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Ok... Honestly... I've lost money playing online, quite a bit, when I am a consistent winner in $50-$500 live buy-in tournaments and $.25,$.50-$2,$5 cash games, but is that because online poker is rigged?
I've analysed this an awful lot through my own play, hand histories, as well as those of a few of my friends, and I have noticed 4 major differences between online play on ALL websites I've analysed (UB being one of them) versus live play:
1. People play more hands for more money online than they do in live play.
2. People call with weaker hands on the flop/turn/river in case you are bluffing more often.
3. The average bet in online games is the pot, where in most live games people bet between the minimum bet to 2/3 the pot more often.
4. People semi-bluff and straight out bluff with hands they normally wouldn't.
To explain.
1. You see people limp in a lot in both online and live play. The difference between online play and live play is that people get crazy for some reason.
In live play, people will limp with Q-Jo under the gun, but if there is a raise and a re-raise, most of the time they will fold. Online, this seems to be a calling situation far more frequently, meaning that more hands make it to the flop more often, which means there are more suckouts.
2. People may call a big raise in live play with 8-9s in position preflop, but if the flop is 2-9-A rainbow, they will usually either call the bet on the flop or fold. Online, they seem to raise a lot more in this situation.
This leads, again, to people getting "pot-committed" (I put in quotes because they really aren't, but they get it in their mind that they are), and staying with a hand to the river they normally wouldn't.
This applies to little pocket-pairs on a ragged board.
You're pretty likely to fold 5-5 if someone under the gun raised, you called, the flop comes out 2-6-8, they bet, you raise, they push all-in. In a live game, this is usually an easy fold (again, not always going to fold here, not always correct, but sometimes). Online, people call in this situation far more often.
3. People re-raise, raise and call to bluff on later streets in all forms of poker in both online and live poker, but the likelihood that a person is semi-bluffing online is far greater than in live games. If you are a consistent winner in live games, but a consistent loser in online games, track how often you raise as a semi-bluff, or even as a straight bluff, in both live and online games. You'll find that you're doing it more online.
4. This ties into 3 a lot too. If you semi-bluff raise on the flop when your opponent bets 1/2 the pot (an average continuation bet out of position in live play), and you raise 3x that bet (an average raise in live play), you put in 1 and 1/2 the original pot to win 1 and 1/2 the original pot. Even if he does call, the original pot is only swelling to 3x it's size (the original, 1/2 [his bet], 1 and 1/2 [your raise], 1 [his call]).
This leads to the average pot, post flop, assuming all average bets/raises (3x the big blind preflop, both blinds folding) at between 14 and 16 big blinds.
Online, raise the pot preflop (assuming no limpers), 3.5x the big blind. You call, there is 8.5 BB's in the pot preflop (as opposed to the 7.5 in live play).
He bets the pot (8.5), you re-raise the pot (there are 17 big blinds in with is bet and yours preflop and his bet on the flop, you call 8.5 bringing it to 25.5, and raise 25.5 more, bringing the total pot to 51 bb's as you semi-bluff).
Where does this leave you?
If you are playing an average stack of 100x the big blind, in live play, you've committed approximately 1/6 of your stack, where as online, you've committed over 1/4, and you've almost pot committed yourself.
This leads to bigger pots and more bad beats.
So, when you say online poker is rigged, first analyze the extraneous factors that could lead to this being a thought before accusing the sites of having more bad beats.
And by the way, Aces against an average hand all-in is only about a 75% favorite. However, aces get all-in and called online much more often, and therefore they lose more often.
And the odds of someone having Aces when you have Kings, 24-1, so roughly 4%. This happens much more often online because, well, you see on average about 3x the hands.
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