjudication, never being afraid to challenge the status quo. But I think the door swings both ways. If it is to be challenged it needs to be done off the back of imperial evidence and a combined community.
Doh is the most steadfast supporter, raising a very good key point. Many of the best in the world play online. The founders of our poker awareness. I've played in online MTT's with many. So they do habitually play. So I find it hard to accept that our foremost poker legends and role models..........are gullible clowns. The fulltime pro's would infact be the first to cry "RIGGED" if it was so. On this I have to agree with the DOHHHHster.
mods, close area 51 pls
had queens beat my kings with a flush yday as i was hu on final table of a tourny, i just laughed it off had a cheesestring and moved on
Exacily
PS- do you think his son will take over?
I consider online poker cards not being randomly dealt about equally as likely as all these things;
1. The Loch Ness Monster exists
2. Elvis Presley is still alive
3. Aliens regularly visit Earth to abduct people and make crop circles
4. Power Balance bands really do work
5. The world will end on May 21st 2011
6. Richard Orford will win the 2011 WSOP main event
I'm sure (although can't prove it of course) that most of the "it's fixed" voters don't keep detailed records of their results and analyse them - not just to determine why they've lost hands, but why they've won them as well. Without this it's all anecdotal. Just how many times do players benefit from those river cards?
Since taking up online poker again in January, I have kept detailed records of the cash games I've played, and they've been an eye opener. Of the 6,386 hands I've played on Sky (statistically speaking a small sample), just 32 (about half a per cent) account for more than 100% of my losses. Having looked at these I'm content I had a hefty advantage at the point of committing to the hand and that I would play 80%+ of them again in exactly the same way. So now having some first hand evidence, albeit a small amount, as to how volatile the game is (or can be) overall, I take the ". . . this happened to me the other night so it must be fixed . . ." type comments with a large pinch of salt.
Poker is not a pure game of skill, and the only time the best hand is guaranteed to win is after the river card has turned up and the person holding it is still in the game when all betting is concluded. Up to that point there aren't any.
As to others' beliefs that they aren't getting a fair deal (literally), it's not my intention to rubbish them - I was endeavouring to point out that the instances that many cite as evidence of the game here being rigged really don't hold up to scrutiny. This doesn't mean I don't respect other people's rights to believe what they want, in the same way as when people choose to practice a particular religious faith - especially those based on the existence of an omnipotent being or deity. They do so not because any evidence of such exists, but for a whole host of other reasons.
What records exactly do you keep?
Your sample is too small to make serious claims about, although I agree that variance is a fact of playing poker
Things recorded (or calculated from the data below):
Total number of sessions, hands per session and total amount bet for each session
Cumulative total bet to date
Amount won/lost per session
Cumulative amount won/lost to date
%age of folds pre-flop
%age of folds on one or two big blinds (cheap calls into the flop)
Anount lost to hands folded on the above
%age of hands contested beyond two BBs
Total wins/losses on the hands contested beyond two BBs per session
Cumulative amount won/lost on hands contested beyond two BBs
The total amount of the rake taken on winning hands per session
Cumulative total amount of the rake on winning hands to date
The rake as a %age of the profit on winning hands
Number of hands per session losing 50+ BBs
Cumulative amount of losses on hands losing 50+ BBs
Calculated win / loss rate per session
Cumulative win / loss rate to date
This is all taken from simply copying and pasting my hand histories into a spreadsheet I've created and the computer does the rest. I've also built in a widget to the spreadsheet that will provide a win/loss rate for
however many past sessions I care to specify.
The 32 hands I refer to above are those that represent losses of 50+ BBs.
You're right - it all does represent a very small sample, but there are definite trend lines in there that run reasonably consistently through the 2000, 3000, 4,000, 5,000 and 6,000 hand markers (the impact of the rake for example). I'm not making any sort of serious claim based upon it, but have used it as an example of the degree of "variance" that I have actually experienced.
If, when I started playing online poker again around four months ago, someone had told me that half a percent of my hands would equate to my entire losses to date (cash tables), I would have blown a raspberry at them - as I would have thought it extremely unlikely. But, the numbers are what they are and prove otherwise. It also underpins the value of keeping accurate records - and I have to say that the hand histories that Sky provide make this relatively easy to do, especially when calculating the cost of the rake (as opposed to 888 where the hand histories don't provide the same level of detail).
So why has the variance been what it has been. Is it to do with a corrupted randomness of the cards, or is it to do with opponents playing loose, chasing long odds drawers, betting in a cavalier manner, going on tilt and getting lucky when doing one or more of these? Is calling an all in with A,8o a winning strategy? People seem to do it quite a lot. One of the memorable instances is where someone called me through with a nothing hand, needing one of two cards on the river to make it a winner. No prizes for guessing what happened? Does it mean I think the deck is rigged? No - they just got lucky (as James Bond said in Casino Royale).
Alot of what your putting isn't really backing up what your saying, i think your talking tosh tbf
It really is as simple as that.
I posted it as first hand experience of how volatile the game can be and an example of the "variance" that I've experienced. Others' experience of the game will, of course, vary from this, as no doubt your own has. From a statistical point of view, when just 0.5% of a population can skew the overall result of something by 100%+ - even with a relatively small sample size - any expectation that something will happen based on an a mathematical average, EV or whatever, is wishful thinking. I read an article recently written by someone who had done some serious sums who reckoned that even with 700,000 hands, there was only a 95% confidence level of the expectation being achieved - that means there's a 5% possibility that it won't. Even multi-tabling, it's going to take some serious time to get in that amount of play. How many have you on the clock?
And thanks for the advice, believe it or not I have taken a look at the reasons these hands went South.
Good cards.
Also unrelated but if you have been ahead in 80% of big pots you lost, you prob fold too much (Maybe you are including coolers which is obv different)
Anyone reading my posts who concludes I'm making any claims beyond that has misinterpreted what I've written I'm afraid.
I have spoken to someone who has a lot more experience with the game than I do, and did comment that if I'd experienced these results whilst playing with strangers in a room above a pub I'd be justified in suspecting that someone was being naughtly. His answer was that perhaps the game online was rigged as well, which I found surprising coming from a seasoned player. But discussing other aspects of the game, it was clear he's another player, although knowledgeable, doesn't keep detailed records of his play - so he remembers the big wins resulting from his skilled play and the bad beats, but not the occasions when he takes a modest pot, or bounces someone out of a tournament, with one of two possible cards on the river. We've all had those work in our favour.
So Sky could of course be rigging the games here, and people are free to believe what they wish, but I don't think it - if I did I wouldn't continue to contribute my pennies to them in return for the enterainment value I receive.