There is some rumour that moofatzh is a poker program playing Limit $50 poker.  Obviously set in auto-play mode.  Each interval between actions is 4 seconds exactly.

Check more out on the poker player forums for info on this bot.

But more the everyday cheating seems to be evident…where 2-3 people will work together and share the profits.  I definitely got a feeling this was going on at William Hill, the full stacks never seemed to play against each other or quickly folded.

Colusion goes in poker clubs too – in 2s or 3s.  Where they soft play each other and both try to make the final table.

Colusion is easy to spot, and I’m glad to say most of the US sites don’t have much going on in this dept.

The evidence was emailed by accident to an Absolute Poker member – the hand history shows ALL hole cards for ALL players.

It seems someone could see the hole cards.  But they couldn’t predict the flop.

As a result, the player who had the info, played perfectly.

Discussion : http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=beats&Number=12622726&page=0&fpart=1

Video of the event : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FczbS7FiWSM

There’s a pre-flop raise.

I get dealt A8 short handed.  A-blah is great short handed.

I call.

Flop A58 (all hearts).

I figure I can make good if I make a full house against the flush.

 Other guy bets.

I call.

Turn blank

He bets.

I call

River 8.

I got AA888.  I’m sure he has a flush, betting against me so the board doesn’t pair or he has a small flush and doesn’t want my Ace of hearts (if I have it) making a bigger flush.

He bets river, I move all in.

He calls showing AAA88.  He was sitting on pocket Aces!

Poker is rigged…. 

Others have concensoused on the Net that Poker Room is rotten to the core – Full Tilt and PokerStars still retain themselves as the fairest and most realistic compared to live cards.

Then proceeded to the 5/10 tables.

It seems with $10 ante, there are fewer hands you’re up against – this should reduce the chances of getting a bad beat.

Still, I saw an all in KK versus QQ….KK lost.

Then the same player went all in with 88 against 33….yup, 33 came out on top.

However, aside from this particular event, the game seems fair.

I lost a chunk of money on trip-Js to a straight….I flopped trips, he flopped the straight.  I suppose it could happen and I was 35% to winning anyway.

The results are inconclusive so far, but it seems fair to see there is less juice at the 5/10 table.

- bet your opponent out of the pot and win before the turn/river is dealt

By ending it pre-flop or pre-turn, you increase your chances of not getting a bad beat.  Playing higher limit tables works too as the players are more likely to fold.  It does take some balls – but I moved from $20 to $400 on Virgin very quickly with some good bluffs.

- play crap hole cards 30% of the time. 

You need to call with some absolute rubbish 30% of the time – that’ll be the nuts.

- identify the loose/bluffing donkey at the table and isolate.

It’s easy pickings if someone is a donkey and gambling stupid at a tight high stake table.

- play when the yanks are tired.

Tired players means mistakes, maybe drunk too.  That’s perfect for when you get a decent hand and need to extract lots of dough.

But not in the way where the house wins all the money (as the winnings are distributed between the players).

Here’s how it works :

- the poker website takes a ‘cut’ or ‘rake’ from each pot played and also entry fees to tournaments

- the poker website has to pay for server time/facilities/bandwidth so the quicker the games (tournaments) finish the better

So within poker games, it’s in the poker’s websites interest to ‘juice’ the cards so people enter pots and bet.

In a nutshell, the hole cards your receive in Texas Hold Em as example, will be worth playing typically.  You will receive lots of Ace-blah, suited connectors, connectors and pairs. 

Then for good measure, you will hit the flop in some way, maybe make a pair/set/flushg draw/straight draw, as will 2-3 other people.  This will create ACTION and boost the pot size = bigger rake for the house/website.

To test this theory, note all the hole cards you get online in one game for 50 hands.  Then deal 50 sets of hole cards from a live deck (shuffling every set of hole cards).  Now compare.  You will be amazed at how crap the live/real cards are and how excellent the online hole cards are.

This system is essentially called PARP – where online funds are evenly distributed between players to keep as many players in the game as possible.  Otherwise, all the good poker players would tear up the donkeys online constantly.  That’s no good for business as everyone has to win a little to stay interested.

I’ll talk further about the poker websites and how to play them for profit later in this blog, and how to get round PARP.

In the meantime, stick to freerolls if you can.