Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 217
When I wrote my first videopoker game for Commodore C64 in the eighties, it was hard to find a fellow wiling to play card games with you. I remember hanging around in the local casinos and sitting in front of mechanic draw poker machines to make my first approach to the game. But with the development of the internet online poker has become reality and the game found more and more public interest. It was so exciting to me during the first years. Big days and tourneys to remember. All these players I have met and the final tables I have encountered. Snapshots in memory of a good time and excitement. These first days wont be forgotten. When I was Playmoneyking at Fulltilt, climbing the ladder in the Step-Tourneys each one after each other, reaching for idols like "Jesus" Ferguson and dreaming of entering "Iveys Room" someday ... and the RAZZ tables ... man I loved them ... you could sit there and play with a PRO for less then 1$ and get lucky to win, because this PRO played his first game of Razz ever! Well, because I am not as rich as I should be, I cannot afford to deposit much to play for high stakes and therefore I was trying to build up my bankrolls with a minimum of my own money since the beginning. Since these old FullTilt days are gone, some things have changed dramatically ...
From time to time I am winning the freeroolls I am in, or even the low stakes tables I am playing ...
REAL LIFE ON, TWO COMPETITORS ARE FIGHTING IN ONE ARENA:
- poker industry: market is growing up every day and there never was such a competition in the online poker industry like nowadays, new pokerrooms are popping up frequently. Ergo the marktet becomes close and has to create new customers constantly - new competitors have to act even more aggressive with expensive promotions to get a chance against the big ones, like Pokerstars or iPoker - big money and many jobs are on the line
- customers: with the upgrowing number of different pokerrooms the number of players is even growing up, only a few percent are making profit - to "identify" and overcome a specific opponent without software tools is nearly impossible. Online cheating spreads widely in different forms, while the nature of internet makes it easy to stay anonymous (collusion, botting, pre-determining, superuser, etc.)
While watching the scenario over the years I wonder who really fights who in this whole game? And first who has got the advantage? Is the poker industry able to influence the market in that manner they would like to and what instruments do they use to reach this goal? How far do they go to keep their customers and to get a constant profit out of them? Are we safe not getting cheated by any of these parties?
Edited by Doberhain (21 December 2011 @ 23:02 GMT)
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
No I don't. And interesting, for all the poker rooms and dodgy stuff that has gone on (as one may expect from the online gaming industry) - no poker room/site has EVER been found to be producing dodgy deals. EVER.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Canada
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 1490
Posted by jessthehuman: No I don't. And interesting, for all the poker rooms and dodgy stuff that has gone on (as one may expect from the online gaming industry) - no poker room/site has EVER been found to be producing dodgy deals. EVER.
Yeah, amongst the UB super user scandal, Full Tilt shutting down, the ponzi scheme allegations, DON colluders, and all the other s**t, not ONE single sketchy RNG was ever found. But that's a point you'll never get across to a rigtard. No matter how hard you try they'll never be able to see past the "online poker is rigged" blinders they have on, and just see the simple fact that they suck at poker, and that's why they lost their $.
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by retribution: To op....how much did you lose bro?
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Posted by retribution: Yeah, amongst the UB super user scandal, Full Tilt shutting down, the ponzi scheme allegations, DON colluders, and all the other s**t, not ONE single sketchy RNG was ever found.
Yep - A whole bunch of people cheating a system - but the system itself has never been found to cheat.
Joined: Jan '10
Location: Indonesia
Age: 60 (M)
Posts: 1875
Posted by jessthehuman:
Posted by retribution: To op....how much did you lose bro?
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Posted by retribution: Yeah, amongst the UB super user scandal, Full Tilt shutting down, the ponzi scheme allegations, DON colluders, and all the other s**t, not ONE single sketchy RNG was ever found.
Yep - A whole bunch of people cheating a system - but the system itself has never been found to cheat.
Sorry, my English is very bad, I don't understand what is the point ? would you make it more clear for me ? Do you mean poker site is cheating us/player ? so ... is better we don't play on line poker ?
I think they get profit from buy-in fee ( ex : $1 + $0.10 ), they get 10% and that is big enough, am I right ?
