Originally posted on 07/23/2012:

OK, I will add my 2cents into this "debate".

People need to separate the issue of the software being "rigged" and the software being compromised where a "super-user" can cheat the system.

I think that the people who call the software to be "rigged" are making moronic statements.

If it is "rigged", there needs to be a motivation and outcome that would support this. As many people people have pointed out, there is little SBR "company" value to rig the system that favors certain people over others or ones that "generate" more action as there is a cap to the rake taken. That said, if you believe it is rigged, please note real situations where there is significant and prolonged data showing this. The only thing that SBR could do to "try" and quell this issue is to publish any independent certification reports on their software and the RNG that supports the software. I am by no means an expert on this but I believe that type of openness might help quell the more reasonable posters concerns.

If the software is compromised and someone has "super-user" access, that would take more effort to prove and from what I have seen also very unlikely. That said, there have seemed to be some users (not going to bother listing the favorite names of this forum) that seem to know that their hand will hold up in the end. The facts (as I generally see them) is that those people generally have gone really hot and then their actions have caught up with them, meaning they have donked their chips back pretty quickly. I think the rollover requirement has contributed to this evening out of odds because the same donkey antics do not generally do well in ring games nor do the posters in question seem to be able run as hot in the ring games as they do in tourneys. You can draw your own conclusions but I believe that essentially makes my point.

What SBR can do to quell this concern? I do not think there is too much, other than publishing any specific reports or certifications on the security/integrity of their software. I do not think they should be publishing anything that specifies their security measures for obvious reasons but maybe they could publish when posters have been caught (e.g. saintjames was caught running a "bot" and therefore was banned....)

Overall, I think the people who have consistently won on this site are the people that have been able to put in the time and they are probably better at extracting value from their hands on a more consistent basis.

In my opinion there are a number of very good poker players on this site and they have been able to overcome the issues people have noted, so why have the people that are not successful been able to do it? The only thing I can reasonably think of is that the good players are working through the variance and the luck factors and coming out ahead because they are better than the rest of us.

For the record, I have been profitable over my time here at SBR but I consider myself on the bottom rung of the group of "better" players. I win some, I lose some, I get lucky and I get unlucky. On reflection on my game, I would say I find my luckier and un-luckier streaks are correlated directly to when I am not playing well overall.....