Is Online Poker Fixed

Calculating Odds

2009-07-21T11:43:00.003+01:00

Previous articles have shown how a majority of the time bad beats are not bad beats, today's article will show you how to determine your pot odds, so you can make better decisions. Pro players determine this information very quickly, if after reading this you are still struggling, try the 30 day free trial for the magic hold em calculator, you will see a banner on the right.

Calculating Odds To determine the odds against improving your hand on the next card, compare the total number of cards that will not help you to the number of cards or "outs" that will. For example, you hold 7♥ 6♥ with a flop of A♣ T♥ 5♥. On the flop there are 47 unseen cards. Out of these 47, there are nine hearts remaining that will improve your hand to a flush and 38 cards that won’t; therefore, the odds against improving to a flush are 4.2 to 1 (38/9). An open-ended straight draw has eight outs, which is 4.9 to 1 against improving (39/8). An inside straight draw, a.k.a. gut-shot draw, has four outs, which is 10.75 to 1 (43/4). If you don’t improve on the turn and want to know the odds that the river can will improve your hand, the odds will improve just slightly as one more care has been seen. There are only 46 unseen cards on the turn; therefore, a flush draw is now 4.1 to 1 (37/9), which is just slightly better than the 4.2 to 1 odds you had when drawing on the flop.
To determine the probability of improving on the next card, simply divide your outs by the total number of cards left in the deck. For example, the probability of improving to a flush on the next card is 19% (9/47). You will improve to an open ended straight 17% of the time (8/47), and a gut-shot straight 8.5% of the time (4/47). I prefer to know the odds are 11 to 1 rather than the probability is 8.5%, because it is easier to compare to the pot odds you are receiving. Sometimes on the flop, you want to know the probability that either the turn or the river card will improve your hand with two cards to come. These calculations are slightly more complicated. The best way is to multiply the probability of missing on the turn by the probability of missing on the river. For example, for a flush draw you would multiply 38/47 by 37/46, which equals 1406/2162 or .6503; therefore, 65% of the time you will not improve and 35% of the lime you will. [To convert this to odds, invert the percentage and subtract 1 to get 1/.35 -1 = 1.9 to 1 against improving. This section looked briefly at how to calculate simple odds and probabilities; however, calculating odds in your head during a poker game can be quite cumbersome. In reality, all you need to do is memorize the following chart.

Online Poker Sites the Truth behind Them

2009-07-20T10:37:00.001+01:00

Author: Tyler James Ellison

Online poker sites proved to be something of a wise investment for gaming companies, the internet in general allowed for much wider audiences to be reached and potentially for the players to play for much longer periods of time. Whilst casinos are contingent purely on visitors actually attending the casino and betting with the rather limited numbers that this will entail, online poker sites allow for entire countries to be targeted which is a significant step up!

Online poker sites also have significantly less overheads than their physical, offline counterparts no need to worry about employee wages, fire hazards, security or any other such issues meaningless costs and hassle for the entrepreneur. Whilst it costs more money, payment processing and the security of the website can be simply outsourced to professionals, again allowing for the entrepreneur more breathing space. What can be plainly seen therefore is that online poker sites are a profitable and worthy investment which with some proper care and due diligence, will net the entrepreneur substantive profits.

Such positive promotion of online poker sites is required, because too many of them suffer rather harshly negative criticism which is often unfounded and unfair. Given the profitability of online poker sites many consumers whether out of natural cynicism or perhaps just being sore losers try and belittle the sites arguing that the online poker sites are rigged so that the house always wins. Despite the best efforts of the companies to allay such fears, the criticism and scepticism still remains.

The ironic thing is that what such consumers fail to appreciate is that because of such profitability the online poker sites do not want or indeed need to try and con their customers. This would equate to a short term gain which would be quickly outstripped by a major loss in the long run. If the online poker sites were found to be guilty of fixing odds and rigging the games, the damage to the reputation and goodwill of the industry as a whole would be immeasurable and would mean a major loss of revenue.

