[lowprices]

I'm assuming the cards dealt within Pokerstars runs off of some random number generator like that of a scientific calculator. Random number generators aren't exactly what you'd call random; they use a mathematical function to produce these "random" digits, meaning there is a big, long, list of random numbers. Assuming that Pokerstars uses one of these devices, then we can assume that it is possible to foresee which cards will appear later, or at least generate these cards prior to their appearance. Pokerstars could have thousands of players with direct access to the card information, knowing when to play and when not to play. Tracing these players would be incredibly hard considering it's a global network. It's the same idea as if you had X-ray vision; if you could see through the deck, wouldn't you use it to your advantage? I just don't know if you can trust a company with X-ray vision when you know their main goal is to make money.

[enter_issues]

Originally Posted by Josem

The long run statistics (even 500 hands was enough to prove the cheating at AP) is sufficient.

500 hands it no where near sufficient.

You need 5 million.

The problem is, no one who plays lowstakes on PS probably plays seriously enough to keep a statistical program to keep track of their hand histories. 5 million hands actually isn't a lot in the online-poker world where you can play multiple tables and games go fast. However, no one has yet done that while playing low-stakes continuously. Chances are someone who runs those programs are high level players and don't want to play 5 million hands at low stakes where the players are much less skilled and provide no challange but luck.

It is just with gathered observations from many other people that PS definitly has something fishy. If everyone was to record their hand histories even in the short run and gather them together, it is a step up from proving that PS has it's suspiciousness at some tables.

It's just way too coincidental to be in a game where I observe countless bad beats (not myself, but other people - I just sit and fold and observe) and then run into a game where everything is perfectly normal with bad beats and suckouts occuring at their regular rate.

When I get the time, I'll write a statistical program to gather lots of hands playing lots of low-stakes tables to see if PS is really rigged or not. So far with some of the bad beats and suckouts i've seen that occur back to back, with the same situation (eg. Big-stack goes all-in with trash and knocks out the shorter stackes with a far superiour hand), I'm sure there is something very fishy.

[xp8bg]

Originally Posted by enter_issues

When I get the time, I'll write a statistical program to gather lots of hands playing lots of low-stakes tables to see if PS is really rigged or not.

Is there no such program existing already, or you want to be sure that it's going to be 100% accurate?

[enter_issues]

I do understand many programs already exist, but being already paranoid about code, I'll write one myself just to ensure things are set straight.

I'll use a public one as well as my own so that when I ever do get this done, people won't accuse me of rigging the statistics.

I don't know when I'll get the time to do this though...I'm a full-time student and I'll need quite a bankroll.

[xp8bg]

I'm already doing this (taking statistics since 1 month) without a program - manually. Here is the principle:

I have 3 columns in my excel file - PRE-FLOP | FLOP | TURN.
Let's suppose I'm dealt QQ and someone pushes all-in with 88. I'm the only caller. Our chances are 82/18. If he gets his 8, I enter in the column PRE-FLOP +82. If I win I would enter -18. Another example - we get all-in on flop, I have flush draw, someone with TPTK (37/63). If I make my flush I enter in the column FLOP -63, if not I enter +37. If we both check the flop and I make my flush on the turn, and he get's all in then, no percents are written in the FLOP (TURN as well because he's 0%) column. I keep all my Hand Histories, so if in 3 months in the excel file I see that the game actually owns me many percents (3000+), I can prove that with the HH's I have, which will actually show that it's rigged. But this statistic is not enough, because it only takes track about the odds to come, and not about the odds that already came ("set over set", "both wih TP", etc).

PS.

Originally Posted by enter_issues

I'm a full-time student and I'll need quite a bankroll.

You can do this in the summer vacation, playing $1+0.1 SNG, 5 tables at a time, you can start with $250 bankroll, it's not so much.

[plaahh7]

i dont know is this yet posted but heres something i found few days ago...
rnrh.net/images/blog/pokerstars_five_aces.jpg

[xp8bg]

Originally Posted by plaahh7

i dont know is this yet posted but heres something i found few days ago...
rnrh.net/images/blog/pokerstars_five_aces.jpg

This is photoshop.

[schmokey]

I always thought it was ridiculous to think a poker site was fixed. Obviously the whole idea that they would risk everything to fix hands was sort of silly. Also, a lot of big time pros play these sites, so they would likely have to all be in on it, as the big pros would likely spot any regular cheating. Finally, the idea of being able to develop software that could pick and choose which cards to put out next in order to cheat is silly. That type of software would incredibly difficult to write and it would be easy to spot to anyone who got a chance to look at the code.

BUT . . .

Ok, but what about this? How about software that allows the company to know what cards are coming? Not to pick what cards are to come, but to know what cards are coming. So if the flop will be 3AK44, you could know ahead of time that your 34 would beat the AK at the table. This would allow the site to have X number of players sitting in on tourneys and waiting for chances to "bad beat" people.

That type of software fix would be easy to do and harder to spot to an outside observer. Also, it would not tweak anyone looking for alterations to the random number generator.

