Online poker is rigged.. Honest....

Apparantly so, according to my next door neighbour, whos sister lives next door to a person whos second cousin twice removed once cleaned the office at pokerstars.. They have all the evidence to prove it. Sadly however when washing her jacket in the washing machine she forgot to take it out of her pocket and that evidence is now a little damp. mangled and actually pretty worthless.

I know, I know, its a little bit far fetched, but actually when you stop and think about it, how far fetched is this notion that somewhere, someone is watching tens of millions of games and deciding "hey, that bloke looks a sucker. lets sting him for a few bucks"

I dont mind a good shocking conspiracy theory. I am not averse to watching JFK a few times over and seeing if I can spot who did shoot Mr Kennedy. I've watched those wonderfully insightul yet sadly amusing videos that claim 9/11 was set up by the US government and that hundreds of people who went missing that day werent on the plane because that wasnt the actual place that hit the towers.. ( could someone tell me where the government put those 400 people because I would love to know )

But seriously this notion that online poker is rigged is just absolutely fantastic. When it comes to ilving in fantasy world even Walt Disney would struggle to come up with a storyline as far fetched as this one.

We've all seen them. The people who claim that they are a victim of the fraudulent companies that penalise those that deposit the most. According to them, the theory is that if you deposit lots and the company thinks you are pretty gullible, they can screw you up every hand and you will keep depositing. If you keep losing hand after hand and still deposit, then they havent actually read you that wrong have they... YOU ARE A SUCKER...

If you keep losing, especially to bad beats, then eventually even the most insane person would stop placing money into the account. How stupid would you be to just keep throwing money away knowing that some pillock sat on a laptop is rubbing his hands together thinking "oh look the suckers just given us another $500. Lets crack his pocket Ace".. No one in their right mind would do it, and sorry, if you truly beileve online gaming is rigged and you still place money into their hands, then you really only have yourself to blame dont you.

But thats neither here nor there really. Perhaps, and this is the crux of the matter, you arent that good at the game, and the reason you keep throwing money into the account is because you keep betting when you should just fold the hands. Sometimes bad beats happen. They happen to the best of players. Who hasnt seen Phil Hellmith cracking pocket Kings with 7 2.

This rigged theory is great apart from one thing. They may be able to tell you what cards you have, but they cant tell you what to do with them. You make the choices. If you throw every cent you've got into the middle everytime you get pocket Aces, believe me, you will go bust at some stage. The worse the hands get, the more likely it becomes.. If you dont want your hands getting beaten theres a simple rule. Dont bet with them in the first place, because thats the only sure fire way you will not get beaten..

The problem is, unless you hit a royal flush on the fkop there is always going to be a risk your will get beaten. You can have pocket Aces 10,000 times and if you think you will win with them 10,000 times you really should make a quick phone call to ET because you must come from the same planet as the one he does..

How many times do you ever see people go onto a forum and say "Onine poker is rigged because I got pocket Aces and I took $400 dollars off the bloke who had pocket Queens". It just doesnt happen. Why ? because no one minds when they win. Its not a problem. If they happen to suck out and beat someone elses pocket Aces then again you wont see any complaints. People only complain when they lose, and they will pick up on maybe 2-3 hands out of maybe 1000 they have played and use that as the conclusive proof that gaming is rigged.

Going back to the financial side, what I would like to raise is this notion that those that deposit get stuffed, and those that dont deposit get all the money. Would anyone care to eplain the logic behind that to me, because the way I see it, if I was the owner of a company and I had two customers, one paying me lots of money and the other taking lots from my account, I actually think I know whuch one I would be inclined to stitch up. Why would I piss off the person who I know will give me an income when I've got a bloke who's going to take that income away from me.. Surely, and this seems totally logical to me, you would try stitch up the person who isnt putting any money in so that he is forced to do so..

Thats of course, if you dont hang onto some crazy idea that there are millions of cyber poker players out there who dont really exist and when you raise all in the person who calls you is a 128 megabyte cyber Phil Hellmuth.If you hang onto that idea, then please feel free to see your therapist at the earliest opportunity. Your paranoid tendencies are seriously getting the better of you... You should turn off your monitor because I am watching you as you read this...

We all know about Absolute and Ultimate, and no doubt there are unscupulous people out there, but hang on a minute. Cheating in Poker.. Thats absurd. I mean who ever heard of cheating in a live game ? For the love of god. This is bloody gambling for christ sake. If you think that gamblers arent averse to using things to their own advantage now and then, then you're in the wrong game buddy because there are cheats right around the world and anyone who says they wouldnt be tempted to cheat if they could make millions at it and not get caught is either a liar, Mary Mother of god or just plain ***** stupid ( sorry about the language ).

Of course people cheat. They have done since the game was invented. But the old adage is true, that cheats never prosper. And those people who cheated didnt prosper. They were caught. Even then the numbers that were actually affected by it was in the tens as opposed to the hundreds. Hardly evidence that every person who plays onine poker is being sttiched up.

More to the point, the companies involved didnt hide the fact. If those companies were in the middle of some conpiracy to rob people do yyou think seriosuly they would allow the truth to ever come out. Of course not. The fact they were so open about it must surely show they knew nothing about it and were as surprised as the rest of us that it was happening.

This is a multi million pound business. Serious amounts of money, and those companies cannot afford to be exposed as cheats. The moment that happens their business is all but finished. And if one company gets caught doing it, the rest will be tarred with the same brush and the whole industry would go to the dogs.. Do those conspiracy theorists truly believe that companies would risk their entire future just to get maybe $100 a month out of your account ?

Sorry, but I have had my gutful of people saying online poker is rigged. If its rigged, then stop bloody playing the game and take up something else.

I know the risks when I deposit money. I know that its more than probable I will lose it. Why will I lose it ? Because the truth is, I am not as good at the game as I think I am, and others spot that. They can see I am a sucker for a few dollars and every poker player I have ever played against has me on their buddy list with the word "SUCKER" in capital letters. I dont mind. I play because I love the game and if I lose then fair enough. Thats my own fault. I either improve my game so that I am not a cash cow for everyone else, or I just keep throwing money away.

The thing about me though is, I dont play to get rich. For me $5 playing an MTT is money well spent. $5 for a couple of hours entertainment and doing what I like best..Sound a bargain to me. You tell me where you can get a good couple of hours entertainment for $5.. ANyone ever visited a cinema lately.. The bloody popcorn costs more than $5...

So all you conspiracy theorists, sorry, you're pissing me off now. You think the games rigged. Then fine, unregister, stop paying your money in and go play live games. What are you going to do when you lose at that too ? Claim the cards are marked and the opposition is really robots paid for by the casinos..