And Hot Topic Is Not Punk Rock, but that’s another matter entirely.
I never cease to be amazed and amused by online poker players who are thoroughly convinced the game is rigged. Not just because they are choosing to play anyway, but because their belief represents such a thorough failure of critical reasoning and analysis - tools which should in fact be very useful to a poker player.
Their claim is that the cards are arranged to either favor bad players (and therefore keep them playing, while good players chase), or to encourage big hands that bust players out (and therefore they will reload or in the case of tournament, buy into another one).
There are so many things wrong with these theories, it’s hard to know where to begin. And apart from ramblings on my blog, there’s little point in beginning. These players are completely wedded to their beliefs, and will often quickly resort to ad hominem attacks if you even try to discuss the issues.
The most common and obvious high-level argument is simple. Why would a successful poker site, which has minimal overhead and is basically a license to print money, risk the complete devastation of their player base which would occur if any kind of rigging were uncovered? And mind you, it would be uncovered easily through statistical analysis. The idea that rigging the games will somehow increase the rake is ludicrous. The games play so fast, just the delays by players (up to 15 seconds per action) completely dominate any minor shifts in the number of pots played per hour.
One of the things I find most ridiculous, coming from a background in computing, is the notion that it is somehow simple to rig cards in the ways described, without being completely and utterly obvious. Of course, the convinced players (let’s call them “whiners”) will say that it is completely and utterly obvious, but I mean obvious to statistical analysis, not to what the whiners want to believe (more on that later). Not only are the rigging claims mutually contradictory, they depend on vague perceptions of which “bad players” are “being rewarded”. It is almost impossible for computer programs to make those kinds of determinations.
The real reason online poker seems rigged, to whiners anyway, is simple. You get 3x to 5x more hands per hour, when compared to a live game. Therefore the experience is compressed, and you see situations that are less likely in the same period of time at a live game. And it’s human nature to remember the parts we want to remember, the parts that support our theories, the parts we find interesting, and discard the rest.
This is why whiners say “see, they always suckout on the river” when in fact, if the player had 8 outs, they got their card 8 out of 44 times, no more, no less. Realistically, many of these situations include more outs than the whiner wants to realize, including for example, outs on the turn.
This also accounts for the allegations that hands are preset to create more action. If you see three times as many hands, you are going to see situations like pocket pair against pocket pair three times more often. Possibly even more often than that, since it’s a virtual game and players may be playing looser.
Of course, win or lose, these whiners always have the perfect explanation for what happened. It can’t possibly be their bad play. The game is rigged. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
I understand that you can never wise up a mark. And it’s human nature to defend one’s irrational obsessions, even if nothing useful comes to mind except outlandish statements and ad hominem attacks. What I really need to remember, though, is not to argue with these players. Just let them rant, let them believe whatever they like, and take advantage of their clear lack of critical thinking, because it’s bound to carry over into how they play.
