I don't see why the frequency of getting any two starting cards has anything to do with a site being rigged -- how often you win with the "best" starting cards should be a much better measure. If statistics say pocket aces win about 1/3 of the time (I think that's if two people go headsup/all-in from the start.. I'm sure someone will correct me).. then you should expect to win 1 out of 3 hands.
Personally, over 20,000 hands in my database, I've had AA 112 times and won 85% of the time with them -- disturbingly better than 33%, do I have that figure wrong? It's my winnest hand by nearly 10% and by far my biggest money hand. By winning %, my top five hands are, in order, AA, JJ, KK, QQ, AKu. Which is just what one would tend to expect.. no?
If PS, or any site, wants to pump up pot, why not give AA vs KK or QQ and have the K or Q hit on the flop/turn? What better way to jack up pots than by making sure monster starting cards hit too often?
Really though.. any major site has zero incentive to cheat. Why? Well, aside from raking in the money.. let's look at something else. At the moment, PS has 100,000 players (or so the website says). Let's say 25% of those are in cash games and the average stack in play is $100 -- not the average amount each person has in total, but just in play. That's $2,500,000 in play.
How much money do you think is in all PS accounts (not just active on tables) at any one point in time? Must be a quite a lot.. and if PS has half a brain (and I'm sure they do), PS would be investing that money in nice safe CDs or something of the like.. and rake in the interest on the funds.
This is pretty much what banks do.. where do think the interest you get paid on your checking/saving account comes from? The bank takes your cash and invests it or gives it out in loans. If the bank earns 5%, you get 1 or 2% as "thanks". Banks and PS know they only have to have a tiny fraction of the funds actually in cash to handle withdrawals. It's called fractional reserve banking.
It's very much in PS's interest to keep the game nice, level and as fair as possible. The more people who like the site and join, the more money they get off the rake and off interest -- with the added kicker of not sharing that interest with the players.
|