Rigged Deal?

At every on-line poker site I have ever played at, there are people who think the site sometimes "rigs the deal" to spice it up for excitement. For example, you'll get a hold-em round where three people have high pocket pairs and the flop gives each of them a set. "It's a setup to increase the rake (the amount the site pulls from each pot as their fee)", they'll say. Maybe. I'm sure there are disreputable sites out there who might do that, but I think it's much simpler to explain.

The complainers are absolutely correct that you will see more dealt pairs and other high level hands on-line than you will at a home game. There are two reasons for that. The first is simple and probably the biggest contributor: you play more hands on line. Play is much quicker: the dealing is nearly instantaneous, and so is gathering of winnings. Split pots don't have to be counted by humans, there are no arguments about who won. Each player has the same time limit to play, and they don't have to count chips to determine their bet. All these things add up to a much quicker game, which means many more hands per hour, which of course means more unusual hands.

The second reason has to do with shuffling. Computer poker games don't shuffle, of course, but they do draw cards very randomly. At a home game, things are a bit different. When pairs do occur, they tend to stick together for the next deal because most people don't shuffle very well, especially at friendly, low limit home games. If pairs and straights and flushes are together in the deck as it is dealt, obviously they get spread out during the deal, so don't get to people's hands. This is a much smaller effect than the increased pace of play (and has a bigger influence in five card games than others), but it does affect a few hands. It all adds up to the impression that the on-line site is spicing things up.

The doubters are unlikely to be convinced, but I think this is actual reality.

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Thu Aug 10 19:53:06 2006:   TonyLawrence


Watch out for people who shuffle too well too: if you know what you have on top, and can shuffle well, it's trivial to place cards just where you want them.

That's why we cut, of course.

However, most cheating (home or otherwise) is through collusion. And it doesn't take much: a good player has an edge over you and I anyway; if he knows just a little bit about one other players hand through quiet signaling or code words that edge increases significantly.

Of course on-line that kind of cheating is all too easy: http://aplawrence.com/Web/cheaters.html






Fri Aug 11 16:31:24 2006:   BigDumbDInosaur


It's all Greek to me. About all I know about playing cards is that they can be used to jimmy door locks. <Grin>



Tue Sep 5 18:01:40 2006:   cwroblew


I used to play a lot of solitaire. I began to look at how the deck would get shuffled if you had all the cards in order - Ace suit #1, two suit #1, three suit #1, four suit #1, etc.

If you made a perfect shuffle it would now be - Ace suit #1, Ace suit #2, two suit #1, two suit #2, etc.

The second perfect shuffle would be - Ace suit #1, Ace suit #3, Ace suit #2, Ace suit #4, two suit #1, two suit #3, two suit #2, two suit #4, etc.

The third perfect shuffle would be - Ace suit #1, seven suit #2, Ace suit #3, seven suit #4, etc.

To get a truly random selection of cards you had to shuffle at least 6 times, but the Ace of suit #1 would still be on top!




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