Poker Bad Hands

• In poker, players form sets of five playing cards, called hands, according to the rules of the game. Each hand has a rank, which is compared against the ranks of other hands participating in the showdown to decide who wins the pot. In high games, like Texas hold 'em and seven-card stud, the highest-ranking hands win.
• Holding 2 and 7 off suit is considered the worst hand in Texas Hold'em. They are the lowest two cards you can have that cannot make a straight (there are five cards between 2 and 7). Even if they are suited, they will make you a very low flush, and if either makes pairs, it is still a low hand.

Why do bad players always insist a Poker client is rigged? I've played 100's of thousands if not a million+ hands on pokerstars. It's not rigged, it makes no sense that it'd be rigged, Pokerstars would have nothing to gain and everything to lose. Just accept that you're bad at poker if you can't win, or that you don't understand variance.

People often ask me if online poker is rigged or not.
And my answer is always the same: if it is rigged, then it is definitely rigged for me. Because I have made a lot of money playing this silly little card game on the internet!
In all seriousness though, this is big concern that many people have. In fact my recent 'Is PokerStars Rigged' post has quickly become one of the most popular articles I have ever published.
So here's the short of it:
Online poker on the whole is not rigged. The financial incentives for the poker sites to maintain the integrity of their games are just too important. However, there are some legitimate concerns about some of the smaller poker sites in particular. The bottom line though is that you are the customer and you hold all the power. If you think a certain poker site is rigged, then you should withdraw all your funds and absolutely refuse to play there.
However, this is a fairly simplistic answer. So let's dig into specifics in the case for and against online poker being rigged. I will also talk about issues like bots, collusion and superusers.
Alright, let's go!

Is Online Poker Rigged? What's the Deal!

So let's get right into it. Is online poker rigged or not? What the heck is the deal here? Why do I get so many bad beats?!
When people talk about online poker being rigged the most common complaints I hear are a mathematically improbable amount of 'setups' (example: AA vs KK) and bad beats (example: you have AA, bad player with 74 offsuit hits two pair on the river).
Here is a good example of a so called setup hand:

But anyone who has played poker longer than a few days, knows that eventually these always go both ways. They are simply a part of the game, so it's like complaining about the rain.
People also often talk about a 'big stack advantage' in poker tournaments as well. This means that they believe the poker site rigs it in order for the bigger stack to win more all-in preflop coinflips (example: AK vs 99).
The logic behind what exactly the poker sites gain by rigging these hands and allowing the big stack to win more flips is a little bit less clear. Especially since most of the people who complain that online poker is rigged play incredibly low stakes, like $10 games.
Some people however claim that there is widespread collusion, bots or 'superusers' in many games. Now this is a bit of a separate issue because this sort of cheating (if true) is more likely to be perpetrated by the players themselves, not the poker sites.
However, let's put that to the side for a moment and discuss the case for and against online poker being rigged first.

The Case For Online Poker Being Rigged

So let's look at the facts for why online poker is rigged then shall we?
Well, unfortunately the facts for online poker being rigged are few and far between. The arguments in favor of online poker being rigged would be much better classified as 'anecdotal' instead.
For instance, if you go read any 'poker is rigged' thread on Reddit or a poker forum you will find that most of the comments are actually just angry, incoherent and expletive laced rants.
And they are always missing that one massively important pesky little detail:
Evidence.
Instead their arguments usually go something like this instead:
'OMGGGZZZ, my pocket AA got cracked 3 times in a row, on the RIVER, every time STUPID JOKERSTARS, rigged, I will get my lawyer and sue POKERSTARS!!!, OMFG so mad right now, how can anyone play on this RIGGED poker site???'
Now, the problem with 'arguments' for online poker being rigged like this is that while they certainly demonstrate a large amount of emotion, they just aren't supported with anything close to what we would typically deem as evidence.
And unfortunately, when making such seriously allegations and threatening lawsuits against a multi-billion dollar company you are probably going to need some of this!
The main problem here is that 'my pocket AA got cracked 3 times in a row' just doesn't mean anything. Like at all.
In fact this is such a completely commonplace and mathematically likely occurrence in poker that it is trivial to even consider.
You would need a sample size of thousands of instances where your AA was getting beat too often in order to have a real and substantive argument here.
And luckily for all of those who believe that online poker is rigged, this is actually really, really easy for them to do.
You can just use a program like PokerTracker, import your poker hands, and then filter for all instances of AA to see your winning percentage.
Pocket Aces should win approximately 85% of the time versus a random hand.
So, if you had a sample size with thousands of instances of AA where you are only winning at 70%, 60% or less, then you would have a real and legitimate complaint!
However, I have never seen anyone who claims that online poker is rigged actually produce a statistically significant sample size like this. Instead they have sample sizes of 3 hands, 10 hands or 100 hands.
Incredibly small sample sizes like this would be quickly refuted by any amateur mathematician as well within the bounds of simple variance and standard deviation.
And for all those threatening lawsuits against the online poker sites this sort of 'evidence' would also be quickly dismissed from any court of law as pure silliness.

