Poker Forum

I was watching the Replay of the May 11 Sunday Million Final table and noticed that the winner within less of an hour received AA 5 times, KK 3-4 times, qq once and AK 2 times. The other players had absolutely no chance to win...zilch. I also found that the player didn't play for 5 months (from Official Poker Rankings) in a MTT tournament then out of the blue enters the Sunday Million and wins it convincingly.

I sent an email about it questioning the quality of PokerStars random number generator when something like this is so lopsided. I found his response rude and insulting and made a request to close my PokerStars account after I've spent thousands playing on the site. PokerStars response is below...

>We deal over 20,000,000 hands every single day. *Somewhere* along the
>way, every single day, *somebody* is going to have an *enormous* rush of
>cards. It's not impossible, it's not unlikely, it's a mathematical
>certainty.
>
>Yes, it's exceptionally unlikely that someone will get dealt AA every
hand
>for 30 minutes, but it does have a finite, measurable probability, and as
>long as something has a measurable probability, it *can happen*. I doubt
>that particular thing has ever happened on PokerStars, because its
>probability is incredibly low, but if it *did* happen, then yes, it would
>be the result of a random deal.
>
>I don't know the exact odds of someone having the exact rush of cards
>that 'PKerBL' supposedly had. Let's guess, and say that it's
>100,000,000:1. Well, if those are the odds, then something like that
>should happen on PokerStars every 4 or 5 days, all year round.
>
>We've dealt over *17 BILLION* hands. Along the way, all sorts of really
>incredible things have happened. You just witnessed one. That's all.
Do
>you understand how large a number a billion is? If you were to count to
>1,000,000,000 at the rate of one number per second, it would take 31
years,
>251 days, 7 hours, 46 minutes, and 39 seconds. We've dealt over
>17,000,000,000 hands.
>
>An "equal chance" does not mean that everyone gets an equal balance of
>cards — that would not be random, that would be controlled. An "equal
>chance" means that everyone is equally likely to have such a rush happen
>to them, or equally likely to *not* get any good cards. A rush of that
>magnitude is equally unlikely to happen to *everybody* who plays on
>PokerStars. When it happens (and it WILL happen), it happens by random
>chance.
>
>Nobody pushed a button that gave that player a rush of cards at that
>moment. But if you believe that every player, in every situation, should
>get exactly equal cards, you don't understand the concept of randomness.
>
>Did you study mathematics in high school? Do you remember the bell curve
>of results? The bell curve represents the frequency of events, when
>measuring multiple samples of a measurable random situation. *Most* of
>the results fall in the middle, peak, "normal" range, but *some*, fewer
>results fall at the extremes. It's *normal* for extreme results to
happen
>sometimes.
>
>Let's say that you are trying to measure "the quality of cards each
player
>receives at the final table", using random dealing. Let's further say
>each player gets 200 hands, and you're using some arbitrary counter, like
>Sklansky/Malmuth's "Group 1-3" starting hands. The vast majority of the
>players will fall into the "normal" range at the middle peak of the bell
>curve, probably getting 8-12 "quality" hands out of 200.
>
>But if you run this test for 100,000 players, dealing each of them 200
>hands, there will be a few players who get no playable hands at all out
of
>200, and there might be a few players who get 30 (or more) playable hands
>out of 200. Those are the extreme results, at the lower edges of the
bell
>curve. The curve predicts that extreme results *will* happen, only very
>rarely, and in both directions. Every poker player can tell you that
they
>have "ran cold" for extended periods, and been "hit with the deck" at
>other times.
>
>Here's another (simpler) way to look at it. Let's say you're rolling a
>fair, random, single six-sided die. You decide to roll this die 600,000
>times. You would be correct to expect that over those 6,000,000 rolls,
>you will find about 1,000,000 each of every number, from one to six. But
>if you were to make a list of all of the rolls of the die, *somewhere*
>along the way, there might be 10 in a row of the number 6, or there might
>be 10 out of 15 rolls where there was a 2. You would be tempted, if you
>looked only at that run, to think that the die was unfair, but you would
>be wrong.
>
>Mathematicians call this "sampling bias", and that's exactly what you're
>guilty of here. The existence of unusual events is just part of the
>random dealing of hands; there is no *meaning* that can be extrapolated
>from those events. We don't make those things happen, and we can't
>prevent them. We just deal the cards, and all sorts of things happen.
>That's one of the reasons poker is fun; you never know what will happen
>next.
>
>If 'PKerBL' had a rush of cards at that final table, it was just the
>result of random chance. There is no "balance" in a random deal; there
is
>nothing that says "you just got Aces, so you can't get them again."
Every
>hand is determined randomly, and if he got more than his share of big
>hands, it was just something that happened; there was no outside
>intervention.
>
>And yes, people do appear out of nowhere sometimes, and win big
>tournaments. Just ask Chris Moneymaker. Who knows why this guy hasn't
>played an MTT on PokerStars in six months. Maybe he was broke. Maybe he
>was playing elsewhere. Maybe he was "walking the earth", or writing a
>novel, or was in the hospital. Maybe he got married, or had a child, and
>took an extended break. Is there some rule that says that you can't win
>your first tournament you play after you come back after a break? I'm
not
>aware of any.
>
>None of this is "nonsense." If you think it "doesn't look good," then
you
>don't understand randomness at all. You can discuss this all you want,
>but the truth will remain that we do one thing, and one thing only, at
all
>times, on every single table. We shuffle the cards randomly, and deal
>them in order. We don't do anything else, *ever*.
>
>Regards,
>
>Scott
>PokerStars Support Team
>

