By John Vorhaus

Basta, if you don’t know, is the Spanish word for “enough” and I direct it today to all the small-minded hot-heads who have become convinced, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that internet poker is fixed, and not just fixed, but fixed against them personally.

I quote an anonymous correspondent:

I have experienced more than once and at more than one of these poker sites, while playing hold’em, not getting any kind of starting hand. I have sat for one hour, two hours and more and only been dealt garbage hands like 7-2o, or 3-9o,or 4-9o. Maybe pocket 2s or 3s would emerge, but someone else would end up with a straight, flush, boat, etc. This is not my experience at the b&m games. Also in the cyber-games there are a great number of big hands being made, whereas in the b&m games, straights, flushes, boats, etc. are far and few between…mainly you see ace high, or pairs…

This author went on at some length, detailing how the internet game was rigged, crooked, designed to stimulate action and prop up weak players, etc. etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Nor is he or she alone in this opinion; one needs only visit any given poker forum on an given day to see these charges leveled and leveled and leveled again. Is there anything to them?

In a word, no.

Let’s consider the author’s plight of having sat for an hour or two (or more!) without catching a hand. First of all, it’s probably an exaggeration, confirmation bias skewed by impatience and annoyance. Even if it’s true that our hero hasn’t caught a single playable hand… yawn… big deal. That’s par for the course for every hold’em player everywhere. In Vegas, in cyberspace, on fricking Mars, you can go a long time between quality starts. It doesn’t mean the deck is stacked against you. It means the cards are running like they run: sometimes hot, sometimes cold. Get over it.

As for the notion that internet poker has more big-hand showdowns per hour than b&m cardrooms… hey, that’s absolutely true. Know why? Because internet poker has more showdowns period per hour. The pace of play is an order of magnitude faster. You see a lot more hands, so naturally you see a lot more big hands. And again we have the effect of confirmation bias on an observer’s thinking. Once you become convinced that the numbskulls are being dealt cards good enough to beat you big, in big-hand showdowns, you start to see that outcome everywhere you look.

(Confirmation bias is a known scientific fact. To demonstrate it for yourself, simply tell yourself that there are a lot more red (or blue or white or black) cars on the road these days, then go out for a drive. “Tuned” as you are to a certain color car, you will quickly become convinced that their number is far above what one should expect.)

Basta! Enough of this. If you’re convinced that internet poker is crooked, here’s a simple solution: Do. Not. Play. And I’m not just saying this because I’m tired of all the whingeing (though I am). I’m actually giving you a piece of sound, money-saving advice. If you think the game is crooked, you’ll play your game in a paranoiac haze. You’ll get unnecessarily angry at every bad outcome because you’ll believe that those outcomes are not accidental, not random. This will make you more furious, move you that much further from tranquility and lead you down the road to disastrous, anger-fueled decision-making. You’ll lose, in short, not because the game is rigged, but because you think it’s rigged, and now your thinking is rigged against you.

Look, I’m not saying there are no crooks in cyberspace, any more than I believe the world of b&m poker is Mother Teresa squeaky-clean. If I find myself routinely whipsawed by a couple of cyberspace cowboys, one of whom always seems conveniently to fold at the river, I’ll suspect teamwork and get the hell out of there. But I’d do the same thing in a b&m game. Wouldn’t you? Poker is poker. In all its forms it’s not always honest and it’s not always fair. It’s up to each player to protect himself. But it’s also up to each player to protect himself from himself. Those who are quick to condemn online poker would do well to take a cold, hard look at their own play. Maybe they’re beating themselves, with no help at all from ‘bots or bent programs or cabals of collusion.

I understand that internet poker contains variables I can’t control. It is easy for players to share information behind my back. It is possible for online sites to vanish overnight and take my money with them. It’s happens that servers will fail, just when I’m about to win. I don’t fear these events so much as I fear fearing them, for I know that inordinate fear will necessarily torque my play. For that reason I never play for big money online; if bad things happen, at least my loss is limited. This is my way of keeping my head in the right place, and it’s a strategy I recommend for you. In all events, if you can’t play poker (online or in the realworld) with a certain lightness of spirit, you simply can’t play poker well.

So enough already, right? Basta! If your game needs fixing, fix it, but don’t fix the blame on a fix that ain’t in.

John Vorhaus is the author of POKER NIGHT and the KILLER POKER series. Excerpts and ordering information are available at his website, www.vorza.com.

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