Two Bad Beats

[JD]

Just posting as a form of therapy...

Heads up at the end of a one-table NLHE tourney online.

I'm the leader, 8700 to 1300 chips, 250/500 blinds, in the big blind.
Dealt ATo. He calls, I raise him all-in, he calls. He has 98o.

Flop is 8 Q 5. Turn is T. River is, of course, the Jack, and he gets
a straight.

A few hands later, it's 8000 to 2000 chips, 500/1000 blinds, in the
small blind with AA. I raise him all-in, he calls with 97s.

Flop is J 4 8. He says "gg" and stops paying attention. Turn is a 6,
river is a 5, and I lose to a straight AGAIN. Argh. He did have a
gutshot draw too, but to make it as runner-runner.. sigh.

A few bad hands later I get mostly blinded out and come in second.
Not too bad considering that I played super-tight at first, and got no
hands at all, and was therefore the small stack until about 50 hands
into the tourney, but still, I thought I had it locked there.

(also, earlier in the tourney I'd had ATs all-in against K2o, and the
board came [ 4 5 3 ] [ 9 ] [ A ], so I'd already had experience with
annoying suck-out straights...)

[JD]

vodkaputtputt@yahoo.com (Mark Rogow) wrote in message news:<86fba33e.0308031433.262fdcf7@posting.google.com>...
>
> If the online tournements weren't scripted they take alot longer.
>
> Mark

I'm afraid I must be missing the point of this post. Is this a "all
online games are rigged" conspiracy theory post? If so, it makes no
sense at all.

Besides the obvious question of what a "scripted" tournament would be,
there's the question of what the point of "scripting" is. Tournaments
end pretty shortly after the blinds get so high that they swamp out
the betting (typically 500/1000 in a 10,000-chip game). If a site
wanted to make a tournament go faster, they could just make the blinds
go up faster. Cheating in some way makes no sense when there's an
above-the-board way to accomplish the same goal much more easily.

Anyway, if you actually read my post, you'd see that if I'd won either
of those "beat hands", the tournament would've ended immediately.
Both of those results prolonged the game. So what exactly was the
site's motivation?

[wamplerr]

"If a site wanted to make a tournament go faster, they could just make
the blinds go up faster."

Check out www.partypoker.com for more information on this proven
strategy.

_________________________________________________________________
Posted using RGP ACCESS at http://www.LiveActionPoker.com

[Peg Smith]

In article <bbaa9e98.0308040543.71d7d705@posting.google.com>, jasond@eskimo.com
(JD) writes:

>> If the online tournements weren't scripted they take alot longer.
>>
>> Mark
>
>I'm afraid I must be missing the point of this post. Is this a "all
>online games are rigged" conspiracy theory post? If so, it makes no
>sense at all.
>
>Besides the obvious question of what a "scripted" tournament would be,
>there's the question of what the point of "scripting" is. Tournaments
>end pretty shortly after the blinds get so high that they swamp out
>the betting (typically 500/1000 in a 10,000-chip game). If a site
>wanted to make a tournament go faster, they could just make the blinds
>go up faster. Cheating in some way makes no sense when there's an
>above-the-board way to accomplish the same goal much more easily.
>
>Anyway, if you actually read my post, you'd see that if I'd won either
>of those "beat hands", the tournament would've ended immediately.
>Both of those results prolonged the game. So what exactly was the
>site's motivation?

You brought up some very good points. It won't do any good, though; you'll
likely just be called a shill by the conspiracy theorists who won't bother to
address your arguments.

Peg

[Mark Rogow]

pegsmithnow@aol.comnocrap (Peg Smith) wrote in message news:<20030804151701.14837.00001968@mb-m03.aol.com>...
> In article <bbaa9e98.0308040543.71d7d705@posting.google.com>, jasond@eskimo.com
> (JD) writes:
>
> >> If the online tournements weren't scripted they take alot longer.
> >>
> >> Mark
> >
> >I'm afraid I must be missing the point of this post. Is this a "all
> >online games are rigged" conspiracy theory post? If so, it makes no
> >sense at all.
> >
> >Besides the obvious question of what a "scripted" tournament would be,
> >there's the question of what the point of "scripting" is. Tournaments
> >end pretty shortly after the blinds get so high that they swamp out
> >the betting (typically 500/1000 in a 10,000-chip game). If a site
> >wanted to make a tournament go faster, they could just make the blinds
> >go up faster. Cheating in some way makes no sense when there's an
> >above-the-board way to accomplish the same goal much more easily.
> >
> >Anyway, if you actually read my post, you'd see that if I'd won either
> >of those "beat hands", the tournament would've ended immediately.
> >Both of those results prolonged the game. So what exactly was the
> >site's motivation?
>
> You brought up some very good points. It won't do any good, though; you'll
> likely just be called a shill by the conspiracy theorists who won't bother to
> address your arguments.
>
> Peg

Anzo Moor wrote:

"Let us be clear what we mean when we say computerized casino gambling
is rigged.