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The Case Against Online Poker Being Rigged

The evidence for online poker not being rigged is far, far stronger. And the reason why is because once again, you can just go check it for yourself!
Most poker sites these days will allow you to download your hand histories as you play. Hand histories are a small text document which includes every bit of information about a poker hand.
For Example:

• Exact time the hand was played
• All player's stack sizes
• Who bet, folded, called etc.
• Who was the winner of the hand
• Who was the loser of the hand

And as mentioned before, we have highly sophisticated online poker tracking programs these days like PokerTracker and Hold'em Manager.
Using the pocket AA example again, you could simply go into either of these programs and filter for this hand only. Then you could see if your winning percentage differs dramatically from where it should be.
Furthermore, it wouldn't even take that many hands to figure this out. In order to get a sample size of 1000 instances of pocket AA for instance, you would only need to play 220,000 hands of poker.
You get dealt pocket AA 1 out of every 220 hands. 220 x 1000 = 220,000.
Now this might sound like a lot, but for anyone who plays online poker seriously and multi-tables this is not really that many hands. Any serious poker player could easily do this in a couple months.
In fact, I have actually played this amount of poker hands in one single month several times throughout my poker career.

By the way if you are curious about how I play this many hands of poker, and still keep track of all my opponents, yes I do use several poker software aids and tools.
For the complete list of all poker software and tools I use as a pro at the tables, click here.
However, my suspicion is that many of the people complaining about their pocket AA being cracked too much have not even played this many hands in their entire lifetime!
After all, it is hard to play a lot of poker when you are too busy writing angry expletive laced comments on Reddit and threatening hare-brained lawsuits.
Look, if you truly believe that your pocket AA is losing way too often then you owe it to yourself to at least do your homework first so that you know for sure.
Play a statistically significant sample of hands (i.e. 200K+), run it through a tracking program, and then post the evidence for all the world to see!
Opinions are great. Everybody has one. But what we need in order to solve the debate once and for all about online poker being rigged or not are facts. Clear verifiable evidence.
Unfortunately for all the people claiming that online poker is rigged, they never seem to have much of this. However, I know that I can look through my own database of millions of poker hands and prove them dead wrong in a second.
Another thing that would help a lot of the people who believe online poker is rigged is to simply get better at poker.
Because when you have an extremely high win-rate you won't worry about the routine ups and downs as much anymore.
This is something that Daniel Negreanu actually mentions specifically in his brand new advanced poker training course. Instead of worrying so much about the losses, just focus on winning more!

Poker Sites Have a Direct Financial Incentive NOT to Rig Online Poker

The other big problem for the online poker is rigged crowd is that the poker sites actually have a direct financial incentive to maintain the integrity of their games.
In other words, they have a clear motive NOT to rig online poker.
PokerStars for instance made $877 million dollars in revenue from poker in 2017. And that is actually a 4% increase over 2016 for all the people who think the popularity of online poker is trending downward.
What these numbers really prove though is the point that I have been making on this blog for many, many years now.
And That Is:
The poker sites themselves are the real big winners in poker and they always will be. They are the real 'sharks,' not the players.
If you disagree please tell me the name of a poker player who is making nearly a billion dollars a year. I would pay anything to get coaching from this guy!
So simple common sense and logic will tell us that when you are already crushing it beyond belief in business the last thing you want to do is change anything or risk your reputation.
No of course not. You just want to keep the gravy train rolling!
You really have to ask yourself what PokerStars for example has to gain by rigging the river in your $10 tournament. Nothing. But they have everything to lose.

