Funny Thread at Poker Message Board

[MJ4H]

From time to time, someone will post a question on the 2+2 forum, a well-respected forum devoted to discussing poker, accusing online poker sites of being rigged or skewed in some way. Well this happened recently and the thread got pretty funny (at least to me). I thought some of you might be interested in reading about the "pattern maps" that predict turn and river cards at Party Poker and the people that are trying to sell them. I only wish they'd post a list of people that sent them PMs trying to buy them. Would be golden

2+2 Thread

[QuikSand]

Fascinating read.

[rufusjonz]

What a thread! I doubt these pattern maps exist, but if they do they probably only give a small edge, like under 10%. Dont forget that the first poker site algo was cracked a long time ago.

Anyway, a little story about my terrrible experience this week at party poker:
I keep telling myself to stay away from online limit, and stick only to tourneys because it prevents the IMing, teamwork etc for the most part due to random seating. I won a om hi lo pl tourney this week and finished 11th in another.

Well I went ahead and bought in for $750, had it up to $8k, and now its all gone in about 4 days (mostly in short handed 15/30). This has happened to me time and time again in online poker and the swings, streaks, etc are just brutal and depressing. I just can't tear myself away when I'm up a ton, in order to make the 48 hours to cash out.

So between this crap and this girl im infatuated with who is blowing me off and flaunting her new guy, and the winter in general, im pretty fucking bummed right now.

Moby

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by rufusjonz

I doubt these pattern maps exist, but if they do they probably only give a small edge, like under 10%. Dont forget that the first poker site algo was cracked a long time ago.

The whole premise was a joke.

The cracking that you refer to was acheived because of a basic and obvious flaw in the shuffling algorithm. A flaw that I actually had in my first shuffle routine, incidentally. A mathematician friend of mine noticed this flaw within 30 seconds of looking at my code and it was quickly fixed, however. Point being, that situation is not remotely similar to this one. This is just a joke to see how many would believe that pattern-maps were real.

[albionmoonlight]

Real general rule of thumb for life:

If someone claims to have a super lucrative secret, and you hear of this secret in a public or quasi-public forum, then they are lying.

[rufusjonz]

But I wonder if you put 1 million pp hands into a spreadsheet would you see a pattern? What about 10 million? 100 million?

As far as i understand, random number generators used by computers are not really random at all. But i'm not a mathematician.

[yabanci]

although I don't believe in the pattern maps, I do believe getting a monkey with special hearing can help you win at online poker, especially if you can find a time traveling monkey. In fact, I happen to have a time traveling monkey and, after giving it a lot of thought, I've decided I will rent him out (his name is Jasper) to the highest bidder. SERIOUS OFFERS ONLY!!!

[robbgmaier]

as franklinmobile would say....

"paging The Afoci...."

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by rufusjonz

As far as i understand, random number generators used by computers are not really random at all. But i'm not a mathematician.

What you are thinking of are pseudo-random number generators. Poker sites use environmental sources of randomness to generate random numbers. I used a program called "Really Random Numbers" to generate mine in the poker server I wrote. http://sunny-beach.net/random_numbers/

It's pretty simple, in that it uses white noise from your sound card to generate random numbers. These are cryptographically secure random numbers, meaning:

1. The random numbers should pass statistical tests of randomness.
2. It should be impossible to predict the output of the random number generator from observing some previous outputs of the random number generator.
3. It should be impossible to create the same operating conditions as the random generator and then duplicate previously produced output.

[sabotai]

That's, of course, assuming that PartyPoker uses such an algorythm for their random numbers. Not saying these pattern maps are real, but I can at least see the possibility knowing that with all of the poker sites out there, it's prossible a couple of them might have taken the short route in creating their random numbers. PartyPoker might be one of them...

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by sabotai

That's, of course, assuming that PartyPoker uses such an algorythm for their random numbers. Not saying these pattern maps are real, but I can at least see the possibility knowing that with all of the poker sites out there, it's prossible a couple of them might have taken the short route in creating their random numbers. PartyPoker might be one of them...

It's not an assumption.

http://www.partypoker.com/about_us/index.html

I did a lot of research on how poker sites can and do avoid pseudo-random number generators. All of the ones I inquired about use external sources of randomness to add extra security to the secure method they already have in place. Party Poker is included in that list.

Now I couldn't find on Party's home page the specific device they used, but this device is the most common RNG I came across when I did my inquiry (about 10 different poker sites):

http://developer.intel.com/design/chipsets/rng/docs.htm

It uses thermal noise an entropy source to generate RNs.

A common totally secondary source is something like user input, including summary of mouse movements and events timing, collected from client software.