Are Online Poker Sites rigged or not?
No matter which online poker sites you play poker at, there will be players who (for some reason or another) claim that the poker site they currently play on is rigged, biased or is cheating.
Oftentimes you will hear stories about online poker sites being rigged from players who have just had a nasty badbeat or are perhaps experiencing a bad downswing. This can best be described, if I just give you an example.
For instance, you are holding KK and at the same time someone has AA. Of course, in situation like this chips will be flying all over the table as both of you have monster hand are more than willing to commit whole stacks pre-flop.
But as soon as you see your opponents, you realise how big of an underdog you are. The only two cards that can save your ass from busting out are the 2 remaining Kings.
The chances of hitting one of the Kings by the river and winning the hand are therefore very slim. To be more specific, you have around 18 % chance of winning with KK when some else holds an AA.
But despite being in such a bad spot (or shape perhaps), in the long run you will still win 18 hands out of 100 when holding KK versus AA. Now lets say that the above mentioned situation is one of those 18 hands, which means you hit your King on the river and win the hand.
This makes a player with AA very upset as he just lost the best (pre-flop) hand possible and claims that the online poker site is rigged. Of course, we can not blame him for saying that as it really sucks to lose Aces against Kings, especially on the river.
Never the less, you must know that such badbeats happen. Not because online poker sites are rigged, but simply because the mathematics and probability in poker. Every poker player that plays either online or live poker on regular basis will sooner or later came across situations like that.
You are bound to come across situations where your Aces will lose against Kings, if you play poker. That is just part of the game. So do not let it get to you, when it happens. Just get back on your horse and keep on grinding because in the long run you will still have big profit from hands like AA.
In case you are interested in how online poker sites take care of NOT being rigged, well, they do it by using software with so called Random Number Generators and Pseudo-Random Number Generators. Visit this poker blog for more information on the above generators.
Of course, there can still be online poker rooms out there who actually are rigged, but I believe they will get caught sooner or later. Therefore, do not worry whether the online poker room you play at is rigged or not.
Instead, rather focus your attention on the poker game itself and learn from the mistakes you make!
Good luck at the tables and do not let the badbeats and downswings get the best of you. Until next time, have fun and good luck at the tables!
Online Poker Tells
Online poker tells with the advice from WSOP Academy Instructor Mark Kroon
Since I was writting about Live Poker Tells in my previous post (You can check it out here: 10 Live Poker Tells by Mike Caro), it is time to say something about Online Poker Tells as well! To begin with, there are some fundamental differences between live poker and online poker, which further on implies the differences in getting and reading other player’s poker tells as well.
The most obvious difference between live poker and online poker regarding the tells is perhaps the fact, that online poker is not physically being played in the same room or place. Since you are not able to see other players faces and reactions, gaining additional information about your opponents based on various live poker tells (that I was talking about in my previous post) is therefore not possible.
Despite this »problem«, you can still read other player’s strengths and weaknesses by figuring out their online poker tells. The principle of online poker tells is pretty much the same as in live poker tells: In order to get information about how other players play poker, you have to pay attention to what they do and how they do it.
But instead focusing on physical signs that can help you figure out whether you are dealing with a very strong hand, you focus on other things, for instance:
- How fast or slow does your opponent acts with strong hands, weak hands, draws, missed draws,…?
- How much does a certain player bets with strong hands, weak hands, bluffs,…?
- Is your opponent using auto check/folding button, when he misses the flop?
Just as in live poker, every online poker player is different somehow, which means that his / her tells are different as well. Be careful when making up and following general or commonly know online poker tells, such as »checking and calling in a fast manner means that our online poker opponent is on a flush draw«.
Follow the general online poker tells only when you are sure that they really hold true for a certain poker player. You do this the best by playing a couple of thousands of hands with him and observing his actions and reactions.
Only then are you able to exploit that tell and benefit from it. Until then, focus all your attention to what your opponents do. Observe them constantly and you will get all the information you need!
To conclude this blog on online poker tells, take a look at the following video, where one of the WSOP Academy instructors, Mark “pokerH0″ Kroon, tells you about one possible online poker tell.
WSOP Academy Instructor Mark Kroon gives advice on online poker tells
Good luck at the poker tables and most of all: have fun! : )
Is the number of online poker players still increasing?
There is one thing about online poker that makes me excited every time I think about it. This one thing is the »fact« that the number of online poker players is keep getting bigger and bigger every day!
Why, you may ask. Well, simply because more players means more action, more mistakes and more dead money, that is waiting out there for you to pick it up!
Read the full post here: Is the number of online poker players still increasing?
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