For All Those Who Say “Online Poker is Rigged…”

You’ve all heard it:

“…this site’s rigged…”
“…they always catch the cards they need…”
“…I lose every race I’m in on this site…”

and my favourite:

“…this would never happen in a live game…”

Well, to those whining conspiracy theorists I give you this. Last Sunday, my place, $10 buy in NL hold’em 8 player tournament. Three way all-in on a board of:

:8c::8d::8s::Ah::2d:

For a three way split, full houses all around. Unlikely, but not so bad right?

Later in the day, two players all-in against one another. The larger stack chasing an unlikely gut shot straight pulls runner runner two pair to beat the short stacks top pair. That is they pair each of their hole cards, the first on the turn the second on the river. Can you imagine the complaining some would do if this happened online? (As a side note, this has happened to me online, though my opponent didn’t even have the straight draw… they just thought I was bluffing. I did not complain.)

It doesn’t stop there, three big hands, including the last of the tournament were decided in similar fashion. First I sucked out by pushing all-in heads up with:

:7d::7h:

On a board of:

:2h::6d::Kc: (suits not exact)

Called by:

:Ks::Tc:

Let me defend my play by saying I was the short stack, in position and I had no reason to think my opponent had the king. Anyway, the point is I caught a 7 on the turn and took down the pot to be back in the game.

But then, I was on the other end. Three way all-in preflop my AA, vs QQ and A2o, nothing to help anyone by the turn until on the river:

Another 2 outer caught. Then, the final hand of the tournament:

:2d::2s: vs :Qs::9s:

Flop:

:3h::Qh::6c:

Turn:

River:

To cap off a day of some of the more “interesting” live hands I’ve seen. Funny though, no one claimed it was rigged!

So, and most who read this would already know this, the next time someone says “that would never happen live” tell them to actually get out and play some live cards, they might just finally realise that even live a 2 outer draw has 2 outs!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 5th, 2006 at 3:14 pm and is filed under My Poker Game, Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.