The last few postings have hit the nail on the head. The big poker rooms are not rigged, but because of the huge number of hands per hour you will inevitably get heaps of bad beats.

What you have to realise is that all of us tend to remember our bad beats more than our lucky wins.

Also, it stands to reason that the stronger the player, the higher the proportion of bad beats to lucky wins because the stronger player gets their money in the pot when in front more than the bad player. To have lots of lucky wins you need to be a bad player who is coming from behind a lot.

Those of us who try to play well win a lot of hands just by playing the cards... we raise after the flop with top pair etc and maybe some fish limps along with a flush draw despite not getting pot odds. We win the hand and forget about it because it all went 'normally'. Maybe the fish is thinking, 'How come I never seem to make my flushes?' or 'How unlucky, beaten by one lousy pair when last hand my two pair got killed.'

One of the biggest amounts I ever lost online was due to paranoia about collusion. I was caught between two players who were raising and reraising after the flop and I was pretty sure my two pair was in front as there was no indication of a pocket pair pre-flop, just two late position limpers. I smelt a rat and kept calling, thinking they were trying to scare me out. I thought it highly unlikely from the board that either player could be sure enough of being in front to keep reraising a raiser, so it smacked of collusion.

As it turned out, one was slow playing pocket Aces (slow pre-flop at least) because there was no strength indicated (hoping someone paired up) and the other had an inside straight flush draw after the flop, so they were simply playing their cards. The guy with the pair of aces pulled a third on the turn and won the pot over the unlucky straight flush guy, who showed his 10d 9d, leaving me wondering how I could have been such a first class imbecile.

I've never made a mistake like that again!

Guy,
Managing Director,
OZmium Pty. Ltd.