With the way things are now, your ability to generate a reasonable profit is decreasing. Through various sites, players are more educated about the theory of poker, are more willing to be hyper aggressive, and are willing to go to extreme methods to cheat.
Poker sites appear to be catering to weak players, are proving to be unwilling to come down hard to cheaters and scammers, and in some cases have been proven to be scamming their clients.
I'd like to see lots of things change. One of the biggest ones would be a banning of datamining programs like poker office and hold em manager. If no one had it that would make the game more reliant to skill. A 2nd thing would be much more effort made be sites to monitor and prosecute cheats and scammers.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Canada
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 1490
Posted by psycokiller: With the way things are now, your ability to generate a reasonable profit is decreasing. Through various sites, players are more educated about the theory of poker, are more willing to be hyper aggressive, and are willing to go to extreme methods to cheat.
Poker sites appear to be catering to weak players, are proving to be unwilling to come down hard to cheaters and scammers, and in some cases have been proven to be scamming their clients.
I'd like to see lots of things change. One of the biggest ones would be a banning of datamining programs like poker office and hold em manager. If no one had it that would make the game more reliant to skill. A 2nd thing would be much more effort made be sites to monitor and prosecute cheats and scammers.
I entirely agree with 100% of what you're saying. After all, of course poker rooms are going to cater to bad players, after all the majority of their money is made from losing players pumping money back into their sites. I don't think they do anything out of sort though, such as action flops, or any of the other things rigtards suggest.
I also think that poker rooms are absolutely committed to eliminating any and all cheaters, after all, we've all seen first hand what an adverse affect a little bad press can have on a poker room.
Joined: Nov '11
Location: Malta
Age: 42 (M)
Posts: 69
I live in a country where many of these companies are based and know many people from Call Center to MD's in the business. They are all making a hell of a lot of money - even the ones considered not to be doing great are turning profit.
In regards to cheating there is investment and regulations that they do activley use. However, I think the main reason they hunt oput cheats is the obvious good PR and they get to close any accounts they want and keep the bankroll.
Personally I dislike most of the guys at the top as they are greedy and arogant and the blatant goal is for coin and not to be the best company. Customer service is on the back burner when compared to sales calls and turning profit - but this is like most companies in any industry these days.
I may start a blog as I fear a lot of info is not coming out that would make people think differently about which rooms they use.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 217
Posted by retribution: not ONE single sketchy RNG was ever found.
Sorry, but that´s not completely true. RNG´s were exploitable in the past and that´s a fact you can proof by simply browsing the net and collecting these information. Even Pokerstars claims that simple ones could be predictable and by going through their technical pages it becomes clear they do use very complex techniques to make it impossible. Regarding this point I am feeling quite safe at the major rooms because of their high RNG standard.
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Some of you said pokersites are catering to losing players and with that feeling you are for sure not alone. But if that would be true - how do they do it, if not with Action Flops?
Another interesting point is the usage of software tools. I don´t really like these ones giving too much information about opponents based on HH data. It kills the soul of pure poker and is a disadvantage to players not using them. Maybe there would be a way to satisfy both user types. Why not letting players decide if they are willing to accept opponents with those helping tools before they enter a game, by creating two categories. It would be more fair. If you are using it, ok - play with others using it, too. If not - fine, you could be sure it would be a much more interesting game!
Maybe this idea isn´t new and I read about similar discussions regarding botting. I agree that public botting has to be avoided and it is a huge shame that people are still getting rubbed by it. But why not let these techy-freaks battle it out at special tournaments?
Isn´t there a direct connection between the amount of cheating players and their discontent (hard to make profit, clear a bonus, or to get even)
I don´t want to claim that online poker is rigged with this thread. Just want to catch peoples thoughts and feelings about the situation we have today.
Joined: Dec '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 27
I think if I used any of the aforementioned software it would make my poker brain lazy and if I tried to play in a real life tourney after months of relying on the software to calculate my odds it would be detrimental...
That being said, you would learn and remember certain odds in certain situations...
Joined: Mar '08
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 44 (M)
Posts: 6714
In shot no, as said RNG are, seam to be fine. That's not to say RNGs can not be exploited, there is no real need to make a dodgy RNG, not if you know the source code.