Customers will not be very likely to draw a distinction between innocent and culpable websites, perhaps taking the view that if any online poker sites have not been found to be cheating, then this is a testimony to their cunning rather than honesty. In a bid to quell such fears, the government would no doubt have to step with some draconian, knee jerk reaction form of legislative policy which would be untenable, unjust, and end up being a sledgehammer to crack a walnut solution. Online poker sites want to make money, and plenty of it, so a long term guaranteed result will be much more valuable to them than a short term boost. The last thing the sites want to do is kill the golden goose.

Studies have shown that players at online poker sites tend to lose more often at the tables than in real life, and this is not because of rigged tables or endemic corruption in online gambling. This is due to the reduced inhibitions for the players, rather than cutting their losses, they carry on regardless and so end up losing more money. This is a personal fault, not an industry one.

About the Author:

I'm revealing how to win big at online poker sites and I also share free roulette systems.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - Online Poker Sites: The Truth Behind Them

Poker strategy – avoiding the tilt

2009-07-16T13:13:00.001+01:00

A poker player goes on "tilt" when he is playing in a different way from normal - a way driven by emotion because of what's just happened in the game.
Rather than stick to his normal game plan, the player on tilt does things that he wouldn't do under normal circumstances. He starts to make over-aggressive bets, stays in the betting for too long when he should be getting out and totally loses his discipline and self-control.
So how does it happen? Why does a poker player go on tilt?
The main reason, in fact the reason in the overwhelming amount of times a poker player goes on tilt, is that he has just suffered a bad loss when he had expected to win the hand, in other words a "bad beat".
This causes a massive surge in emotion in the poker player which cannot be controlled by the average person. Emotions are far more powerful than our powers of reasoning and logic, they will always win the battle of thought processes.
In his mind the player sees all his patient poker stategy that he's used to build up his chip stack being blown away in an instant, and the natural response is to try and recover the deficit just as quickly. The brain is trying to win back all that lost money as fast as possible resulting in the poker player playing hands he would not normally play and calling bets he would fold nine times out of ten.
Can "tilt" be avoided?
In a word yes. It requires discipline and the ability to stick to an emergency exit plan but it can be done. Some people, even poker professionals, mistakenly believe that tilt can be avoided by pausing for a few moments to collect your thoughts and "counting to ten".
This simply won't do it.
The only real way to avoid going on tilt is to get yourself away from the poker table altogether for a few hands. If you're in a casino, stand up and walk away. Get a coffee or just take a walk. If you're playing on the internet click on the "Sit Out" button and walk away from your computer for a while.
Most importantly, you need to do it immediately after you lose the big hand, as soon as the hand is over you get out of there. Don't be tempted to just play the next one I case your luck changes, that's a recipe for disaster.
How long do you take a break for? As long as it takes. You need to get yourself back into the right frame of mind and start playing your poker strategy again like you did before the bad beat. Get emotion out of the equation, it's not anybody's "fault", it just happened. Switch back into logical mode and get on with the game.
The reason that poker professionals don't go on tilt is that they are used to it. They have played so much poker that they know it's inevitable there will be hands they thought they were winning only to suffer a bad loss. It's part of the game and they just get on with it.
In the end good poker strategy will always beat emotion, calculation will win over instinct and experience will triumph against almost anything.

Article by Ian McIntosh, get regular poker freeroll updates in your mailbox every week for FREE! Please feel free to use this poker article on your website, newsletter or blog as long as this resource box is left intact and there's a live link to the site.

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2009-07-15T11:58:00.005+01:00

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All in by Article by Ian McIntosh

2009-07-14T12:26:00.002+01:00

I have published this article today by Ian McIntosh, you can view his site by clicking the title. I found it gave good advice and if you read it will see how you can avoid some of those bad all in beats which will hopefully set you off the track to thinking online poker is fixed.

10 Tips for a Successful Poker All-in StrategyAll-in is a betting strategy used in today's most popular poker game, No limit Texas Hold em. When you declare that you're going "All-in", you are putting all your chips into the pot on that hand. This could be a do or die move by you, depending on whether you have more or less chips than an opponent who calls your bet. If you have less starting chips and lose the all-in, you are out of the game.
This is what makes all-in such a powerful strategy in Texas Hold em poker, but also what makes it such a dangerous one. Go all-in and you can be finished on one turn of a card.
Some poker players however miss the point a bit with their all in bets and lose out on opportunities to take advantage of a strategically placed bet.
Here are 10 tips that should help you to decide when the right time is to go all-in.

