Merge Debate .. All In The Numbers

[Drywallman3]

I believe what people confuse as Merge being rigged has more to do with the numbers .. when i say numbers I mean the number of strong vs weak players on Merge which imo is like 20% strong / 80% weak. Carbon was loaded with weak players when I first played here 5 years ago and is still loaded with weak players now. For those of you who had never played on a Merge client and came from places like tilt, stars and ub where the numbers were more in the range of 80% strong / 20% weak there is an extremely huge difference in the quality of play. Let's not get mixed up in this good poker vs bad poker like i have been so horrible about because the fact is everyone has a different playing style. Anyone who has played on Stars and Tilt had a specific foreigner they knew to watch out for because of their loose aggressive style of play .. i know i did as well as many others. A lot of weak players couldn't make money on sites like Tilt and Stars because of the amazing amount of strong players in everything from the ring games to the sngs and mtts so they migrated to sites like Carbon where they outnumber the strong players and make money off of each other.lol If you take a look around you will notice the only place on Merge that has any real action from any real players who are there to make money is on the ring games. The differences are to outstanding to even try and compare this network to any other.

The point is that the proof is in the pudding here folks .. The big 3 poker networks that are no longer with us attracted millions of quality players and had the pros to prove it .. Look around and read the forums .. very few experienced and/or quality players will have anything to do with the Merge network and that is why they are loaded with fish who play any 2 cards. The era of being able to play a good solid game of poker with minimal risk of running into bad play is over for now and the new era of playing any 2 cards is in. When you are used to playing 80/20 and have to deal with 20/80 your win to lose ratios get turned completely upside down. Merge has never been in the same league as any of those sites we all miss and it is pointless to expect that from it.

At least we can still play poker and still have a chance at making some cash .. I do thank Merge for providing that!!! lol

I have said this from day one when I first started here. I said this same exact thing but way shorter. Maybe since you made yours longer nobody will ever say merge is rigged now

[walter1024]

some people just need to shut up

[Mrlova]

who here says the blackjack is not rigged is my 1st question? 2ndly,if the blackjack is rigged for profit for Merge ,then why is the poker any different ?

The casino games on Merge have something like a 98% payback rate. That's very similar to many Vegas casinos. That doesn't mean you're going to only 2% of your buy-in each time you play blackjack. That means in the long run you'll only lose 2% if and only if you're playing perfect basic strategy, something I highly doubt the majority of players do, assuming they even know what basic strategy is. The blackjack games also simulate a shuffle after every hand, so online blackjack is very much like roulette. The hands are independent of each other unlike casino blackjack where the results of one hand directly impact the odds of the following hands.

[royalpat]

dont forget u r playing against a computer not a deck of cards hands are preset

[Mrlova]

You all hijacked this thread and made it into a "rigged" thread. The real issue is whether the results are realistic in the near term and also in the long term. True randomness isn't the issue either. Someone winning every hand they decide to play regardless of how its played and hitting the only one or two cards left in the deck ON THE RIVER to win time and time again for a whole tournament is NOT realistic. That's what this thread is supposed to be about. I believe in the long run that every room has pretty realistic results. In the near term though, some sites are better or worse about the suckouts, setups, river takedowns, monster clashes, etc. Carbon is clearly bothering some players or they wouldn't be "complaining" at all. I've also seen all kinds of these hands on all sites. Carbon is by far the worst I've seen though. Bodog/Bovada has been the best. IMHO.

The fact that you think the results should be consistent in the short term is mathematically and statistically false. Go flip a coin 4 times. Statistically that coin should land on heads twice and tails twice, correct? There is a high probability it will not do that however. In the short term there is variance. It is possible to sit down at a poker table and shove all in 10 hands in a row and win all ten. I don't know where you get your information, or how delusional you are, but no one gets lucky the duration of an entire MTT. Sure, some will get more lucky then others and suckout a few more times. But no one will be shoving non-stop the entire tournament and take it down.