Long one

I almost skipped the mail, but read it anyway.

You just got a math course, be grateful, they never EVER are rude to you.

This example can be found in live tourneys too. Looke at Jamie Gold or Jerry Yang. They both were hit by the deck so hard, they didn't wake up until they were champions. With the length of this letter, there must have been multiple questions about this win.

All I hope is that they're sending letters to Stars about me when I win the Sunday Million.

not me Dave, I want people to send ME emails about my great play

As long as I win, I don't care who they send emails too.

davega wrote

As long as I win, I don't care who they send emails too.

QFT

To OP...

I think it is awesome that anybody can hit the big one and that skill doesn't always trump luck.

Everybody that wins a tourney with a large field at some point has to go on a rush / suck out at some point along the way

kwarburton wrote

To OP...

I think it is awesome that anybody can hit the big one and that skill doesn't always trump luck.

Everybody that wins a tourney with a large field at some point has to go on a rush / suck out at some point along the way

What he said.

I found this comment from PokerStars slightly over the top. I'm pretty sure everyone understands the magnitude of a billion. They method he used to describe it was a very poor one at that and I'm not going to support a pokersite that talks to their customers is such a manner. Regardless who is advertising the site.

"Do
>you understand how large a number a billion is? If you were to count to
>1,000,000,000 at the rate of one number per second, it would take 31
years,
>251 days, 7 hours, 46 minutes, and 39 seconds. We've dealt over
>17,000,000,000 hands."

I agree that the guy went a little over the top. One guy doesn't make or break the site though.

I would question this also.When I started playing here I felt this sight was very fair.Now I have many question's .I had an issue with a player here and they took away my chat,I questioned something else I saw and they took away my all in's priviledges.I have also noticed the same thing that Hollywood has noticed,certain players in tourneys get big pocket pairs regularly,and if they are losing preflop,they end up winning when all the cards to the river are on the table.I also recieved the same kind of reply as Hollywood did to a letter I wrote.Was also told that they cannot control the games as it would be a logistical nightmare.They must think that those of us who do play at these sites are total idiots,if you can turn off a players chat and take away there all ins you can also do other things.Also find it strange how a player can make the top of the leaderboard,not get another good hand and if they do , they are beaten by another player and do not cash or finish just in the bubble. I want to know how someone as myself,or anyone else for that matter, can go from keeping almost $200 in an account for over 2 month's and cashing almost daily,and sometimes 2,3,4 times a day to an empty bank and not cashing at all or only in 10 cent and frequent player point tourneys. I completely agree with Hollywood in questioning the outcome of this tourney.Not sure where else I will play when I leave stars but will be leaving very shortly.It is very unfortunate that a sight with such a large number of players is turnig into a sight like Ultimate Bet.