1. Don't just wait until you've got the "nuts". If you do this you will be very predictable and opponents will simply fold to your all-in.
2. Remember that it is much easier to make an all-in bet than to call one. All you need to do to win the hand is bet when you're sure your opponent will fold.
3. If you are a strong chip leader you can bully your opponents into folding. You will lose some of your chips if you lose an all-in, they will lose them all and be out of the game.
4. Don't go all-in on a stone cold bluff. Always make sure that even though you might not have the best hand, you have a chance of making it with the cards that are still to be dealt. Put another way, leave yourself with "outs".
5. Beware of going all-in with a short stack of chips. You are far more likely to get called by a big stack because if you lose, you will be out of the tournament. You need to have an almost unbeatable hand in these circumstances.
6. If you are low on chips, use the all-in to your advantage if you get a monster hand. You will almost certainly get called and you might even get more than one caller so instead of doubling your money you can triple it or even better.
7. You can't bluff if you're short stacked, you do not have enough chips and nobody is going to be afraid to bet against you. You can only go all-in if you get a good hand.
8. If you're short stacked, don't let your chips drain away with the blinds. Make a stand with an all-in while you still have a chance to steal the blinds. If you get called you can still win the pot and be back in the game.
9. If a short stacked player goes all-in, it is usually better for you to re-raise all in. This will scare off any other callers after you in the betting who might have also called just because of the value they were getting for their bet.
10. If somebody goes all in against you, use the previous tips above to decide why he did. Does he only go all-in with the nuts? Is short stacked? Is he trying to bully you to get you to fold? Weigh up the situation very carefully before deciding whether to call.
Use these tips and you’ll soon be cleaning up at the poker tables.

A Test of Hands

2009-07-13T07:25:00.005+01:00

Here are two hands somebody recently moaned about, citing these as examples why they thought online poker was fixed:

I raised with 99, flopped a set and lost to a flush. A few hands later, I raised with QQ, flopped a set and lost to a flush.

So lets explore the first hand, it was in a heads up situation only two players left in pre-flop.

Pre-flop 99 = 53.33% , QK Suited (diamonds) = 46.2% , Tie = 0.46%

Flop = 9d, 3d, 5s 99 = 76.4%, QK Suited = 23.6%

Turn = 10D , 99 = 24.9% , QK Suited = 75.10%

If you look at this, 99 was only a just over a 50% favourite before the flop, he floped a set, which put him up to a 76% favourite, but with only needing one more diamond now to get his flush, QK only still had pot odds of 4 to 1 to hit the flush. After the turn, the odds on each hand reversed, but 99 still had a 4 to 1 chance of hitting 4 of a kind of a full house.

I am putting a link below which will take you to a free poker calculator where you can play around with hands and see your hole card starting odds, and then how they change with the flop and river.

http://www.casinator.com/poker-odds-calculator.php

Change your Play

2009-07-09T11:52:00.003+01:00

I was having an interesting conversation with another online poker player yesterday. He believed that with computer technology, sites learned which hands each player will play and therefore can generate action hands, knowing x players will play. He made a couple of statements claiming it was common when nearing the bubble to see the short stack get AA or such like only to be called by the large stack with a 3 8 or such like and the 3 8 would win. His belief was tight players got punished and lose players rewarded, because the site knew exactly what hole cards to give players, knowing they would play.

My answer to this taking his first claim, when nearing the bubble and your the short stack you are going to get called by the big stack no matter what his cards and he is going to win sometimes. But I have had an occasion where I only had 2500 chips, the large stack had 90000, I doubled up from, plus took the antes and went on to win the tournament, In any all in before the flop you are gambling irrespective of your hand going in, yes you have the best chance when getting your chips in, but it dos not mean you will win.

To his second claim, online poker sites know which hands you will play, guess what if there are good player at your table they will too. If you only ever raise with big hands, they know that and will call with inferior hands , because they know 50% of the time you will miss.

In conclusion whether you believe online poker sites are fixed or you just want to improve your play, then vary the way you play. If you only ever bet the big hands you will get called a lot by inferior hands and they will win sometimes. Vary your playing style keep the computer guessing and the other players.

