Online Poker » Poker Myths

If you browse through online poker forums, you’re bound to happen upon posts stating that online poker is rigged and detailing some so-called evidence to back up the claims. Post like these contribute largely to the spreading of all sorts of poker myths, most of which have no foundation whatsoever in reality.

Let’s see a few of the most common such myths:

The beginner’s luck myth. Many people have noticed, including myself, that when you play a real money table for the first time in a poker room, you seem to be unstoppable. No matter what pocket cards you play, you always get lucky and end up with a monster or a marginal, but winning hand. I must admit the first time I read about the “phenomenon” in a forum, it struck me like: “same thing’s happened to me”. People were quick to assume that it’s some sort of a conspiracy on the part of the poker rooms to show players how easy it is to win money, and to get them hooked on the game. This is probably one of the easier myths to dispel. Even though it would indeed make sense for a poker room to try to retain players this way, there’s no safe and lucrative way to implement the measure. Then again, I have started real money bankrolls in other poker rooms where I busted out in the matter of a few hands on some incredible bad beats. I suppose that means that some poker rooms go for the cash, while others try to retain newbies by letting them win, right? What are the odds on that? I suppose it’s just another case of the human brain acting up, trying to make sense of things which are supposed to be chaotic.

Another common myth is the cash-out blacklist. Some people would swear that after having cashed out a certain percentage of their online poker bankroll, the software turned its back on them, not only giving them rags all the time, but subjecting them to some abysmal bad beats as well. Again, the reason that most players invoke when supporting the conspiracy theory is a pretty reasonable one: poker rooms do not need money to be taken away from them. They need it to hit the tables and circulate continuously. In a word: cash outs are not in the poker room’s interest.

While that may be true, poker rooms have a much longer term vision on things than we players anticipate. It is simply not a good trade-off for them to risk losing a player altogether on account of the fact that he cashed out 50% of his bankroll. There are supposed to be winning players and losers too, it’s all part of the dynamics of the poker room. Deposits and withdrawals are all part of the business, and just like online casinos cannot afford to prevent their players from winning, poker rooms cannot afford to penalize cash-outs either. Those who play reasonably, and benefit from a rakeback deal as well, will always have something to withdraw.

These cash-out curses do seem to happen though, however, most probably they do not happen for the above-discussed reasons.

Bankroll tilt may have a lot to do with them. A player who’s had $500 in his bankroll, and cashes out $250, will almost certainly feel like he needs to replenish asap. That sense of urgency will drive him to abandon the style of play that got him that far, and he’ll start tilting. There are plenty of video examples for plays like this on the internet, you just need to locate a poker torrent site and download a few videos. A good player gone bad on account of his diminished bankroll.

Another explanation could be that people usually tend to cash-out after a nice wining session. We all know that Texas Holdem is extremely streaky, and we also know that winning streaks are followed by periods of coldness.

It is probably nothing tied to the very act of cashing out the money, it is something that randomly occurs, and which the mind tries to pin all sorts of wild theories on.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 10:39 am and is filed under Poker Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.