Full Tilt is Rigged

[Ant8472]

Okay I am sure of it now. After a year and half of having to endure the Full Tilt brunt I have spotted what the anomaly is.

It is simple, on one hand there are action flops. There is no doubt about this. Everyone hits their hand. I am less certain about this aspect of the anomaly.

But here is the part I am absolutely sure of. When you are the short stack you often get beaten by a hand that is behind. I've been playing all day for the last 4 days. I've played about 25 tournaments. In 15 of them I have been knocked out by a 2 or a 3 outer. It is always when I am up against a big stack. They will have nothing more than a 3 outer to beat me and they *will get it almost every time*. Typical example. I had a set of 5s. The flop is 245. I get called by A2 (why the hell they call with A2 I do not know unless they have come to expect to get their gutshot). Almost without fail their 3 will come to give them a gutshot. It won't be the ace or the 2 that comes. No, it will be the card they need to beat you with.

This is but one example. But this scenario, in its varying forms, has gotten me knocked out in more than half of the tournaments I have played. It is so consistent that I can point the card out and say 'this is the card that will come next' and magically, it comes! It's a system, and if you look carefully you will see it happens all the time and far to regularly for it to be just the result of bad luck. You can't be that unlucky.

Now, I don't say this is happening all the time. It happens a lot of the time, maybe half the time. That's significant if someone is catching one of 3 cards in a remaining deck of 47 cards, every 2nd time. Also, I am not forming my opinion based on my results in the last 4 days. This has been happening since the day I started playing at Full Tilt a year and a half.

I am also not saying that rigging precludes one from being a profitable player on Full Tilt because there are many profitable players. You can make money. It usually the people who aren't making money playing good poker that raise the question when the bad beats seem to come thick and fast.


Alternatively, when I am a big stack (which isn't often because I play a fairly tight game and creep up in the rankings from behind as the tournament progresses) I find myself catching cards like crazy. It is like the luck has been turned over and I am suddenly getting extreme luck. I will pick up AA, KK, QQ sometimes a couple of hands in a row. I will suck out on players. It is like there is one more for you when you are the big stack and another mode when you are the small stack.

And put quite simply, I won a far too small proportion of showdowns when I am all in for it to be random variance.

I know these kinds of posts attract the anti-riggers anti-conspirators who don't believe it and who usually protest vehemently that the sites are all fair and have nothing to gain by rigging their system, but pure empirical facts cannot be refuted just because someone doesn't intuitively believe the sites aren't rigged.

Someone better start believing it, and someone who can make a difference and bring these sites to their knees, because if no one acts on it these sites will continue to go on unregulated and continue manipulating and tweeking the system to maximise profits.

The American government banning online poker sites has probably played a big role in the sites being able to get away with profit maximising measures that compromise the randomness of the deck.

Don't believe me? As an experiment play a cheaper stake game and *deliberately* call short stacks you know are ahead. See if you are catching an inordinate amount of cards. Heck, just go in behind at any time and see your catch rate go sky high.


Anthony

[Dr Fill Good]

"I've played about 25 tournaments"

That's where I stopped reading. 25 tournaments is a statistically insignificant sample. I personally (as well as many other grinders on this site) go through that many in 3 hours. Play 250, keep track of every hand that is all in preflop. Come back with solid facts and I will believe you. You have not played a fraction of enough hands to credibly say full tilt is rigged.

If it's too bad, try pokerstars. Read some poker books while your at it, and check out some of our better posts, post some hand play questions and who knows, you might start killing it.

[otbdave]

I dunno man I play like a million hands now and I still donkin.

I might go with FT being rigged. Why did they pick you to win Filly?

[Dr Fill Good]

Why did they pick you to win Filly?

I'm fairly sure it is because of my dashing good looks, my winning sense of humor and my Mother that works at full tilt.

-----Added 9 May 2009 at 12:30:59-----

It usually the people who aren't making money playing good poker that raise the question when the bad beats seem to come thick and fast.


It's usually the self proclaimed good players that complain about it being rigged. I know from the one hand I saw you post, you didn't play it optimally by any means. If you can find a quality player to rail you while you play for a few hours you might be surprised at the number of comments they'll have for you.

[cantshaikme]

Time for a new hobby. Or time to play 4 more days and then see how stupid this sounds

[otbdave]

and my Mother that works at full tilt.

I fcking knew it!

[Ant8472]

Shouldn't have stopped reading. I have been playing playing on the site for 18 months and the same phenomena continues. If I showed you my hand historys you would have to conclude that the only way I am getting knocked out of half the time is from bad beats. Is it normal to get knocked out of tournaments mostly from bad beats? Maybe I am just not accepting the nature of this game we play. Perhaps there is an element of luck that is large enough that it will often define your results in a tournament to the point where you can always pinpoint the 'bad beat' that finally knocked you out.