(RNG) Random Number Generator

2009-07-08T13:27:00.002+01:00

People who claim on line poker sites are fixed, claim the random number generators (RGN) are not random at all. They claim on line poker sites set the format to fix hands. Why is this claim wrong, well firstly the RGN as to be independently audited and meet various industry standards.

Random Number Generator (RNG) is a system that generates a sequence of numbers that are devoid of any pattern or biases, ensuring that the next item in the sequence cannot be predicted . A certified RNG system is critical to ensure that every game is played using a randomly shuffled and unpredictable deck.

Whats surprising is RGN is used for lotteries, bingo, slot machines to name but a few, yet people seldom ever accuses these of being fixed, yet all over the net their are accusations of poker sites being rigged.

I have yet to find any reliable evidence that could point to RGN being able to be fixed, far from it the information I have found makes it difficult to find how they could be fixed.

Online Poker v Live Poker

2009-07-07T15:49:00.003+01:00

Online Poker v Live Poker

One reason why players think online poker is rigged is because of the amount of hands you get to see. When you’re playing in a home game or in a casino, you will play about a fourth of the amount of hands that you’ll play in the same amount of time online. This makes a huge difference when it comes to bad beats, which is why players think they are getting screwed. If you’re seeing four times the amount of hand you normally see, you’re going to win four times as many big pots, and you’re also going to have four times as many bad beats.

Also a lot of players online play multiple tables, seeing even more hands. They are not seeing the whole game only ever reacting to their hole cards, then getting frustrated when their big hands get beat.

Here's a little exercise you can do,get a deck of playing cards, take out two aces as one set of hole cards then deal 9 other hole cards, the flop, turn, river etc. Do this exercises a few times and see how many times AA would actually win if every player stayed in, you will be surprised and it will help you understand more.

Do Online Poker Sites Use Bots or their own players

2009-07-06T09:57:00.002+01:00

Regular in forums and and on rants people who believe on line poker sites are rigged will say that companies use bots. By bots, they mean non human computer player or people accuse them of using their own staff who know what all the cards are.

Lets first look at why people say there are bots or staged players, the only reasons I have found are:

a) There is no chat from them.
b) They play random hands e.g 9 3 and 993 comes on the flop.
c) They are never seen on the poker site again.

Taking the first one, believe it or not a lot of people have chat turned off, they don't want to get distracted from the game chatting, and do not want to read everybody else's rants. To say because somebody does not chat offers no credibility to their argument.

They play random hands and get a result. I have stated this before there are millions of players online, some very good, who purposely play random hands specially against player they have identified who will only play with big hands AA,AK etc. These players purposely go in against you, knowing they could hit their cards and you could miss. Then there are loads of players who haven't got a clue and will call with anything and yes will sometimes get lucky.

The last argument players are never seen again. When you log onto your poker site all will tell you how many players are currently online at how many tables. This will usually be around 250000. I have been playing poker online for 6 years now, and keep notes of players worth keeping note of. Even doing this I very seldom come across the same players at my table often. It is not surprising with so many players now playing online that you never end up on the same table as a player again.

In summary 250,000 players online at any given times, even if all these players only entered a £5.00 tourney with a 50p buys in the site would make £125,000. Do you think they really need to use bots or stooges to win a a few hundred pounds.

Pause Before the River Card

2009-07-03T07:17:00.006+01:00

Players who believe online poker sites are fixed often state there is a pause before the river card and then the miracle card appears, giving a bad beat. Their theory the site is finding the miracle card to deal.

I agree there is sometimes a pause before the river card is dealt, but there is also sometimes a pause before the flop, or on the turn. Often their is a pause before the river card and no miracle card appears.

I have studied this on several sites and in my experience this pause is often there, but goes UN-noticed a majority of the time. It does get noticed however when you have a lot of chips riding on the river card, your taking an increased interest in the game, you are staring at the screen, waiting for the river card to be dealt, what happens when we wait for something ?, it seems to take longer to come.

A suggestion would be to watch every hand you will soon see that pause is their often, it is just heightened when you are involved in a big hand.

