FBI Deals Out Major Online Poker Sites

[JDKJ]

Because you said poker is a game of skill (when it, in fact, isn't) and invited explanations as to why it isn't. I responded accordingly and explained that it isn't a game of skill, it is a game of chance because of the house's "edge."

That player A may consistently win more than Player B doesn't matter if the house is eventually gonna beat both of them.

Did I misunderstand your post?

Poker IS a game of skill; play against a world champion and, after they completely destroy you time and time again, tell me it is a game of chance.

The venue has nothing to do with your opponent's skill or the odds of you bluffing or predicting their hands and the community cards to come.

I seriously fail to see the ground you are trying to stand on.

I can play hand-against-hand against my buddy in my basement every Friday night and beat him consistently because I'm more skilled at poker than he is but that's not playing against a house (.e.g., a casino that has stacked the deck against me by use of an edge). That's why for the purposes of regulating above-board gambling, poker is considered a game of chance and therefore is considered "gambling." Technically, there's no regulating my Friday night poker games -- unless they find out about them.

Again... I really don't see your point. Here, let me spell this out for you:

A) Drop this 'edge' business. It doesn't matter what roof you're under, if you're better at bluffing and counting cards than your opponent, you will win. I don't care who is dealing or what their paycheque says, your fellow patrons will lose to you every time if you are better. That is why certain people are banned from casinos - because they are good, and the casino doesn't want to hand out money. What you don't understand about that is so far beyond me it nearly causes physical pain.

B) If, for the sake of this example, you were right and the casino did somehow add an 'edge' to a game of poker (do you really not see how stupid that sounds? I mean... come on. If you can count cards, you will win. Period. Anyway...) the gambling industry is STILL NOT TAKING MONEY FROM PEOPLE. Taking money is stealing. People give their money to the company, knowing they may not see a return. The casino doesn't force anyone, ever, to give them money.

I just don't get what you're trying to say here... It's like you're saying words with no purpose.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

If the house indeed has an edge, you can never win against them over time. You will, as a simple mathematical certainty, lose over time. That's what the edge ensures. It tips the playing field in the house's favor. That, in fact, is why the casinos ban blackjack card-counters. Because card-counters, by virtue of counting the cards already dealt and having a pretty good idea of the cards that are left in the tail end of a blackjack shoe, can therefore place beta based on their thus acquired knowledge of the probabilities that particular cards will be dealt with the result that the casino begins to lose the "edge" built into their blackjack games. And that's why the Nevada Gaming Commission makes it illegal to count blackjack cards. Because card-counters are indeed taking a game of chance and turning it into a game of skill by counting the cards.

And you can't count cards in a Vegas poker game because folded hands can't be turned over. How are you gonna count cards that you can't see?

 

[JDKJ]

-

...

What are you trying to get at? Just say whatever it is you are trying to say.

Poker is a game of skill. Period. Some people are better than others and can win over and over and over. That proves it isn't a game of chance. No one can argue against that. If they try, go right on ahead and attempt to beat a poker world champion. Oh, you can't? Because they are better? MORE SKILLED?

Casinos stack the deck in their favour and kick out anyone they feel is too good. And? What does that have to do with anything?

Al'right, then forget it. I should have known, when you started talking about counting cards in a poker game when you don't ever usually get to see half the cards that are dealt in a poker game because they're folded and not turned over, that you don't know too much about a poker game. You can't count what you can't see.

But you can count blackjack cards because each and every one of those card must be turned over.

 

[JDKJ]

-

...

What are you trying to get at? Just say whatever it is you are trying to say.

Poker is a game of skill. Period. Some people are better than others and can win over and over and over. That proves it isn't a game of chance. No one can argue against that. If they try, go right on ahead and attempt to beat a poker world champion. Oh, you can't? Because they are better? MORE SKILLED?

Casinos stack the deck in their favour and kick out anyone they feel is too good. And? What does that have to do with anything?