There is something fishy about it no question about that!!

Check the last 120 days activity on the player that won the Sunday Million.
http://www.officialpokerrankings.com/pokerstars/PKerBL/poker/results/2781DABB94A64794A6265EB3D6B22B76.html?t=2

I agree that it seems miraculous that this guy won the ONLY tourney he's played in the last 120 days but I'm still not ready to jump on the conspiracy bandwagon.

I wish I recorded that Sunday Million Tournament and posted it on youtube. I think it would have got you and a whole lot of other people thinking and scratching your head.

You know that saying that whenever there is big money there is big corruption. No one wanted to believe the rumors of Enron and WorldCom either and look what happened to them and they are heavily regulated and reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission. Who regulates these poker sites.....nobody.

Why is it 7 out of 10 times I can go into a casino and make money out of a 6 month span and be ahead yet I play online and hardly cash out and yet my game style is the same. So what is different then.....the deck! My aces 4-5 times right before the final table get cracked in a big 109 tournament to pocket 66's 99's or 10's on a regular basis preflop heads up like they knew it was coming. Once again a bad run and the other guy gets AA like 5 times and lets not forget about all the pocket KK, QQ and AK in less than an hour and not once did his aces get cracked.

I'm going back to the casino I always do well, I think this happened for a reason a wake up call. I also cashed in my first event at the 2007 WSOP event #47 with the top 100. I know there are losses in this game and bad beats but there are just certain things I see online in a week on a regular basis that I don't see in years at a Casino like 7 quads within a 24 hour period. Sure a pokersite could deal 10-20 Million hands a day but guess what I don't see or play all those hands and yet I seem to always run into the incredible 1 in 1,000,000 odd hand beater. Now why is that?

Maybe I should do what Pokerstars said the other guy was doing and "Walk the Planet" for 5 months then enter a Sunday Million and surely my chances would be better of winning it.

Well, risking the wrath and criticism of a few of our posters, I'll agree that online doesn't play like live. But you have to adjust to online play if you want to continue to play it. Unfortunately, I'm 4.5 hours away from the nearest casino or I'd probably be there daily. So it's probably a good thing. It'd be harder to live a normal life.

For me its about 1 to 1.5 hours. Which isn't too bad considering that I also have the bonus of getting a better read on my opponent and not have to worry about bots, tracking software or collusion. Some of these big online players know each anyway and make back room deals just like that one guy I think his name was "improved" got caught doing.

Why not keep my poker casino winnings instead of just giving it back to an online site that just takes, takes and takes like some kind of nightmare ex-wife. I will probably get a hotel room from Thursday to Sunday and stay close to the casino for $50 bucks a night.

Hollywood0007 wrote

I will probably get a hotel room from Thursday to Sunday and stay close to the casino for $50 bucks a night.

Now that's a plan.

Seriously, I tend to stick to lower stakes online than I do live.

It is because sites like Pokerstars and Ultimate bet are rigged.You cannot rig a deck of cards but you can rig a program .I have emptied my pokerstars account as I did my ultimate bet account and will only do freerolls from now on.Unless you are liked at Stars or UB you will lose.In the last 3 hours at Stars I have had AA cracked twice,KK cracked once.Was pushed all in by an idiot with 2 7 off and had big slick,guess who lost.I went to the casino and did not see the garbage I see now.I play regularly in a small stake cash game with friends and do not see the crap I have been seeing at stars and ub.

the winner within less of an hour received AA 5 times, KK 3-4 times, qq once and AK 2 times.

I think I would be more likely to cry "something is not right" if, after that run of cards, that person was NOT the winner.

You are lucky Stars even bothered to reply to your stupid email.