You Are The Customer, You Have All the Power!

But hey believe me, I get it. Some people will never be convinced no matter what I or others say.
Even though there is absolutely no evidence to support their claims nor even a motive for many of the poker sites to rig anything, their minds are already made up.
And that's completely cool.
You can believe pink monkeys orbit the moon too and Tupac Shakur is alive and well living on an island in Malaysia with Jim Morrison.
At the end of the day though it doesn't matter what I believe or what you believe because the bottom line when you are playing poker (online or live) is that you are the customer.
And therefore, you have all the power.

So if you believe that a certain poker site is rigged against you then you should vote with your feet and simply withdraw all your funds and never play there again.
Something that I can never understand is how many people complain that a certain poker site is rigged (let's just use PokerStars as an example again) and yet they continue to play there!
Why on earth would you continue to play at a poker site that you are convinced is rigged? This defies all logic and even just common sense.
There are literally hundreds of other online poker sites to choose from. And if you are convinced that all of online poker is rigged against you then you can just go play live as well!
Also, remember that when you withdraw your funds and go play somewhere else this is a huge loss for that poker site. They rely on the rake that you pay to keep creating those multi-million dollar profits.
So if you are convinced that an online poker site is rigged, hit them where it hurts, in the pocket book. Withdraw your money and never play there again.

What About Poker Bots, Collusion and SuperUsers?

Alright, let's get into the much more serious discussion now of poker bots, collusion and superusers.

Rdr2 Poker Bad Hands

This is a legitimate concern because unlike poker sites rigging the river against your pocket aces, there is actually real evidence that this sort of cheating has occurred.
But the difference here is that the cheating is almost always done by the players themselves.
They are often the ones who are trying to run poker bots, collude with other people at the the table or find out somebody's hole cards (superuser).
In the past several years there have been allegations of bots in particular being used on nearly every major online poker site.

Poker Hands Bad Beats

And this isn't just speculation. There have been many high profile cases of poker sites publicly refunding players because their security teams uncovered gross rule violations.
Now while they rarely spell out the exact details of what type of actual cheating occurred (for pretty obvious reasons) it is clearly some sort of bot ring or collusion in many cases.
Now should you be concerned about playing against poker bots, colluders and so on? Absolutely. But here's the thing. You are battling against human nature here.
Whenever there are significant amounts of money on the line, a small amount of people are going to engage in shady practices or even outright cheating.
Remember that little global financial meltdown we had about 10 ago? Ya, enough said.
Look here's the thing. There is always going to be some form of cheating or angle shooting in poker no matter what games you play in. And it doesn't matter if you play live or online.
Does this mean that you should never play poker again? No of course not. You just need to be realistic and vigilant when playing poker.
I would also be a lot more concerned as a mid or high stakes poker player about this sort of cheating because of the much larger amounts of money in play.
However, less than 5% of the people reading this article right now actually play in these games. I know this because I asked 1,124 of you what stakes you play a few months ago!
But look here is the bottom line once again. You are the customer. If you feel that something isn't right, then send the poker site an email, and give them some specific names and details so they can investigate.
If you do not find their reply to be satisfactory, then withdraw all of your funds immediately and never play there again.

Final Thoughts

So should you trust online poker? Is online poker rigged?
Well, I think the glaring lack of any real evidence or even a motive for most of the major online poker sites to be rigging anything speaks volumes.
But as we all know some people will never be convinced.

Bad Poker Hands

I get hands sent to me every single day like this one where people are convinced that it is 100% rigged against them:

That is why I recently wrote this free little 50 page no BS guide to teach you exactly how to start crushing these games right now.
You will learn how to start consistently making $1000 a month (or more) from poker like I have as a 10+ year poker pro.
Enter your details below and I will send my free poker cheat sheet to your email right now.

