On Randomness of Poker Sites

Hello,

First, I’ll start by sharing that I’m just new to poker. I started two months ago and before that I had no experience with poker but had gambled a lot in different ways. I am into no limit and limit.

Just a background, my poker adventure began with friendly game invites from various groups of buddies. And because I had no idea back then as to what I should do when on play, I attached myself to poker sites, books, and the like. Proud to say I was able to understand basic poker concepts, rules, feel, and even strategies. But of course as a starting player I guess it’s just normal that despite of everything, my mind is still clouded with some questions.

Some of the questions are actually below.

1. In a game, who is required to show his hand? And in what order should the hands be shown? In case you fold, I know you don’t have to show your hand, but what if everyone has called the bets?
2. I always here some players moaning about how online poker sites seem to juice the pot to later increase the rake from pot. I also here them say the juicing never happens in real brick and mortar games. Well, I have some thoughts on this, they’re about three-fold.

a. In an online game, the randomness is closer to true randomness than a brick and mortar game as it takes 57 and a half shuffles to finally randomize a deck of cards completely. Similarly, online poker is closer to true randomness than a home game.
b. Trends are more pronounced and the probability for everyone having a good hand at one instance is increased as players play and see more hands online than they actually do in brick and more games.
c. More or less, they are just sore losers and just like the players who claimed cheated or rigged in brick and mortar games.

Any thoughts?

By the way, the card shuffling statistical analysis I made has actually a basis. I took up a statistics course in a certain university so I know I’m capable of making stats.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Dense
Dense,

1. The last player to make an aggressive action (bet or raise) is the first person to show the hand. Only players that have their bet at the river are required to show their hands.
   
2. They are likely just complaining. Online sites such as Full Tilt and Pokerstars don’t need to juice the tables. They have so many players, they can make plenty of money from the normal rake. At any one time, they have 10,000 or more tables going. That’s a lot of rake.

Tags: basic poker concepts, bet, card shuffling, fold, Full Tilt, Limit, no limit, poker, Pokerstars, raise, rules, strategies

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