Good evening! I am going to comment here because I feel a moral obligation to get this out there. If it helps someone, great. So first, my history.. I have made roughly $440,000 in
online poker, most of it at
poker stars between 2008-2011.
I can state, 100%, without a doubt, that online poker is rigged. ACR specifically has gotten extremely greedy. Not just a bad run or temporary doomswitch. Otherwise Winning players lose years in a row. Anyway, here are a couple of reasons why.
1. The variance argument is extremely flawed. Stick with me here. Variance is huge in 3,000 player fields that are top-heavy. What the current algorithms (ACR specifically) do is not adjust for this small fields. It's very believable that a great player could go on a huge downswing in big MTTs. However, variance in small SNGs should be minimal. If you've got a pro who knows the game of PL08, for example, their ROI should be 50%+ in $6, $3, $1.50, and $0.50 tournaments against people who barely know the game. However, the ACR algorithm doesn't distinguish between games/buyins. If you are Doomswitched, it doesn't matter what you play, and this is their flaw. Any 'good' player should be able to win at these micro stakes. Sure, you might not money in 2/3 or half of them or whatever, but variance should be extremely minimal over the course of 50,100, or even 500 of these tournaments. It's a near mathematical impossibility for a 30% ROI player to consistently lose these games. The sites don't have to rig it so you don't 'know' though, they only have to rig it well enough so you can't prove it.
2. Staking sites. Legit stakers know online poker is rigged. I have seen solid players win big tournaments and then get dropped from their staking deals right after. What kind of sense does that make? It's because legit, experienced stakers know when someone has hit a 'ceiling' and they'll drop them when that happens, when logic would say that if someone just won a big one... this is the best time to keep them. Next time you hear someone (especially on ACR) get dropped off of a staking deal right after they won a big one, remember this.
3. The idea that it is in sites' best interest to be 'fair' is silly. Of course that's not the case. Every dollar made by a pro or semi-pro who withdraws money out of their eco-system is bad for the site. Sure, they need big name players to win big tournaments, and their site pros need to do well... but it is absolutely horrible for the site to have winning players who withdraw money. They take money out of the system and they beat 'fish'. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the easiest... and it's easy to see that winning players are bad for sites.
4. You can see this most readily when someone is sitting out, or when you
bluff and have collected a bigger stack than you 'should' have. Let's say you're in a SNG and 7 pay and 8 are left. One guy has been gone the whole tournament and is sitting out. The bait hands you get are incredible if you weren't meant to place in the tourny... or if it's not you, watch AA go up against KK for some other player and watch them get knocked out so that the sitting out guy places. Same kind of concept.. If you bluff and build a stack you're not supposed to have... watch how bad the beats come right after to bring you back down 'on track'... Also.. keep an eye on the person you bluffed... and make sure to fold to them since the algorithm may be trying to feed them monsters to help them catch up.
5. You can verify this with
sharkscope.com check out tdubz224, for instance. A great player with great results who was doomswitched for 10,000 tournaments. These weren't big buy in mtts, This guy multi tables $20-$50 tournies, and there is absolutely no way he loses $60,000 in a year playing those stakes. Or, Check out some cash players who've played millions of hands, and are posting graphs of expectation vs result. That's proof for those who are willing to accept it.
Anyway, just wanted to get this off my chest. I am a winning player at ACR and a winning player in general so it does not help me personally to say this, I just want to warn people before they get caught up in the sun runs they give new players... Don't expect these results to continue. It's rigged. Doesn't mean you can't do well or win tournaments at times... but just know there is a cap or ceiling on it and when you hit that, it's all downhill from there and the best player in the world can't stop it.
Anyway. PSA over. Best of luck on the tables... just know the deck is stacked against you.