The Case Against Online Poker Being Rigged

The evidence for online poker not being rigged is far, far stronger. And the reason why is because once again, you can just go check it for yourself!
Most poker sites these days will allow you to download your hand histories as you play. Hand histories are a small text document which includes every bit of information about a poker hand.
For Example:

• Exact time the hand was played
• All player's stack sizes
• Who bet, folded, called etc.
• Who was the winner of the hand
• Who was the loser of the hand

And as mentioned before, we have highly sophisticated online poker tracking programs these days like PokerTracker and Hold'em Manager.
Using the pocket AA example again, you could simply go into either of these programs and filter for this hand only. Then you could see if your winning percentage differs dramatically from where it should be.
Furthermore, it wouldn't even take that many hands to figure this out. In order to get a sample size of 1000 instances of pocket AA for instance, you would only need to play 220,000 hands of poker.
You get dealt pocket AA 1 out of every 220 hands. 220 x 1000 = 220,000.
Now this might sound like a lot, but for anyone who plays online poker seriously and multi-tables this is not really that many hands. Any serious poker player could easily do this in a couple months.
In fact, I have actually played this amount of poker hands in one single month several times throughout my poker career.

By the way if you are curious about how I play this many hands of poker, and still keep track of all my opponents, yes I do use several poker software aids and tools.
For the complete list of all poker software and tools I use as a pro at the tables, click here.
However, my suspicion is that many of the people complaining about their pocket AA being cracked too much have not even played this many hands in their entire lifetime!
After all, it is hard to play a lot of poker when you are too busy writing angry expletive laced comments on Reddit and threatening hare-brained lawsuits.
Look, if you truly believe that your pocket AA is losing way too often then you owe it to yourself to at least do your homework first so that you know for sure.
Play a statistically significant sample of hands (i.e. 200K+), run it through a tracking program, and then post the evidence for all the world to see!
Opinions are great. Everybody has one. But what we need in order to solve the debate once and for all about online poker being rigged or not are facts. Clear verifiable evidence.
Unfortunately for all the people claiming that online poker is rigged, they never seem to have much of this. However, I know that I can look through my own database of millions of poker hands and prove them dead wrong in a second.
Another thing that would help a lot of the people who believe online poker is rigged is to simply get better at poker.
Because when you have an extremely high win-rate you won't worry about the routine ups and downs as much anymore.
This is something that Daniel Negreanu actually mentions specifically in his brand new advanced poker training course. Instead of worrying so much about the losses, just focus on winning more!

Poker Sites Have a Direct Financial Incentive NOT to Rig Online Poker

The other big problem for the online poker is rigged crowd is that the poker sites actually have a direct financial incentive to maintain the integrity of their games.
In other words, they have a clear motive NOT to rig online poker.
PokerStars for instance made $877 million dollars in revenue from poker in 2017. And that is actually a 4% increase over 2016 for all the people who think the popularity of online poker is trending downward.
What these numbers really prove though is the point that I have been making on this blog for many, many years now.
And That Is:
The poker sites themselves are the real big winners in poker and they always will be. They are the real 'sharks,' not the players.
If you disagree please tell me the name of a poker player who is making nearly a billion dollars a year. I would pay anything to get coaching from this guy!
So simple common sense and logic will tell us that when you are already crushing it beyond belief in business the last thing you want to do is change anything or risk your reputation.
No of course not. You just want to keep the gravy train rolling!
You really have to ask yourself what PokerStars for example has to gain by rigging the river in your $10 tournament. Nothing. But they have everything to lose.

You Are The Customer, You Have All the Power!

But hey believe me, I get it. Some people will never be convinced no matter what I or others say.
Even though there is absolutely no evidence to support their claims nor even a motive for many of the poker sites to rig anything, their minds are already made up.
And that's completely cool.
You can believe pink monkeys orbit the moon too and Tupac Shakur is alive and well living on an island in Malaysia with Jim Morrison.
At the end of the day though it doesn't matter what I believe or what you believe because the bottom line when you are playing poker (online or live) is that you are the customer.
And therefore, you have all the power.