2009-07-01T13:24:00.001+01:00

http://www.magicholdem.com/startdownload.aspx?AffCode=409546

I have spoken the last few days of the importance of understanding odds and why sometimes bad beats or suckouts are not as bad as you may think. I use magic holdem calculator when playing online. I have decided to show this link on this page as I find it an invaluable tool. This link http://www.magicholdem.com/startdownload.aspx?AffCode=409546 will give you a free trial of the calculator, so no cost to you. I recommend trying it out.

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The Cash Out Theory

2009-07-01T11:58:00.003+01:00

The cash out theory, time and time again I hear people stating that as soon as they withdraw cash from a site, they can't seem to win, they state that no matter how they play they seem to get sucked out or bad beat after bad beat. Their theory therefore the site must be fixed. My first response to this would be:

You had winnings to cash out ?, do you think then that you played well to get them winnings or do you think the site fixed it so you won ?

The biggest problem is we do not hear from people who cash out regular and continue to go onto win. We instead hear from people who following an obvious good run giving them winnings to cash out, suddenly think they will cash every time so when they don't the site must be fixed.

I will repeat myself again here, you are the person who can improve your game. If you want to improve you have to evaluate every game you play. This means keeping notes on every game, when you did make the cash, what were the key hands, how did you play, did you suck somebody out ?, you do the same for when you lose and yes their will be occasions when you get beat that's poker, that's why it's gambling, but if you played the hand right and somebody got lucky, so be it. Do you want to be consistent good poker player or do you want to just try to get lucky now and then.

Bad Beats and Suck Outs Cont

2009-06-30T10:28:00.005+01:00

We explored yesterday bad beats and suck outs, please read yesterday's article if you missed this. I finished with this statement:

Remember just because you start with AA, KK. AK what ever it does not mean you will automatically win. Another point to remember is what cards have been folded, if you have 10 10 and two tens have been folded your not getting another 10, if somebody has 3 7 suited for example, and nobody else had that suite or a 3 or 7 surely the odds of hitting increase, common sense says they do.

All good poker players know what odds they are getting before committing their chips to any pot, but even these players will gamble occasionally, depending on what they think another player may be holding, their position on the table, whether they are pot committed, risk against reward. Then you have players, most people will call them bad players, fish or worse, but there are also millions of people playing poker without a basic understanding of the game, they are actually just playing for fun, they are only looking at their hand, they don't have a clue there are only two cards in the pack which can help them, they just put their chips in and yes occasionally they are going to get lucky and hit.

Think on this for a moment, their are millions of online poker players of which only 4% make a profit, do you think this 4% are poor poker players or poker players who are solid ?

I touched yesterday on the belief that due to the large amount of information available today most reasonable players are playing beneath themselves, which is why they believe online poker sites are fixed as they see so many suck outs or bad beats by what they judge bad play based on their knowledge of the game. Lets think about this, I myself used to play with a very small bank roll so in the beginning would enter 1 or 2 dollar tourneys or 1 cent 2 cent cash. Now this is entry level. so it is reasonable to expect you are playing entry level players. At this level you are going to get players who will push with anything, because they do not fully understand the game, they are learning and yes they get lucky, but do you really think these are the 4% who make a profit at online poker ? I found rather than playing 10 $1.00 dollar tourneys I enter just 1 $10.00 tourney, the fields were smaller and the play better, yes you still got bad beats and suck outs, but the all round excepted standard of play was improved with less snap players. Yes sometimes I would be knocked out early and think if I had entered smaller buy in's I could play another game, but this is where you have to decide whether you want to play poker for fun or to actually try to win.

Please do not for one minute deposit funds into a poker account to enter games that you can not afford or that are above your level, but just remember the standard tends to increase with the buy in.

The exception to this will be with tournaments which offer satellite seats. I have entered $100 tourneys only to see the same play as at $1.00 dollar tables because a majority of the entrants had won their seats through cheap buy in satellites.

My advice to anybody serious about poker is to seriously think about the game you want to enter; Take into consideration what size field you want to play in, who will you be playing against in this tournament, has there been satellite seats. Once you have found the game you want to play, watch the table, make a note of the hands you fold, you will see lots of times where you would have sucked somebody out if you had stayed in the hand. Remember we raise with big hands to reduce the numbers in the pot, AA the best starting hand in poker diminishes in straight the more people who are in the pot.

