Just how random ARE the random card generators in poker?

[Herkstwin]

See the explanation in the video below. Note that comments were enabled for anyone to express their opinions. After receiving much criticism, it was disabled. Coincidence only in that specific video? To reflect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DkHzOUzDjc

Thanks for posting this video. It has to be put up on Cardschat every now and again to demonstrate to all complainers who selectively remember the losses they've suffered. All the reputable sites are certified by third-parties and have absolutely every incentive to produce the most reliable and random shuffle of cards.
Over billions of hands, the results produce the correct mathematical probabilities. Yep, my Pocket Aces get cracked a lot online. But, I can play 5-10 times more hands per hour than in a live game, so I will see those Aces much more than live.
I wonder why these discussions keep getting resurrected here. Shouldn't we be past this nonsense?
If someone questions the RNG of a web site, go visit them and check out their certification.

 

[Herkstwin]

I'm fairly certain that the RNGs do not produce a static deck that deals the cards out from a predetermined order. It would make sense for the deck to be in a state of constant shuffle even while a game/hand is being played.

That is NOT the way pokerstars describes it in the video linked earlier in this deck. The deck is shuffled and set before the hand begins.
I do wonder about the burn card. In a live game it ensures no one has accidentally seen the top card. Online, there might be no need. A good question to ask the support team at your favourite poker site.

 

[ranynight]

if u r illuminaty agent, random will always on ur side

 

[Datdude1]

I tend to think that the random generators are petty random. From time to time it may seem like the cards that are dealt are leaning towards favoritism towards certain players or situations but when I play or watch live poker I tend to see turns and rivers that are unbelievable. This tends to make me believe that the cards are going to fall the way they fall whether its live or computerized.

 

[rmcmullen2003]

Harvard or Yale or some other Ivy league college was doing an experiment with random number generators and placed some machines all over the country. On September 11, 2001 simultaneously with the attack on the world trade center all the machines randomness malfunctioned becoming un-random or predictable. I do not know if 9/11 was just a coincidence or what but the point is that RNG can and do malfunction.

 

[DAVID KEHRER]

Who knows how random but it is all we got.

 

[Joe]

LOL. You're funny man.

You think I was joking?

It's my opinion that a well-programmed RNG poker platform would be more random than most human dealers.

Outside of skilled and dedicated professional dealers, hardly anyone shuffles thoroughly enough between hands for the deck to be considered truly random.

One ideally needs to wash the cards on the felt, riffle upwards of five times, over-hand and cut.

If you're playing live with dealers, you'd hope the dealers would be there or thereabouts but self-dealt live games in my experience rarely have this level of shuffling going on, maybe once or twice an orbit...

I mean, I could try glue some kind of a punchline together out of these stated facts but I dunno if the joke would have any legs..? :dontknow:

 

[IanP304]

You think I was joking?

It's my opinion that a well-programmed RNG poker platform would be more random than most human dealers.

Outside of skilled and dedicated professional dealers, hardly anyone shuffles thoroughly enough between hands for the deck to be considered truly random.

One ideally needs to wash the cards on the felt, riffle upwards of five times, over-hand and cut.

If you're playing live with dealers, you'd hope the dealers would be there or thereabouts but self-dealt live games in my experience rarely have this level of shuffling going on, maybe once or twice an orbit...

I mean, I could try glue some kind of a punchline together out of these stated facts but I dunno if the joke would have any legs..? :dontknow:

Totally agree Joe.

Always makes me laugh these comments on pokersites being rigged becasue they got 1 outered or there AA got cracked as though these situations don't happen playing live... they most definately do.

Anyone who has watched the wsop televised or programs like poker after dark or even played a lot of live poker will see these bad beats happen in live poker just as frequently. The difference with online poker is hands are played at much faster and with multi-tabling players will play vastly more hands per hour so will see these scenarios more frequently simply due to the increase in volume.

I guess it is human nature to find something or someone to blame though so these 'rigged' posts and threads will likely continue until the end of time or the end of online poker

 

[Joe]

Totally agree Joe.

Always makes me laugh these comments on pokersites being rigged becasue they got 1 outered or there AA got cracked as though these situations don't happen playing live... they most definately do.