So if you believe that a certain poker site is rigged against you then you should vote with your feet and simply withdraw all your funds and never play there again.
Something that I can never understand is how many people complain that a certain poker site is rigged (let's just use PokerStars as an example again) and yet they continue to play there!
Why on earth would you continue to play at a poker site that you are convinced is rigged? This defies all logic and even just common sense.
There are literally hundreds of other online poker sites to choose from. And if you are convinced that all of online poker is rigged against you then you can just go play live as well!
Also, remember that when you withdraw your funds and go play somewhere else this is a huge loss for that poker site. They rely on the rake that you pay to keep creating those multi-million dollar profits.
So if you are convinced that an online poker site is rigged, hit them where it hurts, in the pocket book. Withdraw your money and never play there again.

What About Poker Bots, Collusion and SuperUsers?

Alright, let's get into the much more serious discussion now of poker bots, collusion and superusers.

Rdr2 Poker Bad Hands

This is a legitimate concern because unlike poker sites rigging the river against your pocket aces, there is actually real evidence that this sort of cheating has occurred.
But the difference here is that the cheating is almost always done by the players themselves.
They are often the ones who are trying to run poker bots, collude with other people at the the table or find out somebody's hole cards (superuser).
In the past several years there have been allegations of bots in particular being used on nearly every major online poker site.

Poker Hands Bad Beats

And this isn't just speculation. There have been many high profile cases of poker sites publicly refunding players because their security teams uncovered gross rule violations.
Now while they rarely spell out the exact details of what type of actual cheating occurred (for pretty obvious reasons) it is clearly some sort of bot ring or collusion in many cases.
Now should you be concerned about playing against poker bots, colluders and so on? Absolutely. But here's the thing. You are battling against human nature here.
Whenever there are significant amounts of money on the line, a small amount of people are going to engage in shady practices or even outright cheating.
Remember that little global financial meltdown we had about 10 ago? Ya, enough said.
Look here's the thing. There is always going to be some form of cheating or angle shooting in poker no matter what games you play in. And it doesn't matter if you play live or online.
Does this mean that you should never play poker again? No of course not. You just need to be realistic and vigilant when playing poker.
I would also be a lot more concerned as a mid or high stakes poker player about this sort of cheating because of the much larger amounts of money in play.
However, less than 5% of the people reading this article right now actually play in these games. I know this because I asked 1,124 of you what stakes you play a few months ago!
But look here is the bottom line once again. You are the customer. If you feel that something isn't right, then send the poker site an email, and give them some specific names and details so they can investigate.
If you do not find their reply to be satisfactory, then withdraw all of your funds immediately and never play there again.

Final Thoughts

So should you trust online poker? Is online poker rigged?
Well, I think the glaring lack of any real evidence or even a motive for most of the major online poker sites to be rigging anything speaks volumes.
But as we all know some people will never be convinced.

Bad Poker Hands

I get hands sent to me every single day like this one where people are convinced that it is 100% rigged against them:

Proper tournament play requires you to fight for pots. This doesn't just mean you should raise and reraise before the flop. It also means that the big blind needs to defend with far more hands than in a cash game.

Under conditions where opponents are eager to take down the blinds and antes, and where those antes are improving the pot odds for the big blind, it becomes necessary to call opening raises with hands that are almost always too weak to call with from the same spot in a cash game.

Clube de poker balneario camboriu praia. There is, therefore, an under-appreciated skill that is largely tournament-specific: adjusting to the preflop viability of those bad hands.

In cash games, blinds who are defending figure to have the hands that get the most ink in the preflop chapters of strategy books — namely, Broadway hands, pairs, and fairly good suited and connected hands. But in tournaments, the big blind will sometimes be getting such a good price that worse hands than these will become tempting.

At the final table of last spring's European Poker Tour Vienna Main Event there were two hands in particular that well illustrated these and other principles of tournament play. I'll discuss one of these hands here and the other one in a future article.

