It is obvious that there are some differences between an online poker room and a live poker casino. Most of these differences are readily apparent and transparent to the general poker playing public. However, many contrasts are not visible or obvious in online poker play. The main difference between online poker and live casino poker is the cards and how they are delivered to the player.
Playing at a live casino has great advantages as the integrity of the game is rarely questioned as the shuffling, dealing and ‘eye to the sky’ keep the game fair and make it nearly impossible to compromise that integrity . However, online poker lacks many of these player protections, as a computer program handles the shuffling and dealing of the cards.
Therefore, understanding how the software of online poker sites works is crucial for any player looking to deposit money into an online poker account in hopes of building a bankroll and cashing out. Simply because if you understand how the software works, you can rest assured that you will not be subject to illegal attempts by other players, the poker room or even the software to cheat you out of your hard-earned money.
All online poker sites use some variation of a random number generator to create a shuffled deck. While this may seem sufficient, these shuffling algorithms have often been broken in recent years, subsequently giving scammers the ability to take advantage of the game and other players. The discovery of the scammers by affected poker sites prompted them to develop additional poker algorithms to prevent fraud attempts and collusion.
These algorithms would control the action at a table to ensure that a player would not be able to win every single hand as was the case in the Absolute poker scandal. In this case, a single player won almost 98% of all hands played in a major tournament, beating several hundred other players. It is mathematically impossible to win every hand in a tournament and therefore poker sites have software installed to prevent this from happening.
In addition, online poker sites’ software programs are able to detect a player who may be colluding with another player and therefore the program has the ability to change the outcome of the cards to prevent that player from winning. The same software can also detect poker bots. In the case of a poker bot, the software takes into account every single action made by a player and compares them logically to determine if the player is actually a bot or a real person.
The problem with these additional poker algorithms is that they affect an experienced player’s ability to cash consistently. The fact that any change in the statistical outcome of poker hands is tantamount to cheating by the house. In other words, it’s no different than when a live dealer sets up the deck in such a way that a specific player wins or forces a player to lose.
So what can we as poker players do to ensure we are getting a fair game and not being exposed to subversive online poker software programs that radically alter the outcome? One solution is to learn the patterns and bugs in the software and then adjust your play to bypass their detection and of course the other answer is to only play live poker at a trusted casino.
Thanks to Paul Westin | #Understand #online #poker #site #programming #software #works