But if that isn't the case, if it isn't normal to get knocked out by 3 or 5 outers nearly every tournament then please tell me, because I don't play nearly enough live poker to know the difference. I have started to play live tournaments just recently and the cards just fall completely differently. What usually happens hand after hand is that someone raises preflop and everyone folds and occasionally one person calls. Just occasionally you will get three big hands bump up against one another and we typical call this a 'cold deck'. These cold decks happen every few hands on line.

In live poker most dominating hands hold up (as per their expected mathematical rate of holding up). It's pure maths in motion. It's incredibly anomolous online.

If you flip a coin 10 times and it lands on heads at what point do you question the coin? Something is up with that coin if it keeps landing on heads.

It's one thing to have a bad day with dominating cards cracked over and over again and have people catching 3 outers on you, but to happen everyday? It's not possible.

I find that, from the limited amount of players I've spoken to who often play, they all have similar opinions about how different the cards fall in live games compared to how they fall in online games. It would be interesting to hear

Not only is there a lot of pre-flop big cards dealt but often, more than one person catches on the flop. It is all geared for action and knock outs. How many times have you seen AK, KK and QQ on the same board with all 3 players all in? How often does that happen live? If you play live or watch live tournaments you will see the difference is stark.

Granted that players play tighter in live games but there will be times when everyone is folded hand after hand because they simply did not get dealt a raising hand. On Full Tilt you will get 2 or 3 players nearly every hand with a good raising pre-flop hands.


You can't bluff on Full Tilt either because the other player most likely catches their hand. The art of bluffing is centred around the idea that on most flops people don't catch their hands. This principle doesn't apply on Full Tilt. If two people entered a pot and are heads up after the flop, most of the time both got a peice of it.


There is another phenomena I've noticed online. It seems that when you have a good little win by cashing in a tournament or a SNG you suddenly get bad luck right after. It's impossible to keep up the win rates. I've noticed that when I am on a 'winning' mode I am winning around 40-50% of the hands I enter voluntarily, but as soon I've had a win my rate of hands won to voluntary put ins drops to about 25%.

-----Added 9 May 2009 at 03:56:50-----

Actually, you are right. I played that hand very poorly upon hindsight.

I had bet out on the flop and on the turn when the second jack came. He must have put me on the jack yet put me all in anyway. I should have picked up on that on his river bet all in. But how unlucky for him to suck that card out on the river? It was so disguised. I didn't put him on the straight. I had trips and a flush draw on the flop so my hand felt invincible.

I know I am not a good player yet and I would never argue against anyone who tells me my game needs improving. Poker takes years to master and I have only been playing for 18 months. I've read Harrington and Sklanksy but as good as those books are, they can't prepare you for every situation you encounter on a poker table. That hand you pointed out was a good learning experience.

I am not a winning player online. I will say though that I am doing quite nicely in real life tournaments.

[ThrillCory90]

Yea, these type of posts are getting ridic.

Don't believe me? As an experiment play a cheaper stake game and *deliberately* call short stacks you know are ahead. See if you are catching an inordinate amount of cards. Heck, just go in behind at any time and see your catch rate go sky high.

Ok. We should set something up. I'll play 100 SNGs in the next few weeks. And I'll record a video of every SNG and keep rcord of everytime I'm the bigger stack and I'm behind equity wise. I'll even try to get it in behind. If I lose more than half of the time you pay for all 50 buyins. I win more than half I'll ship you the amount I payed in buyins plus every the amount I cashed with your strategy.

[Houdini9]

Stop playing so tight. Loosen up your game - get more chips - then you won't get beat as often (according to the rigging right?).

Solution = Get More Chips.

Good Luck and I'll See You On The Other Side,

Houdini9

P.S. I almost forgot the most important part of my post. If you're not willing to change your game to GET MORE CHIPS in order to overcome the "rigging," then you have two other choices:
1. Continue to be frustrated with playing the game until you are broke or dead.
2. Quit Playing Poker - because the game will never change . . . only the playa's.

P.P.S. Oh yeah . . . (had to read the other posts . . .) Dr. Fill Good . . . will you rail me for a few hours . . . pleeeeeeeeease ))))))))

[ThrillCory90]

Dear any moderator,

Can conspiracy theory posts be banned or something. It's really annoying to see threads like this outnumber the actual handplay threads. It's weird that Wreaks posted a really interesting AK hand, Cdavi posted a good one, and Galactus posted a very good thread about playing out of the SB, yet the 3 "id win if fulltilt didn't cheat me" posts probably got more views and replies. And it pushes good threads like this http://www.badbeatspoker.net/forum/n...lybusters.html out of the recent 10.