Anyone who has watched the WSOP televised or programs like poker after dark or even played a lot of live poker will see these bad beats happen in live poker just as frequently. The difference with online poker is hands are played at much faster and with multi-tabling players will play vastly more hands per hour so will see these scenarios more frequently simply due to the increase in volume.

I guess it is human nature to find something or someone to blame though so these 'rigged' posts and threads will likely continue until the end of time or the end of online poker

Regardless of my opinions about a good RNG being more random than most human dealers, I'm still suspect of Stars due to my personal experience..

I don't think it's 'rigged' per se, but I do suspect that it is in some way 'juiced' to speed up their profits/rake.

Hands per hour is one thing, but after grinding there for the best part of five years, I can't shake the feeling that something isn't right- on a daily basis.

I respect other people's right to hold different opinions to my own and I'm willing to discuss it civilly, but unwilling to engage in pointless debates or slinging matches.

:icon_thum

 

[McFlySoHigh]

That is NOT the way PokerStars describes it in the video linked earlier in this deck. The deck is shuffled and set before the hand begins.
I do wonder about the burn card. In a live game it ensures no one has accidentally seen the top card. Online, there might be no need. A good question to ask the support team at your favourite poker site.

Im fairly certain asking the poker site would be futile in that their backend method for card distribution is likely custom designed and releasing any detailed information would be a security issue.

Honestly, I don't think it really matters whether or not the deck is static or in a state of perpetual shuffle, or cards are randomly selected to be drawn at the point in time in which they are dealt. A random deck, if truly random, or the best pseudo random, is random in both static and constant shuffle states.

Pokerstars claim that the deck is shuffled into a random state and dealt there from, seems fine. The opposite would also seem fine to me as well, as both methods would result in a random card being dealt next.

 

[McFlySoHigh]

I play mostly live cash games where the decks are shuffled using the DeckMate 2 by Shuffle Master.

I did a lot of research on just how the DeckMate 2 shuffles a deck of cards. In fact, it doesn't shuffle them at all.

When a new game is started, a dealer will typically wash the cards by spreading them around on the table and mixing them up. Players at times, when they feel they are card dead will often tip the dealer and ask for them to wash the cards- which the dealer will usually do-- prior to the deck being stacked and placed into the DeckMate.

The washing, or even a hand shuffling of the deck prior to the deck being shuffled by the DeckMate has no effect on the final deck composition once the DeckMate has completed its operation.

The reason for this is the DeckMate shuffles the deck of cards in nearly the same way a virtual deck of cards would be shuffled while playing online. Regardless of how the deck is composed prior to being shuffled by the DeckMate, hand shuffled, washed, or a brand new deck where the cards are ordered by rank and suit, the outcome of the final deck will be the same. (There is one exception to this I'll explain below).

The DeckMate produces prior to shuffling a random number using an RNG. The number it generates represents a specific deck composition, predetermined by the random number, and the DeckMate then uses it's internal flywheel to scan each card and assemble the deck into the random number's coorelating output value.

The only exception to the final composition is timing, as the RNG inside the deckmate is clocked, so the random number, or deck composition in which it will create, is determined by the exact timing of when the shuffle is executed.

Therefore, asking the dealer to wash the deck prior to shuffling it in the DeckMate has no effect whatsoever on how the deck will be composed once shuffled, other than the timing difference, which is likely clocked to the millisecond, and is therefor irrelevant.

So a shuffle playing live, is pretty much the same as online. Washing the cards prior to the DeckMate shuffling, has no effect on output.

ShuffleMaster uses this technique to that virtually no deck is ever shuffled the same way twice. The number of possible deck combinations is 8.06e+67, which is to say the least, an astronomical number beyond comprehension.

 

[Split]

I think this generator badly imitates a person. I have won a lot of all-ins in the tournament at least 30 per game.

 

[Herkstwin]

Im fairly certain asking the poker site would be futile in that their backend method for card distribution is likely custom designed and releasing any detailed information would be a security issue.

Honestly, I don't think it really matters whether or not the deck is static or in a state of perpetual shuffle, or cards are randomly selected to be drawn at the point in time in which they are dealt. A random deck, if truly random, or the best pseudo random, is random in both static and constant shuffle states.

Pokerstars claim that the deck is shuffled into a random state and dealt there from, seems fine. The opposite would also seem fine to me as well, as both methods would result in a random card being dealt next.