Al'right, then forget it. I should have known, when you started talking about counting cards in a poker game when you don't ever usually get to see half the cards that are dealt in a poker game because they're folded and not turned over, that you don't know too much about a poker game. You can't count what you can't see.

Oh for the-

Okay. One more time.

You know how poker world champions, people who win major prizes every year, time and time again - you know how they work out what cards their opponent has? Hm? By looking at what kind of bets they make when certain cards are shown, by looking at their own cards and then working out the odds of them holding certain cards.

Okay? Okay.

If five people are sitting at a poker game and five hands are dealt and three players fold leaving two players to battle it out, how the Hell are you gonna know what the folded cards were? They could have held high cards, low cards, faces cards, or Jokers, for all you know. You'd never know. And what, if anything (because you can usually fold as soon as you see your shitty hand without having to throw any more chips in the pot), those players may have raised their their initial ante-up before they folded doesn't do a thing to tell you what cards they folded. Particularly when it's possible for them to fold without raising their initial ante-up. What "bet" are you talking about?! Have you ever played a hand of poker?

 

[Dana22]

Isnt Las Vegas part of USA ?

 

[JDKJ]

Isnt Las Vegas part of USA ?

Not really. It is a little fantasy world completely separate and apart from every other world.

 

[JDKJ]

snip

Phil Hellmuth has eleven (11) WSOP bracelets.

How many do you have? Think you could beat him? No? Why? Because he is more skilled at poker than you? What are those skills? Working out the odds of you holding certain cards? Bluffing? Knowing the percentage chance of certain cards appearing on the river? See, I watch the WSOP and sometimes they do this thing where the commentators and the audiance can't see the player's cards. Know what happens? The commentators (and us, the viewers) try and work out what cards they have. Know how they do it?

[HEADING=1] BY LOOKING AT THE BETS MADE, WHEN THEY ARE MADE, HOW BIG THEY WERE, WHAT CARDS WHERE JUST SHOWN ON THE FLOP, HOW CONFIDENT THE PLAYER IS, ETC., ETC.[/HEADING]

Know how often the commentators are right? Every time.

Well, look at that... Skill.

Excuse me, but don't those televised poker tournaments always have those little cameras that peep under the player's cards when they peel back to see for themselves what hand they've been dealt and televise the hand for all the viewers at home to see? Don't the viewers at home and the commentators therefore know at the exact same time the player does what the hand looks like? Don't you know that it doesn't matter if you use a 50-point font and color each individual letter a rainbow of Skittle colors that if you're wrong, all that fonting and coloring ain't doing a thing to change the fact that you're wrong.

I had kinda figured out that whatever you know about poker, you learned watching TV. I'll repeat my question: have you ever actually played a hand of poker?

 

[JDKJ]

-

If you had read my post, you would see how foolish that post of your is. Here, I'll help:

"Sometimes they do this thing where the commentators and the audiance can't see the player's cards."

You're welcome.

When? I ain't never seen that. What I've seen it that lil' peep-under-the-cards-camera angle. You got footage? You don't seem to know much about anything else you stated thus far. Why should I take your word for it? Proof, please.

 

[4173]

A) Poker is a game of skill. If you think it isn't, do explain how certain people are better than others on a consistent basis.

B) They are all innocent until proven otherwise. So to all you people jumping the goat and nailing them, remember that right (and it is a right) if you are ever charged with something like rape.

C) It's pretty laughable that the U.S government, the same people who have sent hundreds of thousands of their sons and daughter in murder squads to die overseas and slaughter people they've never met for oil they don't get, is condemming people for having harmless fun. Nice one!

Considering how I feel about the whole gambling business and how it takes money off people.

'It' doesn't take money off people. People volunteer their money. It doesn't matter how desperate, poor, stupid or otherwise they are. If you volunteer your money to someone in the hopes of winning more back and then lose said money, tough luck, bud.

Sheesh. Do we have to have the 'guns don't kill people' talk too? This stuff is common sense.