Preflop: Pot odds compel big blind to call

For the first hand, the blinds were 40,000/80,000 and the ante 10,000 with seven players left. Anthony Ghamrawi, chip leader at the time, opened the action by raising to 165,000 from the hijack seat with . Simeon Naydenov then called the raise from the button with .

Although Naydenov's hand was dominated in this situation, is an appropriate calling hand here. Ghamrawi ought to be opening the pot aggressively, so generally fares well in position in this situation.

The action folded to Pablo Gordillo (pictured above) in the big blind. There was already 520,000 in the pot and he had only 85,000 more to call, so his pot odds were better than 6-to-1. Holding , he had a clear call. (He appeared to need to think about the decision, however, leaving his cards unprotected before double-checking them and then finally putting in the 85,000.)

Although it would usually be correct to fold -suited out of the big blind in a cash game, it would have been a serious error for Gordillo to fold here. Indeed, even worse hands such as -offsuit and -suited ought to have called this bet. Batel poker clube online.

Flop: Ghamrawi continues, Gordillo calls

There was 605,000 in the pot going to the flop. Gordillo had over 3 million in his stack, Ghamrawi had over 5 million, and Naydenov had just over 2 million.

The flop came . Gordillo checked, Ghamrawi bet 225,000, and Naydenov made an interesting fold. Much could be said about this fold. It is often incorrect to ditch hands with two overcards and a gutshot against a continuation bet. Perhaps he couldn't justify either calling 10% of his stack or jamming (which would not have been such a severe overbet), especially with Gordillo left to act and in a tournament setting that encourages risk aversion.

Whatever Naydenov's reasons for folding, it left Gordillo in an interesting spot. With a flush draw and an overcard, had good equity against any plausible set of hands on which he could put Ghamrawi.

Having such a strong hand would often be a reason to raise, but Gordillo decided just to call. There are many possible justifications for such a play. For one, calling instead of raising might disguise a flush, if Gordillo were to make one. Gordillo might also have figured that Ghamrawi would not have made a continuation bet with a weak hand and concluded that a raise offered little fold equity, and Gordillo's stack size (roughly three times the pot after the 225,000 call) might have made it difficult to choose a proper raise size.

I think another set of reasons ought to be considered, though, for Gordillo calling, and they have to do with his preflop decision.

Poker Keep Getting Bad Hands

One reason that raising is often a strong play for a big blind on this board with a hand like a good flush draw is that many other hands with which the big blind figures to have called — e.g., , , , and so on — connect well with this board and indeed connect to make strong made hands. In this case, though, everyone knows that Gordillo was getting better than 6-to-1 before the flop, meaning he could have hands like the aforementioned -offsuit or -suited, or he could also have -suited, -offsuit, -suited, and the like.

In short, in this tournament setting, many more of the hands that connected in some way with this board connected with it weakly. This makes it somewhat harder to represent a strong hand, and especially a strong made hand, by raising. I'm not claiming that this was what Gordillo was thinking when he chose to call, nor even that Gordillo made a good play by not raising. It does, though, demonstrate how the preflop adjustments of tournament poker ramify through a hand.

As Andrew Brokos and I discuss in our tournament podcasts, one of the many ways in which players fail to evaluate their opponents correctly in tournament poker is by overlooking the differences between tournament play and cash games. These mistakes are easy to make, because they are often subtle and require multi-street thinking. This flop plays very differently here than it would in a cash game.

Turn and River: Ghamrawi slows down, Gordillo takes advantage

The turn came the , and both players checked. When the river brought the , Gordillo took the opportunity to bluff at the pot, and wisely so, both because king-high is very weak on this board and because even having a very wide preflop range doesn't prevent the blind from having enough to value bet after Ghamrawi has shown weakness on this scary board.

The bluff worked. Gordillo bet 310,000, and Ghamrawi folded his ace — and justifiably so.

Whereas in cash games against good opponents, the big blind will often confine himself to decent preflop hands, in tournament play he often figures to be playing some stinkers, too. Accounting for these possibilities takes practice, and learning to do so will give you an advantage over your competition

Be sure to check out Nate and Andrew Brokos on the Thinking Poker podcast, and for more from Nate visit his blog at natemeyvis.com.

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