People have been complaining about every site. The majority of players play on Carbon here. I'm sure if we played on Pokerstars we'd have a PS is rigged thread, or if we played on PartyPoker we'd have the PP is rigged thread. We don't have threads for other sites because the majority of the players here are US and we can play on very few sites. As I keep saying, Merge has very loose players. They have an abundant amount of fish and if you can't understand how that effects variance you don't understand the probabilities or odds when it comes to poker.

dont forget u r playing against a computer not a deck of cards hands are preset

You're an idiot if this is a truthful post

[royalpat]

you are the idiot if you think the hands are dealt like a deck of cards -

[madjek]

Maybe i'm confused about what op is saying, but if the ratio is 20/80 strong/weak, wouldn't good players want to play there? Shouldn't you make more money vs more weak players? Yes you might get sucked out on by a hand you never thought someone would possibly call your preflop raise with, but in the long run, you should be able to profit more from weak calls. Maybe i'm wrong, but that's what i'd think, but then again, i'm probably in the 80% (weak) so what do i know.

[billyjustin]

I love it when people talk of rigged shit. get over it, chances are you are thinking it's rigged because your A5 got rivered by the AK after flpping 22 pairs. Doesn't sound rigged to me, sounds like justice. Anyways, I do agree with Nascar here though, cause I have made a good amount of money on fulltilt, and on carbon it is much harder. My playing level is still the same, which should be consistent winner, but on carbon, way to many fools chasing their 8% hands and hitting, not rigged...it's just poker.

[Mrlova]

you are the idiot if you think the hands are dealt like a deck of cards -

And you're another fine example of a player you hasn't played enough hands to understand poker yet. I'm sure you'll go on the defensive and say you've been playing poker for a couple years and played in hundred of tournaments. That's not a lot of poker, that's a casual player playing from time to time. Until you live off poker for a few years, or log well over a million hands you can then talk. I did that for a couple years in college, it worked fine back then. I've moved on since then and gone to defending my country instead of making a living off of poker too. I'm sure if I dedicated all my time to learning my weaknesses and how to get better in the games I play I could make a decent living. Not hundreds of thousands of dollars but probably 40-50k if I wanted to. I'm not trying to brag, I'm trying to prove to you and everyone else here that they are to inexperienced to understand how to win in this game. If you think the cards aren't dealt like a true deck of cards than you are clueless. You need to play more and above all study you're game. I keep stressing this over and over, you need to study poker to get better. It's not something you can start playing and over night become the next Phil Ivey or Tom Dwan. Those players have logged millions of hands and thru trial and error have gotten better. It takes dedication, something 90% of players don't have. Merge has one of the highest winning rate of players, it's players like you that are in that "coin flip" of bad players. Players that can't understand the odds of the game and players that can't deal with the variance. It's a game of swings, and apparently it's something you "rigged" debaters can't understand.

Maybe i'm confused about what op is saying, but if the ratio is 20/80 strong/weak, wouldn't good players want to play there? Shouldn't you make more money vs more weak players? Yes you might get sucked out on by a hand you never thought someone would possibly call your preflop raise with, but in the long run, you should be able to profit more from weak calls. Maybe i'm wrong, but that's what i'd think, but then again, i'm probably in the 80% (weak) so what do i know.

You're not confused, you're damn right. Nascar was actually wrong on the numbers, it's actually 44 / 56 I want to say when it comes to MTT's. Merge is a very soft site, you're not going to win millions off the site but you'll definitely win if you're solid enough. And yes, you will make more money off of weak players. Something the weak players here seem to think they can do!!!!

[tp3rd]

The casino games on Merge have something like a 98% payback rate. That's very similar to many Vegas casinos. That doesn't mean you're going to only 2% of your buy-in each time you play blackjack. That means in the long run you'll only lose 2% if and only if you're playing perfect basic strategy, something I highly doubt the majority of players do, assuming they even know what basic strategy is. The blackjack games also simulate a shuffle after every hand, so online blackjack is very much like roulette. The hands are independent of each other unlike casino blackjack where the results of one hand directly impact the odds of the following hands.

play it and tell me its not rigged. Dealer consistantly gets blackjack or 21 7 times that of the player. Nothing random about that.