I've suspected for a long time that my local casino deals a rigged game. I've played a lot of poker, most of it at the same place. I have been profitable, but it's vey hard, if not impossible to beat a rigged game. "The dealers would have to be in on it." they said. "They would have to have shills in the game." they said. Wrong. Wrong. Well there was that one dealer that got caught stealing from a pot. There you have proof that at least petty pilfering is going on.
Horrible players win more than they should. I've played enough to be sure of it. And it's not always the same guy. I see it happen all the time in these low level cash games. A guy called me down the other day with A5 and even though I was all in on the turn (there was an ace in board, I also had an ace, it doesn't matter what my other card was) he shrugged and said, "You got me." as he pushed in his chips. River, 5 "Oh wait, I got 2 pair." This kind of thing really makes you think. I have played with this guy many times. Why would he put in his stack thinking he was beat? I mean, he knows I am capable of bluffing. He is not a good player (why he angle shoots) so, it's not totally crazy. It got me thinking again, these games seem rigged. I have made money there, over the years, but lately it seems like a lot more stuff like this is happening than should be. I have also noticed that it doesn't happen in tournaments. Tournaments are normal variance and the cash games is where it's weird. So, what is the difference? The machine. Touranments are hand shuffled.
Dan Druff of Poker Fraud Alert recently was talking about these Shuffle Master machines and how they can actually see cards and put decks in order. They are also notoriously expensive, and require maintenance contracts of even more money and yet you never see a tech there working on one. It's a huge expense for a small casino to have these on every table. Why would a small casino lay out this kind of expense? Sure, more hands per hour makes more rake but good players that understand the rake implications would just kill and bad players who can't fold A5 would get slaughtered, like they do in tournaments.
"Why would Full Tilt or Poker Stars cheat, they are making so much money!" they said. It's because people are greedy. Notoriously in internet poker was a programmer who claimed there was an "inducer hands" function written into the code. What this does is it deals hands where players will get hands that they are induced to bet with, or call bets with. Now, I wont hit you over the head with the math here, but if you are calling raises with A5 and then calling again on say a flop of A 10 3, you are at a huge disandvantage to hands like AK, AQ, AJ suited, A TEN, etc, even A3 has you drawing to 3 outs. If you see the turn and the river, exluding A 10 or AA, or 10 10 which is also in our opponents range. It's just a really bad spot. Anyone who is smart and has played a significant number of hours in cash games knows, "ace rag" is a bad hand. Anyway, ignoring the hands thst have you crushed you would be like 12% to catch a 5 against AK and AQ type of hands that often raise preflop. So why would the casino, or poker host want to .... ohhhhh. If the bad players get to win a little more than they should, they don't get eaten alive. They keep coming back, the good players still make money, and when it is busy, it can be turned off. Doesn't matter, but set for inducer hands, a shuffler could make a situation where bad play is rewarded more often. When the room is slow, this should keep bad players coming back more often, and thus fools people like me into thinking the game is good because there are so many bad players.
One of the best poker players I ever knew, I asked him if he ever ran into a rigged game, and he said, and others have said, "If it seems like you are losing in a particular place more often than you think you should, just don't play there anymore."