Why It's Stupid to Play Online Poker Part II

If you haven't read the original, "Why it's stupid to play online poker!", I suggest that you do so and come back to this one, because much of this article will be to explain what I wrote in that article.

I, of course, can't remember every hand that I played for real money, but I'm convinced that the odds against the composite hands that I drew were probably not much less than the odds against getting struck by lightning. Granted, probability does say that, even with a hundred million to one odds, it could happen, because in the lotteries, with those kind of odds, people do hit, but it's really weird that I had such good luck playing for play money and such bad luck playing for real money.

I remember, when playing for real money, several instances where I had the possibility of an inside straight on the river. I stayed when someone else bet three different times that I can remember. The difference between the three times I stayed and the many others when I didn't was that the pot I was looking at was over ten times as much as the amount I would need to "call" with. I hit on one of the three hands. "Luckily" no one had a better hand which was also within the realm of possibility. Beating 10-1/2 to 1 odds is really "good luck" if you do it one out of three times.

Since I am a (mainframe) computer programmer, I could find some really good programmers and write a program that will tell me the odds of winning on every hand as it is dealt and played. It would also recommend whether to stay or fold depending on how many other players are in the hand. It could be done even though it couldn't "see" any other player's "pockets." As an example, the best odds before the flop are "pocket" aces. The worst odds before the flop are "pocket" 7 - 2 unsuited. I could sell that program for a bunch of money and it would have the advantage of, from the hands that were played, telling you that a player at the table might be a ringer. It could track the betting habits of the people at the table and tell you how conservative or ¡§loose¡¨ the other players at the table are. Between the time the cards are dealt and the time you need to decide what to do, because it's your turn, you could scan the information that it could provide and decide what to do.

The only way to ¡§beat" the game¡¨ is to use the ¡§Law of Averages.¡¨ The ¡§Law of Averages¡¨, simply put, is that everything averages out over time. Sure you can use the technique of ¡§reading¡¨ your opponents at the table, but even in doing that you have to use the ¡§Law of Averages.¡¨ Suppose that you have been playing at a table for long enough to believe that you have ¡§read¡¨ an opponent. He plays ¡§loose¡¨ and he ¡§bluffs¡¨ often. Suppose that in a hand, after the flop, that player goes ¡§all in¡¨ and you have a hand with good possibilities. You have to use the ¡§Law of Averages¡¨ to decide whether to call or fold. What is the probability that you will draw out? What is the probability that the player is bluffing? What is the probability, if you do draw out, of him having not "bluffed" or some other player who stays drawing out or having a better hand than the one that you will have? A computer can help you if it is programmed to answer these questions, but it would have to be some kind of sophisticated program. In order to be quick enough to do it, it would have to be in your computer and able to intercept what the poker site is sending to your computer.

THE GAME REALLY IS ¡§RIGGED.¡¨ THE POKER SITE REALLY DOES HAVE A ¡§RINGER¡¨ IN THE GAME,

Everything I have written up to this point, in the original article and this article, is based on the ¡§Law of Averages¡¨ and speculation on my part. Now let¡¦s expose the ¡§ringer¡¨ that the poker site has in the game. Let¡¦s take a scenario and use the ¡§Law of Averages¡¨ to expose how the ¡§ringer¡¨ will break everybody at the table over time. Let¡¦s average out a table. Suppose that everybody has the same amount of money and suppose that they make the same amount of bets on every hand. Remember, we¡¦re using the law of averages, so, given enough time the scenario will work out. Suppose each player has enough money to last twenty hands without winning a hand, however, in our game, each player at the table will win every how many players are at the table hand or his share of hands.

At the end of four hundred hands the "ringer" will have broken every player at the table which means that the game is ¡§rigged.¡¨ The "ringer" is not a player sitting at the table. Instead of ¡§raking in¡¨ every twentieth pot, he "rakes" in one twentieth of every pot. The ¡§ringer¡¨ that the poker site has at every real money table is called the ¡§rake.¡¨ The ¡§rake¡¨ is the one twentieth or five percent that the poker site takes out of every real money pot. Our scenario is satisfied over time, So even if you are a good poker player, the ¡§rake¡¨ is going to beat you. You can only hope there are enough bad poker players at the table so you can win except that, again using the ¡§law of averages¡¨ the bad players will loose enough to force them out of the game and you will only have better and better players to play against. In poker tournaments that are televised they think that only the best players will eventually win the tournaments. However, often the fickle finger of fate allows a poor player to beat a good player.

THE DECK IS ¡§STACKED¡¨ FOR EVERY HAND THAT IS DEALT.

If you will notice, there is a hand number on the screen even before a hand is dealt. On PokerStars it is in the upper left hand corner of the screen, on FullTiltPoker it is in the lower middle of the screen, and on ParadisePoker it is on the lower left of the screen. That hand number is used by the computer at the poker site to access a data base in order to deal the hand. From playing on a few sites, it is evident that most of them purchased the same original software from the same vendor. The data base of how the decks for the hand numbers are ¡§stacked¡¨ is probably the same for those poker sites. If I could get a copy of that data base, I could write a program that could tell me who will win the hand, provided he stays, even before the blinds are posted. I could fold on every hand that I will loose and only play the hands where the deck is "stacked" for me to win.

Maybe I can get a copy of the data base by buying the software from the vendor of the software? The data base would have to be included with that software, or it wouldn¡¦t work. As the hand is being dealt, I tell a computer other than the one I'm playing on what that hand number is and how many players are in the hand. It then tells me which player will win the hand, providing he stays, Think of it. A program that could tell me who will win the hand even before anyone posts a blind!

Think of the possibilities! With that kind of program I could beat the pants off anyone playing against me! Imagine how many tournaments I could win? Know something! Maybe some really good programmers have already done it but are keeping it to themselves and using it to win a bundle of money from ¡§pigeons¡¨, players