Who Is the Dumber Son of a Bitch?

I'm playing poker online earlier and some guy raises from under the gun with 9-6 offsuit. Not a very bright move in any game, and especially silly in this one since a lot of players were calling raises at this particular $10-$20 table with all manner of hands. I wasn't involved in the pot so I sat and watched the hand play out.

The guy who raised UTG with 9-6 went on to win a big pot by making two pair when his kicker paired on the river, and beat a guy who had top pair with a big kicker. The guy with top pair says something about "...this is proof that this site, an all other sites located on the Mohawk reservation (Kahnawake Territories) in Canada are rigged."

As an aside, In case you're not familiar with the term, The Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC) is the governing body that regulates online gambling operations in the territory. Kahnawake is a First Nations (Mohawk Indian) reservation located outside of Montreal, and is home to the KGC's servers - the computers that host online casino web sites operated by KGC licensees. The commission was created in 1996 and licenses 14 online casinos under gaming regulations similar to the Australian online gambling model.

I asked him what kind of proof he had about the site being rigged. His only response was that, "...in a $10-$20 game, now one would ever raise UTG with 9-6." I told him that I've seen players do all sorts of illogical things at $10-$20, $20-$40, 30-$60 and $40-$80 tables online and in traditional card rooms too. I added that players online also err because in the heat of battle, especially when playing at three or four tables simultaneously, it's easy to push the "raise" button by mistake when you really wanted to press "fold."

I told him that his anecdotal statement was not evidence at all; just an assertion that he believed but couldn't prove. He told me to visit a site called pokerconduct.com, which he posts at regularly, and is a site dedicated to perpetuating the myth that all online poker is rigged.

Once again, all the assertions on this site are anecdotal, and there's not a shred of evidence that sites are anything other than honest and forthright about how they conduct their business.

So I asked this guy why he played online if he thought the games were not on the up-and-up. He never answered my question. I asked him again. He still didn't answer.

I finally typed this in the chat box: "There are only two possibilities here: that this site is rigged or it's not. If it's on the up-and-up, each of us will obtain results that reflect our playing ability in the long run . If it is rigged, we won't. Because I believe this is an honest site, I'm going to continue to play here. But if you believe it's rigged why do you continue to play here?

He never responded. So I finally said, "I guess I'll leave it up to the other players in the room and I'm asking for a show of hands: One of us plays every day in a game he believes is stacked against him and is a losing player. The other plays in an honest game and is a long-term winner. Who is the dumber son of a bitch?"