There are at least three types of rigging of computerized gambling
(read online casino). What each type has in common is that they
generate of non-random numbers. The numbers are converted into dice
rolls, card deals, wheel spins and so on. There are several outfits
that offer to the public *true* random number generators. Presumably
online casino software creators have access to and can afford the
services of these outfits. The fact that online casinos *and their
software creators* choose not to use these outfits, in my opinion,
shows criminal intent. But hey, what do you expect from a pig except
a grunt?

The first and most egregious type of online rigging is obvious and
outright fraud. c5966 gives an illuminating example of a outright
fraud: a computerized online deck deals two (2) Jacks of Spade.

OrangeSFO highlights the second and obvious type of rigging: a skewed
distribution of card/dice/wheel outcomes. OrangeSFO says that she or
he experienced online blackjack and "50 hands....10 wins, 6 pushes,
34 losses." The 34 losses are skewed because the dealer won 3 times
as many hands than the player.

The third type of online gambling rigging is insidious. Insidious
means proceeding inconspicuously but with grave effect. This type of
rigging generates dice rolls, card deals, wheel spins that will
maintain the regulated legal payout ratio. In other words, it gives
non-random numbers. For instance say government regulators rule an
online casino cannot go below a 95% payout-- gamblers take home 95%
and the house keeps 5%. The computer can be rigged such that when
gamblers are winning too much money they can be made to loose until
the 95% payout is achieved. When the mandated payout falls to 93%
then the rigged computer can start letting gamblers win until the
payout reaches 95%. In a nutshell, a computer can guarantee with near
100% certainty that the house always maintains its 5% house advantage.
This type is insidious because it fools the state regulators, fools
gamblers and guarantees casino profits.

In summary, each of these three types of rigging have one thing in
common-- rigging generates *non*-random numbers. The solution is to
frequent only online casinos that can demonstrate that they use a
truly random number generator. But why would you believe any online
casino owner?

Lastly this brings me to the comments of Paul Mailman that say: "I'm
willing to write a computer program that simulates flipping a coin
(snip) that if you run it for 100,000 tosses it will show 50% heads
and 50% tails, accurate to several decimal places." I'm sure Paul can
write such a program. However Paul's program as described is *not*
accurate enough for online casino computer software. What passes for
truly random numbers is well known and online casinos should be forced
to use highly accurate *true* random number generator programs.

The bottom line is that online gambling is one of the riskiest forms
of casino gambling there is. Why? Because gamblers bet against a
computer and the computer possesses the *capability* to give forth
whatever dice rolls, card deals, and wheel spins it wants."


Why, with similar blind structures and even discounting the more
rapid dealing(~ 2x faster), are online tournements ~4x faster than B&M
tournements? Because more tournments/day equals more money for the
online casino.

As an aside, lets take a professional poker player with a
$10,000.00 account balance(someone, I know). He decides to play the
$5+1 tournements as an experiment. He is a huge favorite to come in
the money at least 50% of the time, no? Why can't he beat these low
limit single table games even to the tune of a twenty percent in the
money percentage? Could it be that it is not in the casino's interest
to let him win against the inferior players at this limit? What if he
was winning almost every tournement? Might some players get disgusted
and stop playing?

Mark

[JD]

vodkaputtputt@yahoo.com (Mark Rogow) wrote in message news:<86fba33e.0308042001.e5f3f43@posting.google.com>...
> pegsmithnow@aol.comnocrap (Peg Smith) wrote in message news:<20030804151701.14837.00001968@mb-m03.aol.com>...
> > You brought up some very good points. It won't do any good, though; you'll
> > likely just be called a shill by the conspiracy theorists who won't bother
> > to address your arguments.
> >
> > Peg

Thanks Peg. Looks like you're right :) More below.

> [ stuff about really stupid casino cheating, like having two Jacks of Spades dealt in the same hand, snipped. Other stuff about sites using pseudo-random numbers, even though most main sites are externally certified to have true RNGs, also snipped ]
>
> As an aside, lets take a professional poker player with a
> $10,000.00 account balance(someone, I know). He decides to play the
> $5+1 tournements as an experiment. He is a huge favorite to come in
> the money at least 50% of the time, no? Why can't he beat these low
> limit single table games even to the tune of a twenty percent in the
> money percentage? Could it be that it is not in the casino's interest
> to let him win against the inferior players at this limit? What if he
> was winning almost every tournement? Might some players get disgusted
> and stop playing?
>
> Mark

Maybe the player isn't as good as he thinks he is? Maybe the
strategies for playing in a 30/60 ring game don't apply to a $5 NL
one-table tourney? You're "proving" your argument by MAKING UP a
poker player who loses tournaments? Q.E.D, I guess. Obviously I'm
either an idiot or a shill. Or both.. let's not rule out both.

I've played 10 online NLHE ($5+1) tournaments in the past 10 or 11
days. They were my first NL games ever, so I'm sure I'll continue to
improve. However, I placed in the money 7 of the 10 times. In the
most recent five games, I placed 1, 1, 4, 2, 1. I still have a few of
the hand histories, and all of the tournament summary emails. If your
"professional" player can't finish in the money 20% of the time, maybe
he should read some of the threads in rgp on playing these tourneys.
Russ's advice is right on the money.. until I got aggressive
short-handed, I never came in first.