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There are a lot of wild theories out
there about online poker. The Poker Penguin has a look at the more
ludicrous ones. If you talk
to another person about online poker, whether they play or not, you will
almost certainly run into some "interesting" ideas. It's only natural,
people make up theories to explain things they can't understand.
Let's just get started shall we?
Theory 1 - The online poker site is just going to run off with my money.
Party Poker recently listed on the London stock exchange with a market
valuation of over 8 BILLION dollars. Many of the other large poker sites
are either part of listed companies, or plan to list in the near future.
This makes their main shareholders very rich indeed. Their daily incomes
are more money than I am likely to make in my lifetime. It's just not
worth it for them to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
There have been a few instances of sites collapsing (I can literally
count the number of times it has happened in the last five years on the
fingers of one hand, and still be able to hold a coffee cup), and
players not getting paid. All of these were new sites with little
credibility in the poker-playing community (even before any troubles
started). Even with these sites, it was not, as far as I know, a
deliberate con, but instead a company with inadequate separation for
client's funds (most sites nowadays keep player's funds in an escrow
account that they simply can not access).
Verdict - Myth, as long as you are careful enough to stick to reputable
sites (like all the ones suggested in our reviews).
Theory 2 - Online Poker has more bad beats than "real" poker.
After your first session of online poker, you'll have probably run into
someone who firmly believes this theory. They will whine about how they
keep getting beaten on the river, usually by some idiot playing 83 off
suit. As you will see, there are a lot of idiots out there playing poor
starting hands, obviously they win sometimes. If a hand is a 9-1
favorite (like AA is over 83o) that means that on average 83o will win
10% of the time.
Sure, the idiots sometimes catch a miracle two pair or full house and
win big pots. If they didn't, they wouldn't play. However, they usually
end up just giving away their money to players like us who wait for good
cards and play them aggressively.
And, you know what? It happens in live poker too. Idiots are everywhere,
and I love them.
Verdict - Truth, but not in the way the whiners think, and it's a good
thing that it is true.
Theory 3 - Online poker sites "juice" the action to create big pots.
I see it almost every time I play. Someone has Aces, someone else has
Kings. When they showdown, at least one person will start talking about
how whatever poker site we are playing at "rigs" the cards to create
monster pots.
It sounds appealing too, I mean bigger pots mean bigger rakes, right?
Well, yes and no. In most pots, the rake is usually capped at a certain
dollar amount, so the site gets no benefit at all driving the potsize
past the point where the max rake is taken.
Sites' hand histories are also regularly audited by external accounting
firms and probability experts to ensure that the Random Number Generator
is just that - random.
Plus, any exact combination of cards is just as likely as another.
A flop of J diamonds, Q diamonds, K diamonds should be no less rare than
a flop of 9 spades, 6 clubs, 2 diamonds. We just notice the Royal flush
flop more often because it's more important, and prettier, and generally
easy to remember.
Verdict - Myth (and a particularly foolish one at that given that most
pots easily reach the rake cap)
Theory 4 - The Cashout Curse
We've all heard stories of someone who won X dollars, withdrew some
money and then lost it all. Maybe it's even happened to you recently?
Someone is bound to make the connection that the site punishes you for
withdrawing.
Well, that's just moronic. Nobody ever complains about the times they
cash out, keep winning an cashout again (as happened to me last week - I
deposit $400 to a site, clear the deposit bonus, cashout $500, turn the
$300 I had left into $900 and cashout another $600). Basically if
cashing out turns you into a losing player, it's most likely your own
fault, with coincidence a distant second.
As always, if you are losing money, look at your own game first. Then
look at your own game. Then look at your own game. Then blame variance
(after looking at your own game one last time). I think I made it clear
that your results are because of how YOU play, not anything else. The
site has no interest in whether you win or lose, they still get paid
every time a raked hand is played. If you start losing money after
cashing out, it's most likely because you've started playing worse out
of over-confidence. Or you were never a winning player anyway and you
ought to be happy you got some money out before giving it all back.
Either way, there is no such thing as a cashout curse.
Verdict - Myth, except if you are psychologically affected by your
cashout.
Obviously there are probably a dozen other stupid myths about online
poker that I didn't have time to cover today, but I hope you get the
idea. Think rationally about things people are claiming, and you'll be
able to bust a lot of the myths yourself.
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