I agree with you - random is random and reputable sites benefit from keeping it that way. Those who challenge the integrity of the sites, in my opinion, are simply tilting.

 

[chs2051]

play on a site where at a certain point in a tournament the big stack against 2 short stacks will win a all-in pot 8 out of 10 times, doesn't seem random to me.

 

[Darkray]

Well, as far as I know, they didn't show any bases, we can't say anything

 

[DRIVEN]

Have expirienced consecutive loses at river for a couple of days.
smells like a fraud

 

[LukasynoACAB]

Its hard to say something cause its really really random , often is like u have a 3 of a kind AA'es and someone have a random cards like 2 and 8 same color a he will win. For example 😁😁😁😁

 

[sygnax]

Nunca hay que confiar

Yo creo que nunca hay que confiar y menos en este juego, solo guiarnos por la teoria, nuestros conocimientos, la practica y un poco por la intuicion.

Excelente tema y respuestas. ¡Leo todo y me encanta! Pero todavía no sé si realmente debería confiar en el sitio de póquer en línea o no. Los humanos mienten y no podemos confiar plenamente en nada hecho por humanos, especialmente con dinero en juego

 

[bozo77]

i dont know if there are really randoms.... i dont feel like... in so many hands played i tryed to figure this out but seems like is a sistem similar with slot machines sistem...

 

[Highsolation]

I guess in order to really establish if it's random you'll have to run hands over and over again, and see how it pans out.
Otherwise when I hear people complaining I assume it's just confirmation bias, so wouldn't take those into account.

 

[oldgrinder63]

Playing online is different from playing in real life. The generators seem to create lots of action. What I mean by this is when you have a hand someone else also has a hand and it is almost always a sweat to the river. On your big hands where you are playing for alot or are all in and someone calls depending on what point of the tourney you are in depends on what seems to happen. With me if it is the start of a tourney I usually chip up and do well for a bit but after a while in the tourney you seem to go card dead or lose to some suck out by the river. This is the pattern I have noticed doesn't matter how you play or if you change up your play based on the way the cards are coming out or who you are playing it is the same result. And that result is that you make the money for a min cash or do not cash at all. It doesnt matter if I am playing in a 7900 man tourney or a 9 man sit and go. I get the same result which should not happen with a true deck of cards. If my playing style and skill allows me to run deep enough in a 7900 man tourney regularly to min cash I should have no problem consistently cashing in a 9 man tourney. But that is not the case I tend to fall just short of the money. That is the one thing the card generator has consistency on. This is cynical but sometimes I wonder if this is intentional so that I keep having to deposit more money. The more money in play the more rake pokerstars gets. I honestly think they would have to be pretty stupid and greedy to load the generators so people are always winning at the start of tourneys and then losing just before the money and redepositing it would be a big loss if they ever got caught. Especially when as it is they have thousands of people playing every day. But I wonder if the reason they only have thousands of people playing everyday is because of the amount of action that results when playing and the adrenaline rush you get when you do win or play a big hand which seems to occur regularly in a tourney.

What you describe I understand 100% I have racked my brain in this question of is the RNG truly random? I have heard countless opinions and theories. If I owned a online poker site no way in hell would I rig it! It would be random and thats it if I loose money or whatever then so be it! But who really knows people will do damm near anything for money!

 

[Costy69]

Radom number generators

I dont think there that random at all. It always runs out the same depending what hand you are playing> When you hit trips it alway runs straight cards most of the time. Or when you have a straight the board will always pair. Thats not that random to me. They need to find a better way to deal cards online.

 

[okeedokalee]

Are RNGs dealing from a 52 card pack?
If not you can't say so many cards remain to be dealt out of the pack.

 

[pljosko]

When we win a hand then it’s random generator, and when we lose then it’s rigged, lol.

 

[v3d0k]

Hello everyone! Purely my opinion on poker rooms, the percentage of combinations is set. What kind of calculation, of course, you cannot determine without inspection from the inside. But the difference in winnings differs significantly depending on the poker room. It is even worth noting a hand discount if you notice a very large percentage of your hand thrown off ends up on the table. And we are such a pancake, I didn't call it. Honestly, the percentage of flush draws on one poker room I have is 10%, the remaining 90% of the flush simply does not come out.