To finish today I would first recommend, if you haven't already got one, you get an odds calculator.

A search of google will display several odds calculators which can be downloaded for free. Use the calculator and you will find ta majority of what people class as bad beats aren't really that bad.

Good luck at the tables and remember only you can improve your game.

Online Poker Fixed or Not ?

2009-06-29T07:45:00.006+01:00

Being an online poker player for a few years now, I have heard so many times accusations that online poker is fixed. I must confess all the different reasons given for this I can understand them all. I also have had occasions where I have nearly thrown the lap top out of the window and ranted that the sites a total fix and I am never playing again. But within a hour I am back on the site playing away. So why do we think online poker is fixed ?, online poker is a massive industry, what benefit would it be to the operating companies to fix games ?

I plan on this blog to explore the different reasons people think online poker sites fix games and to attempt to work out fact from myth.

Bad Beats

Lets start with bad beats, there are a multitude of different reasons people think bad beats are set up from action flops, to the dealer pause before the river card, sucking out, bad players rewarded, small blind, big blind stitch up and many more. The truth is though bad beats happen in live poker and online poker. View some of the short clips below from both live games and online poker games. Some show good play and someone getting lucky?, and others show why people think online poker is fixed. But then the same would have to be said for live poker.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY3b27vZwYk Phil Hellmouth v Tom "Durrr" Dwan Live
http://www.pokermoneyisthebestmoney.com/2009/gus-hansen-suckout Online
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x85ebk_european-poker-tour-ept-highlights Live
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qgfXsecRSc Online

These are just a few do a search in google and you will find lots of examples.

If you view the Gus Hansen suck out, this covers a few examples of why people believe online poker is fixed, it has what's called the small blind, big blind stitch up, bad beat and suck out.

Lets review it.
Hansen in the small blind raises. there are no other callers, he has j9 reasonable enough hand to raise with a lot of the time he is going to steal the big blind with the raise. The big blind re-raises, but not enough to get Hansen to fold, was this a mistake, if the re-raise had been all in would have Hansen have called, I doubt it and then their would never have been a bad beat, remember people have to call in order for a bad beat to happen in the first place. The flop comes 9 6 5, with two clubs on the board and straight draw possibilities, Hansen thinks he's in front and pushes all in I suspect nervous of the draws on the board, he gets called with the QQ and then hits the J on the turn. Goes down as a bad beat, suck out etc. But lets reverse it, what if the J hadn't had come, people would say it was still fixed, i.e it gave Hansen the top pair knowing he was going to push with that board. What I am trying to say is this type of hand gives cause whichever way it plays out for people to say online poker is fixed.

Professional poker players, who make a living from the game whether it be on line or live, watch every hand, even when they are not in it and anaylise why they lost hands. They don't blame the site or the dealer, they do sometimes blame the other player for bad calls etc, but never the site or the dealer in live games. This should tell us something, these people make a living my working out what they could have done different, not blaming the site.

I believe the biggest problem lies with the amount of players on line today and the tournament, cash games types people play. Read any experts book from a few years back and they will all say how long it took them to understand this game fully, to play solid so to speak. With the amount of information now available on poker, tv shows, Internet and the amount of sites you can play on people get a pretty good understanding of how to play solid poker very quickly. It is these people I believe who mostly bemoan and state online poker is fixed.

Why ?

I have a couple of theories here and one contradicts itself a little which you will see later. I believe most players who have a good understanding of what is solid play, pots etc play in games beneath them, they play in 1 dollar to say 5 dollar tourneys or small cash games and don't understand that at these tables you are going to get novice players who not fully understanding the game yet will call, when in a million years you wouldn't and they will suck out sometimes. In addition you get very good players who watch the table and very quickly work out who is only going to play with premium hands and will of course call with their rag hands and yes will sometimes hit.

Remember just because you start with AA, KK. AK what ever it does not mean you will automatically win.

Another point to remember is what cards have been folded, if you have 10 10 and two tens have been folded your not getting another 10, if somebody has 3 7 suited for example, and nobody else had that suite or a 3 or 7 surely the odds of hitting increase, common sense says they do.

Anyway I have to finish up for today now but will carry on this article tomorrow.