So how would a site use this? Would they just sit someone at every table and clean up? Of course not. First of all, low limit games and tourneys would produce so little money for them that the risk/reward would be ridiculous. But placing people in the big money tourneys is a different story. And this is where I got to wondering. I've won plenty of money playing low limit on Poker stars, but whenever I would jump into a big money tourney, the most bizarre shit would start to happen. Specifically, you'd see a guy playing for hours as a rock, then all of a sudden, he puts in the majority of his chips with 94 vs. AA, then flops the 9 and the 4.

So what is more improbable here? That a very conservative player would invest $200 and, more importantly, hours and hours of time into playing in a tourney only to shove all his chips in on 94 before the tourney is even into the money? Or that the guy who looked so conservative actually knew what cards were coming?

So why don't I back all this up with stats? Because there never will be any stats to prove this type of cheating. This is extremely selective cheating. So selective, in fact, that there will never be enough hands played this way in order to prove a statistical anomaly. It only takes a very small number of big hands to make it all the way through if you keep winning the key giant hands. And you can easily play enough losing hands that you know will be for small money in order to make it look less obvious.

So there is no way to prove this, and there is really no way to disprove it either. But I can say that in the small sample of big money tourneys that I tracked, I saw this type of play far too often to buy that it was random. While there are plenty of donkeys who throw all their money in with crap, there are just not guys out there who play tight-conservative poker for hours at a time and then all of sudden turn donkey on the one or two hands that allow them to win HUGE on crazy flops with their garbage hands.

So, yeah, I think Poker stars is fixed, but only in a very precise and limited way. If you are playing 50 dollar SNGs, no one is stealing your money. Ditto for low limit cash games. But when you get up into the tourneys where hundreds of thousands of dollars are at stake, I think Poker stars is definitely pulling some shit on people.

[xp8bg]

Schmokey your theory is a good one. I haven't played high stakes tournaments, so I can't say I've saw anything like that. But I think that if there is a "robot" in the game, it could be easily tracked by the real people playing in the tournament. Because if anyone sees such tight player who gets allin pre-flop with a crap vs a high pair and wins, then you can ask him something in the chat, and if he doesn't answer or his answer is strange, then you can watch him how he plays until the end of the tournament. And if this happens again, you should contact the support. If they told you, no there is no problem with this guy, he hasn't hacked, then we can say that they cover him, which means that he is a "robot" infact. It's really strange what you say, someone playing thight and then allin with a crap, I doubt he plays multitables and has tilted so much haha.

When I think about your suggestion how the cards might be dealt, another thing comes in my mind. This is on the pokerstars page about RNG etc:

Originally Posted by pokerstars.com/poker/room/features/security/

A deck of 52 cards can be shuffled in 52! ways. 52! is about 2^225 (to be precise, 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,404,000,000 ,000,000,000 ways). We use 249 random bits from both entropy sources (user input and thermal noise) to achieve an even and unpredictable statistical distribution.

So let's say they select random one of these decks. Then if there is a robot he could exactly know the cards to come until the very last. This was your suggestion. But think about that - what if they track which of these decks is more profitable for them (by more profitable I mean - which generates more rake for them in cash games and which eliminates some players in the tourneys faster)? Then they can select the more profitable decks more often. It will be random again, but these decks will have let's say x4 koefficient and will come more often. And again it would be extreamly hard to prove it's rigged in this way.

[RiggedStars.com]

I've been playing at stars and notice a pattern. Every time I win the faucets start running dry. And its not my play that's changed it's the cards. I will be getting great cards after I just make a deposit and than I get rags for hours on end. Lose to bad beat after bad beat.

And I've noticed the weirdest calls. For example today I was playing 10c/25c Pot Limit OMAHA some guy had pocket Aces flop came out 10Q7 giving me trip Queens I bet 4.40 he reraises 20 dollars turn comes 7 giving me a FH...so I bet 25 dollars which is all the money I have and he calls with AA...and guess what he hits his Ace on the river. Is that BS or what? But that's not the end of it. I rebuy in and the flop comes AK7 of Spades I have Q 9 of spades I make a pot sized bet of 3 dollars he calls. Turn comes 8 of spades I bet 6 dollars he reraises me 6 more dollars I call. And guess what a 7 hits the river giving him 4 of a kind, he bets 4 dollars I call.

So I'm thinking maybe its bad luck. A few hands later I have AK of clubs board flops 10c9c2c giving me the nut flush. I bet 1 dollar this guy rereaises 3 dollars I call. Turn comes Jh. I make a pot sized bet of 8 dollars he not only calls but reraises me 10 dollars. The river comes 8c. I'm first to act so I bet my remaining chip stack. He calls and of course he has me beat with a straight flush.

This all happened in the span of 30 mins in which I was down over 50 bucks. Tell me Pstars isn't rigged.

I noticed that this guy folds most of his hands. So he isn't a donkey but he always wins when the bets get big. I've seen too many plays where the player whose making big money calls is drawing to 1 or 2 outs in the deck and always seems to hit to believe PSTARS is Legit.

Oh yeah and check out Kidpoker and Fossilman on Sharkscope both are losing players at PSTARS. Yeah PSTARS is so legit even the pros are losing.