Despite Software, Online Poker is Rigged

You win; we give up. Online poker is rigged. Online poker is completely and totally unfair and favors the inexperienced, the fish, anyone with big cards, the people who know about “action flops,” and basically everyone but you. You see, we are experts here at PokerSoftware.com and discovered how the game was rigged pretty much right away. We use Holdem Manager, PokerTracker, and a super secret automatic cheating program that we can’t even talk about; they all indicated to us that the games were rigged.

We’re sorry, want to fess up completely, and let our loyal readers know how they too can take advantage of the systems that are in place in online poker rooms to get rich as quickly as possible. We each have a few hundred million dollars in numbered accounts in the Cayman Islands and we’re ready to retire and pass on our knowledge to you.

The first thing you need to understand is why the sites are rigged. Once you understand the why, taking advantage of the system is easy. The online poker sites, just as you probably suspected all along, want to reward bad players. Some people think this is to even out the win rates, so everyone is closer to breaking even and stick around to pay more rake. While that may be part of the reason, it’s certainly not the entire story.

The people who own the large online poker sites are cruel, evil, and hateful. They want to see good players lose and they love to watch bad beats. They set up the software to punish you, the solid player, and reward the donkey that called your all-in with Ace-Five. We got to sit in on one of their little meetings. We’re not allowed to use the real name of the poker room CEO who showed us how all of this works, so we’ll just call him Evil Bob.

Evil Bob – “Welcome to my office. You’re just in time for my turn at the helm of the Rigged Action Kismet Experiment software. We call it R.A.K.E.”

Fox – “Fascinating. How does it work?”

Evil Bob – Well, there are two components: Automatic Card Tools, or ACT, which we just let run on its own. This tool adjusts the randomness of the cards so that there are more action flops and bad players tend to be rewarded. If you get your money in with the best hand five times in a row and don’t win a single pot, ACT has probably determined that you are playing well. It’s a compliment, really.”

Fox – “I’ve certainly been the victim of that.”

At this point, Bob hit a few keys on his keyboard, asked me my screen name, and chuckled to himself.

Evil Bob – “Oh yeah, we’ve cost you 4,218 pots just with ACT. You must play pretty well. And sorry about that straight flush over straight flush last year in $10/$20 No Limit Hold’em, but believe it or not, that was just bad luck and not manipulation.”

Fox – “Really?”

Evil Bob – “Of course not, idiot. Our Vice President in Charge of Making Professional Players Hate Poker did that himself. He laughed about it for two days.”

Fox – “Uh.”

Evil Bob – “Now the second component of our system is the really fun stuff. You’re going to love it. It’s called the Arkon 2000 System in our interoffice memos, but we just refer to it as The Doom Switch.”

Fox – “There’s really a Doom Switch?”

Evil Bob – “Yeah. We’re really not sure how that one got out and onto the forums. We suspected three different employees of leaking it, but couldn’t pin it on any one of them. We had all three killed, but the damage was already done. Now everyone uses the term.”

Fox – “Yeah, but most people don’t think it’s a real thing.”

Now Bob began to cackle in an unpleasant nasal laugh that rattled the fillings in my teeth.

Evil Bob – “Of course it’s real. You’ve been the victim of it yourself almost 300 times. Come over here and I’ll show you.”

As I walked around behind Bob’s huge oak desk, the sight of six tables greeted me on each of his two computer monitors. He wasn’t multi-tabling sit and gos; there was a big red button in the middle of each monitor that said “DOOM” on it in black gothic lettering. All of the hole cards were clearly visible.

Evil Bob – “Watch this. The fish here on table three just called a raise with jack-five suited, while the under the gun raiser has Aces. This is going to be great. I just drop the red button on the table and the Aces have no shot.”

I watched as it unfolded, the Jack-Four-Trey flop, seemingly safe for the Aces. There was a bet and a raise and soon all of the money was in the middle. When the cards were flipped over, the player with the Aces actually said “rofl” to indicate the absurdity of his opponent’s all-in play with top pair and no kicker. Then, an Ace fell on the turn and Bob actually giggled to himself. The river Deuce gave the Jack-Five a five-high straight and the $200 pot. Bob roared with laughter and I thought I detected a faint hint of brimstone in the air. This man was truly evil.

I watched for a few more minutes. As the beats continued, Bob’s mood became darker and darker.

Evil Bob – “You know I can set this on your account permanently? I could just enter in your screen name and you would be forever doomed, the beats never-ending.”

Fox – “Oh my. That sounds like a nightmare.”

Evil Bob – “Except you never wake up.”

So now you know how and why the sites are rigged: Profit and evil. With an understanding of these things, you can defeat the system and make yourself as rich as we are here at PokerSoftware.com. Just follow a few simple guidelines:

1. Don’t win too much at anyone site. They notice this and the doom switch is turned on.

2. When you get all of your money in, do it quickly so that Evil Bob and his cohorts don’t have time to drop the bad beat on you.

3. Think about what would generate the most rake for the site. ACT is designed specifically to maximize rake, so expect split pots and assume the short stack will almost always win when they are all-in.

4. Play in unexpected ways to confuse the system. If you reraise with Ten-Four one time, the system may tag you as a fish for up to an hour. As soon as you see your hands start to hold up, you can start to play lots of big pots and pile on the winnings.

5. Be careful of the Cash Out Curse. If you have to cash out money from an online poker room, don’t play on that room for two weeks afterward. You will just lose money hand over fist as punishment for removing it from the site in the first place. When you come back after two weeks, your curse will have been reset and you will have a nice winning day as a way for the software to get you hooked on playing again.

If you follow our simple guidelines, you should be winning money in no time. Once you make your first $20 million, you can meet us in Aruba for a big party we have every year. We sit around and watch people play online and drink ourselves in to a stupor telling stories about the old days when we thought that playing good poker would help us win money. We’ll see you there next year!


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