Lets refute your evidence, shall we?

A. The same thing can be said about a lot of things. I could make the arguement about blackjack players, people who know how to count cards (or atleast have a rough understanding) vs. your average slum. Even if you do count cards, theres a certain factor of RNG that you can never eliminate.

Using a more contemperary example, Yu-Gi-Oh cards. You could have the best deck in the world, you could know how to play your cards correctly and what to do for every situation you may come accross. Yet, its not a game of skill. Because no matter how good you are, you can be beaten by someone who is luckier and got a better hand. Any card game is reliant on luck. There might be some skill involved: you do have to actually know about poker to play poker. But its luck based. The world champion could lose to a rookie if the cards were right.

There is a certain factor of RNG in anything. A duck could fly in front a golfer's drive. Any number of baseball games have been drastically altered because the ball bounced a certain way off a pebble.

I think games should be judged over a long timeline. It shouldn't matter if a rookie can beat a world champion once, what is important is whether or not the players' results over time vary as a function of ability. I may have a decent chance in 1 hand against a poker pro, but after a few hours my chance of success has dropped quite a bit and after a hundred hours it has all but evaporated.

 

[JDKJ]

-

If you had read my post, you would see how foolish that post of your is. Here, I'll help:

"Sometimes they do this thing where the commentators and the audiance can't see the player's cards."

You're welcome.

When? I ain't never seen that. You got footage? You don't seem to know much about anything else you stated thus far. Why should I take your word for it? Proof, please.

You're welcome.

Fine. You learn something new everyday.

Here's something you should learn. They aren't "gambling" as defined by most state law.

For example, Arizona Statutes, Chapter 33, section 13-3301, defines "gambling" as risking something of value in a contest of chance or skill. It is unlawful in Arizona unless it falls under the category of "social gambling". "Social gambling" is any gambling that is not a gambling business, and a game where the players are competing on equal terms and are not competing against the house.

I'd tried to tell you that venue is all-important. No house, no "edge," no gambling.

 

[JDKJ]

-

And that is relevant how? Do show me, with an exact quote, where I said 'poker is gambling'.

It is relevant because I said, 'til I was blue in the face, that when you play against the house, the house has an buit-in edge that ensures they will always win and the players against them will always lose thereby making, as a matter of law, a poker game against a house a game of chance, not skill.

I conceded long ago that my hand-against-hand poker game against my buddy may be a game of skill but that when I play against the house my skill ain't worth shit. The house will always win over time because they have the "edge" over me. That's a game of chance, not skill.

 

[DevilWolf47]

Poker is a game of skill? Right. And i possess eight ten meter long prehensile dicks.

 

[JDKJ]

-

And that is relevant how? Do show me, with an exact quote, where I said 'poker is gambling'.

It is relevant because I said, 'til I was blue in the face, that when you play against the house, the house has an buit-in edge that ensures they will always win and the players against them will always lose thereby making, as a matter of law, a poker game against a house a game of chance, not skill.

No. You are wrong. Period.

Know why? There are people who make a living off playing the casinos. These people are usually banned. Know why they are able to win more than lose? They have skill. It doesn't matter how much the odds are stacked against you - that does not remove your skill.

Here's an example: target shooting - a skill. A range decides to stack the odds and move all the targets back another 50 meters. Know, do tell me how that changes the skill of the shooter? If the shooter was firing with their eyes closed, then yes, the odds are now much greater on the side of the range. However, the shooters skill (not unlike the poker player's skill) is still intact and they, with their eyes open (their ability to read hands and work our odds) can still perform well.

Poker requires skill. It's that simple

Do you know what a mathematical certainty is? The house will always win when it has a built-in edge and no amount of skill can undo that mathematical certainty. You could be a 100-time World Tournament Poker Champion. Sit down at a poker table against the house with a 5% edge and you will, sure as God made lil' green apples, lose if you play against them long enough. You can't win against a 5% edge.