Online Poker is so Rigged

Online poker is so rigged. I know I’ve mocked people in the past for statements like that, but the following situation happened to me a few too many times this weekend to be mere coincidence. I’m pretty sure that someone has rigged the software against me, and what’s worse, they aren’t content to just see me lose, it has to be in the most painful manner possible.

Here’s what happened. I played a number of sit-n-goes this weekend and I would inevitably end up in a situation where I was either relatively short stacked or the other person in the hand was. I would make a preflop raise, and get called. I would then catch a decent size piece of the flop and either end up all-in or putting my opponent all in.

When the cards are revealed I would see that I started with a significantly better hand, say ATs vs K6o, but was out flopped. [A K 6] for example. Now that’s fine. It sucks, but it happens. You aren’t going to win every hand you play, even those where you start out ahead. I can accept that. What tends to put me on tilt is what happens on the turn and river. The turn brings me a card that puts me back in the lead in the hand. In this case, it was a ten, and just as I’m doing my little happy dance of joy thanks to the newfound balance in the world, the river card comes up and screws me. Something like another six to give the clown a full house.

That whole, “You’re behind, oh wait now you’re winning, just kidding you lose, sucker “ scenario happened over and over. The only possible explanation is that someone behind the scenes at FullTilt is out to get me. I don’t know what I did to piss them off, but they’re certainly getting their revenge.

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I was watching a movie with my wife last night, and playing a little poker at the same time. I must be in some kind of tilty mode, because I decided that jumping up to $2/$4 would be a good idea despite the fact that my previous experiments at the level didn’t work out so well and lately I haven’t been running all the well at $1/$2 either. I think subconsciously I figured I could recoup my losses faster by moving up in limits. Because that’s always a great idea. I hear lot of gamblers get out of debt that way.

That’s not the point. There was this guy at the table that became my nemesis for the night. He was two to my right, and raised what seemed like every hand. In reality my PokerTracker stats have him raising 15% of the time, but it seemed a lot more than that. Every time he was the first one in the pot pre-flop he would raise, and every time he was on the button, which meant I was in the BB he would raise. It was a little annoying, but not too bad because I was able to play back at him often enough and get him to fold. He actually seemed to have some pretty good post flop discipline and knew when to bail out of a hand and when he could get his opponents to fold.

He had about $50 when I stat down, and was at almost $300 when I left. In addition to playing a ton of hands, and playing very aggressively, he was getting more than his share of favorable boards.


It became my goal to extract as many chips from him as possible. I knew if I played long enough, I would get into a situation where I had him dominated and I could get him to bluff into me for a lot of chips. While we were in hands together a fair number of times, one of us would usually bail before getting too heavily invested.

At one point I was down a fairly significant amount from my original buy in, and starting to get frustration induced tilt. I had slow played a few big hands and it ended up costing me and it seemed like few times that I would make a hand, someone else would make a slightly better hand. My top pair top kicker or top two pair would lose to a set on a disturbingly regular basis.

In this particular hand I had AQs UTG and my nemesis was in the BB. I raised and everyone folded except him. The flop was TT7, and he bet. I was fairly sure this didn’t help him so I raised and he called. In past hands this scenario would be followed by him check folding on the turn.

The turn was rag but he bet. I figured that didn’t bode well for me as he had been giving up on hands he didn’t like when he met resistance. Still. There was a reasonable chance that he was still bluffing, plus I hated him because he was running over the table, so I called.

The river didn’t help me either, and again he lead out. I called out of frustration. There’s no reason I should have called. Bluff-calls on the river are not usually something you find in a winning poker player’s arsenal but I was tilty and didn’t care. He had Q6, which was nice because it was about the only hand he could have possibly had that I could beat. He then called me a “stupid fish donkey bi atch”. I try not to encourage people who feel the need to berate/coach other players at the table, but in hindsight, I so wish I had taunted him there.

After that hand we generally stayed out of each other’s way, and he found the time to give some helpful instruction to a few other members of the table. He was big into criticizing people for making the exact same plays that he would make. Nothing makes me want to beat a certain player more than when he criticizes other people’s play, especially when he makes all sorts of questionable plays himself.

After a few hours I had clawed my way back to even. I decided to play one more orbit and then call it a night. The first hand of that orbit gave me wired cowboys, and a nice sized pot, meaning that I was probably going to finish up ahead for the night.

On the very last hand I was going to play I’m dealt a pair of aces. I raise it up and everyone folds to my nemesis in the big blind and he reraises. Oh happy day, I’m finally going to be able to take some chips from this fool I think as I cap the betting. The flop was 774, which seems harmless enough. Maybe he called with a seven, but it doesn’t seem likely. He check calls my bet. The turn is a jack and this time he check raises me. It’s possible he has a seven after all. He’s certainly representing one anyway. JJ is reasonable as well. There’s also a pretty good chance that he has nothing and he’s trying to get me to fold. I’m not happy about it but I raise. I’m not letting him scare me off my aces that easily. He caps. The river is king and this time he bets first. I raise again and he three bets. No longer confident, I only call, and he turns over his pocket kings for a full house on the river.

So I had a dream scenario. Aces against Kings with my designated bitter rival starting off the hand needing a ton of help. I was going to be great. I was going to win a huge pot and then leave before he could try to get any of it back. But alas, I was rivered, and my potential winning session gets wiped out in heartbreaking fashion. As I was saying, poker is so rigged.