Putting The Conspiracy Theories To Rest

What makes seemingly logical men subscribe to the most outlandish theories on why online poker is rigged, and of course, rigged against them and them only?

It’s time to explore some of these theories in a little more detail…

1.     “Premium Accounts” – do they exist and how do you obtain one?

A Premium Account has the ability to perform better than anyone in races and flop play due to their “Superiority”.

Superiority may be obtained by having a large balance online in that poker site. Other theorists suggest you can obtain superiority by not playing for extended periods, then return some time later after a losing run. The site will then reward you for your absence with a big victory and a premium account as they will need you to win soon to encourage you to return again.

2.     The importance of being a “Chip Leader” or “Site Affiliated Professional” (or S.A.P for short) in online poker.

This is one of the most common theories. If you are the big stack in any online tournament, invariably you will continue to win races in order to speed up the game and get everyone paying as much rake as soon as possible in other tournaments. In addition, if you are a “pro player” affiliated with the site itself, then it is unlikely you will lose many, if any hands. Now if you see a S.A.P who is the Chip Leader with a Premium Account, it would be strongly advised to not enter any pots with them, period.

3.     Online sites distribute bad beats and cooler flops unevenly in comparison to live play.

Some may proclaim that a specific site has an inordinate amount of flushes or other weird results in comparison to what you would see in a casino. Perhaps the under pockets hit against the over pockets all the time in preflop races? Perhaps the turn card always brings straights and flushes, particularly when you have a set on the flop?

These are obviously just a handful of the numerous theories floating around. Now let’s see how the poker control room would need to operate online to accommodate these situations.

So the flop is dealt as the following: {Ad}{6h}{7h}

Player A)  {6c}{6d}   Player B)  {8s}{9h} Player C)  {Tc}{8c}

Now let’s switch to the control room and see how they need to analyse the hand.

Player C) has a small amount online but he has been winning lately, however he is chip leader of this hand.

Player B) has a vast amount online but hasn’t played for an extended period of time. He is also the short stack in this hand.

Player A) is a S.A.P but is only medium stacked in this hand.

After all these factors have been calculated we now have the verdict:

“Control room, put down the ten of hearts on the turn, quick!!”

So in the space of time it takes for players to make decisions, not only would the site need to calculate an appropriate turn card to maintain the integrity of the game, it will now need to take into account every single balance in everyone’s account in the hand, who is the chip leader, who has a Premium Account or is a S.A.P, and keep up with the dealing of unrealistic turn and river cards.

That’s going to have to be one extremely gifted random number generator!

So don’t believe in all the conspiracy theories that you may hear, just let the cards fall as they may!

- Jake "The Moose"