You want statistical proof? You can get it yourselves if you do not care to lose money and time. Just open an account in any pokeroom and start playing. You will see that:
1.) When playing limit tables, you will rarely get strong preflop hands and when you get them, you will rarely flop or turn or river a pair. By rarely I mean less often than the probability says this should happen. This way the post blinds will wipe you out. (Because the amount wagered in the pot when you hold hands which have an edge greater than the 5% rake, will be insufficient to generate greater profits than the amount lost because of the post blinds. For the same reason, it might even be impossible to have an overall edge in limit poker with a 5% rake, even if there was no cheating, I do not know, although I think you should still have an edge when playing against the players of e.g. Sportingbet who almost never fold at limit tables. But certainly, if there was no rake, a conservative player would have a great edge over the other players even in limit poker and the post blinds would be no problem)
2.) When you get a strong hand, you will be beaten by a stronger one, more often that the probability says this should happen.
Therefore I recommend to play only no-limit, so you will force them to increase the rate of cheating of the No2 way of cheating, in order to make you lose. Because if playing limit, they can allocate the cheating equally in both ways, and make it much more difficult to proove it statistically.
You do not have to do very complicated analysis. This is how I got certain they cheat: Some preflop, flop etc hands (even when played by a stupid player) have an expected value, an edge, greater than the 5% rake (See the edge expected value of the preflop hands at Link Removed ( Old/Invalid) . I am not certain if these values refer to the before or to the after the 5% rake is subtracted, but even if they refer to the before, many hands have much greater than a 5% expected value) So these hands should make you a profit in the long run. Therefore if they make you great losses instead of great profits after a few hundend hands, this is the statistical evidence you ask for. Because when one has an even small edge, it is almost that he will double his bankroll instead of losing it. So if BECAUSE OF THESE HANDS you end up losing your bankroll instead of doubling it, you have your statistical evidence. Almost certain? Lets see how certain it is, regarding the small 2.7% edge roulette has against the player: Suppose a player has a 10,000$ bankroll and goes to the casino, and he is desperate to double his bankroll, and make it 20,000$. If he bets the whole 10,000$ at once, in one bet, on red or black, then he has a 18/37=48.65% probability of achieving his goal of doubling his bankroll to 20,000$. BUT IF HE TRIES TO MAKE HIS 10,000$ BANKROLL INTO 20,000$ SLOWLY, BY BETTING E.G. 50$ PER BET, THEN THE PROBABILITY OF REACHING THE 20,000$ IS NOT EVEN 1%. Yes, the standard deviation of poker is great, but still a few hundred hands are enough if your losses are great and since the edges - expected values of these hands are great (even when a 5% is subtracted).
In most sites (e.g. Sportingbet and 888.com), the players keep betting with crappy preflop and flop cards. Therefore a player who plays no limit (so that the post blinds do not cost him much as I explained above), and folds with the 75%-90% of the worst preflop hands (the greater the number of players the less the number of the preflop hands which have an edge) and folds at flop unless he has at least top pair, he definitely has an edge even after the 5% is subtracted. To fold unless you have a top pair at flop is an advice of Nick the Greek, who went from rags to riches by playing poker. And he was playing with no rake on the pot. So if you must fold when there is no rake, you must definatelly fold when there is 5% rake, so that you have an edge. But I have also tried not folding when I flopped second best pair, and the results were much worse. So Nicks advice was correct. Besides, when you choose a no limit table (where the post blinds are the 1/100 of the average pot, the only thing you have to do to have a net (after the 5% rake is subtracted) edge over the rest of the players, is to play with fewer hands than them, so that in more than 52.5% of your confrontations you hold a stronger hand than theirs (This 52.5% value would be valid if there were no post blinds, so the correct one is a bit higher). To make it more clear, if there were no post blinds, then if a player was folding everything except AA, then the 5% rake would not prevent him from having a huge edge over the other players.
Yes, I know, sometimes bloafing has an expected value so you must bloaf sometimes ? No, when the other players generally keep betting with crap cards you can ignore this factor and never bloaf. As long as you do not get scared and fold on their bloafs. You do not have to be a great poker player to do this, so the bloafing factor is ignorable.
And if it was impossible for any player to have an edge with a 5% rake, then the casinos would have no reason to cheat as ALL the money would end up to the rake, and we would not observe these abnormal results. Absolute Poker would have no reason to cheat.
But if you are not convinced that a player can have an edge in raked poker, do some statistical analysis using pokertracker or in hand. You will find that all sites cheat. They cheat that much, that I could do the stats in my memory. LOL, 90% of the time I had a strong hand, they had a stronger one, where it should be 20%. And when I was winning, I was winning pennies, they always had nothing strong. The videos of POTRIPPER at Youtube were nothing compared to what I have experienced. But in my case there was no superwinner. Just incredible bad luck which made sure nobody was a winner.
Of course, one might counterargue that this is bad luck or else called "being on the negative side of variance". But bad luck itself IS the statistical evidence for cheating: The more extreme the bad luck, the lower the probability that this bad luck had to happen, and thus the more probable the hypothesis that it happened because of cheating. And this is the ONLY argument that statististical evidence for cheating is based on.
So some casinos are more clever and keep the rate of cheating under certain limits, i.e. by modifying only 2 out of the 100 results of the RNG. How then will you get some strong statistical evidence? It is next to impossible, and you will need many hunderds or even many thousands of hands. And it will cost you a lot of money and time. It might take you a year of playing. And if they cheat 1 or 0.5 out of 100 hands, forget about it. Its impossible to get statistical evidence. IN THIS CASE THEY DO NOT RISK ANYTHING BY CHEATING, THEY ARE 100% SAFE OF NEVER GETTING EXPOSED. Of course the more they reduce the rate of cheating, the more they have to pay some winners, that is why some sites like Sportingbet cheat with a very exposable rate of cheating.
If you were real poker players and not affiliates and shills, you would not keep saying that my arguments are craap. But instead you would try to analyse them with careful-subtle-deep thought doubting counterarguments. Thats what you would do if you were interested in finding out the truth of whether they cheat or not. A scientist who really wants the truth, takes both sides of opposite theories, and doubts them both by with counterarguments. He never says: This argument is craap and I do not want to know it even before he understands it.But no, every time a player is complaining in the forums of being cheated, a multitude of posts attacks him that he his out of his mind just because he suspected this. AND YOU ALWAYS SAY THAT HE LOST BECAUSE OF HIS BAD POKER PLAY, WHEREAS YOU ARE WINNERS! NOT A WORD THAT HE MIGHT HAVE SIMPLY LOST BECAUSE OF THE RAKE, OR THAT PERHAPS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BEAT THE RAKE! But hey, you avoid this argument. First, because it is not in the interest of the casinos to convince them so. Secondly, if it is impossible to beat a 5% rake, how did you make your profits? So quit trying to convincing ME that you are not affiliates and shills. Well if I was an affiliate or shill, I would try to convince players it is impossible to beat the rake, if I wanted to avoid cheating accusations. But unfortunately for you, the rake IS beatable. I toled you, try Sportingbet. They go all in with K4 preflop! So either the rake is beatable, or these players are working for the casino and they pretend to be fish to attract players. I think the second is more probable, although there are some real fish as well.
That blog entry is some funny shit.
