Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

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Xarius
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:21 pm

Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by Xarius »

I have read alot of the posts about Mavens and while you suggest even the computer doesn't know what cards are next I have found I was able to predict what the outcome on many hands was going to be (On the river card) a good number of times, also on a consistent basis.

I believe Mavens randomizer gets stuck on streaks and thus for a time it follows certain patterns. For example. over the course of several hours of playing 2 tables at once the flops where showing 3/5 of the same numberic (not same suit) card on each table nearly 80% of the time.

(table 1)

would have Q of C, A of C, 5 of D, 4 of S, and J of H.

Table 2 would come up like this

Q of H, 5 of S, 4 of D, and then 2 other cards. not always these cards but consistently it would display the same cards on each table nearly following some sort of pattern.

alot of players have commented that the program also seems to favor certain cards on the river as to influence the outcome of the game on the river card, so much that some people have turned to calling it "River Mavens" there isn't much skill involved if play constantly changes based on the river card. I've played poker for the last 18 years and I have never seen live play turn out how Mavens turns out, perhaps a major change is needed to the randomizer, or even better yet add those burn cards in like a player has requested on these forums.

it wouldn't take too much effort to put those burn cards in, and it would add to the authenticity of the game since burn cards are a normal part of play.

so far the program has a bit of promise but I've found it less than stellar for actual "skilled gameplay" while poker does require some luck, Mavens players rely on mavens river cards to produce that luck. that really needs to change.
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
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Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by Kent Briggs »

Xarius wrote:I have read alot of the posts about Mavens and while you suggest even the computer doesn't know what cards are next
I never said that. The deck of 52 cards is shuffled before each hand and it deals them out in order as needed.
I have found I was able to predict what the outcome on many hands was going to be (On the river card) a good number of times, also on a consistent basis.
I seriously doubt that. The PRNG is based on a cryptographically secure RC4 stream cipher (designed by cryptographer Ron Rivest, he's the "R" in RSA) and the shuffling algorithm was taken from Donald Knuth's famous "The Art of Computer Programming" book serious and is documented in the help file. With 4 cards on the board and 2 in your hand, you have a 1 in 46 chance of guessing the exact river card. After playing thousands of hands, you'll remember those you guessed right and forgot about all the other ones you missed.
I believe Mavens randomizer gets stuck on streaks and thus for a time it follows certain patterns. For example. over the course of several hours of playing 2 tables at once the flops where showing 3/5 of the same numberic (not same suit) card on each table nearly 80% of the time.
Show me the hand history files that demonstrate this.
alot of players have commented that the program also seems to favor certain cards on the river as to influence the outcome of the game on the river card, so much that some people have turned to calling it "River Mavens"
I've heard the exact same thing at "River Stars" (PokerStars) and every other site. All you are witnessing are loose players who have no clue about pot odds playing poor hands all the way to the river for play chips that don't have much value to them. Of course the river card influences the outcome, it was their last chance to suckout whatever draw they were chasing and each additional community card dramatically increases the number of hand combinations possible. In a real game of good players, you would hardly ever see a flop, let alone a turn or river card. Good players don't chase, and the hand is over much earlier. Take out any deck of cards and deal 10 pairs of hole cards face up. Then deal 5 community cards face up. Repeat that thousands of times and you will see all kinds of crazy hands made. That's the nature of Texas Hold'em, not a defect in your shuffling ability.
it wouldn't take too much effort to put those burn cards in, and it would add to the authenticity of the game since burn cards are a normal part of play.
That would make no difference at all. You would be back with the same false perceptions you have now.
so far the program has a bit of promise but I've found it less than stellar for actual "skilled gameplay" while poker does require some luck, Mavens players rely on mavens river cards to produce that luck. that really needs to change.
Sorry, but you really don't know what you are talking about. The cards are recorded in the hand history and you are free to post a statistical analysis demonstrating a bias. I predict that you cannot.
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
Posts: 5878
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by Kent Briggs »

Kent Briggs wrote:The cards are recorded in the hand history and you are free to post a statistical analysis demonstrating a bias. I predict that you cannot.
Here, I've made it easier for you. :D

http://www.briggsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=525
bappems
Posts: 15
Joined: Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:38 am

Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by bappems »

Just to add a bit of historical numbers to Ken's post. I keep a lot of statistics on our games here. I've also had users report and joke about the rivers and/or patterns. We also have a lot of fish at our games. These are some combined numbers (I just did it by rank) from about 1200 hands over a few months worth on one table (Ring table):

Ranks (All Cards)
=================================
2's: 1304
3's: 1267
4's: 1238
5's: 1251
6's: 1336
7's: 1225
8's: 1199
9's: 1248
T's: 1324
J's: 1244
Q's: 1309
K's: 1241
A's: 1329

Ranks (Community Cards)
=================================
2's: 404
3's: 420
4's: 387
5's: 397
6's: 414
7's: 405
8's: 365
9's: 362
T's: 406
J's: 406
Q's: 406
K's: 380
A's: 413

The Ranks (All Cards) is the number of times a rank showed up regardless of it being a hole card or a community card. The other is when it showed up in the community cards. Now this is not the whole deck, but being taken off the Deck Used line from each log file. The log doesn't show the entire deck so this is all I can report on.

This is an example of our latest game (149 hands):
Ranks (All Cards)
=================================
2's: 152
3's: 149
4's: 156
5's: 153
6's: 164
7's: 160
8's: 142
9's: 159
T's: 163
J's: 144
Q's: 177
K's: 149
A's: 166

Ranks (Community Cards)
=================================
2's: 53
3's: 55
4's: 54
5's: 48
6's: 55
7's: 58
8's: 46
9's: 48
T's: 49
J's: 46
Q's: 56
K's: 43
A's: 43

I don't keep stats on the suits as this was good enough for my players to show the randomization and to thwart them joking about a pattern.

Mark
cuervo5150
Posts: 97
Joined: Fri Feb 06, 2009 3:13 pm
Location: California
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Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by cuervo5150 »

bappems wrote:Just to add a bit of historical numbers to Ken's post. I keep a lot of statistics on our games here. I've also had users report and joke about the rivers and/or patterns. We also have a lot of fish at our games. These are some combined numbers (I just did it by rank) from about 1200 hands over a few months worth on one table (Ring table):
NIce job!

Your data and the new shuffle simulator pretty much rule out any patterns with the cards being dealt. I am confident that anyone being able to call consecutive cards with any accuracy, must have some psychic ability and therefore needs to take a trip over to vegas with me!
lildamien09
Posts: 72
Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:08 pm
Location: TX

Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by lildamien09 »

lol, no kiddin cuervo..besides the jokes.. iv been pretty happy with the way the cards are being delt. iv only had the server for about a month and i have 42 users..none of them complain about the shuffling of cards. they all seem to be content with the way its being ran.. i do have a request though.. is it possible kent..for you to change the server settings so that we can allow a negative balance and also allow chip transfers together..just a thought.
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
Posts: 5878
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by Kent Briggs »

lildamien09 wrote:is it possible kent..for you to change the server settings so that we can allow a negative balance and also allow chip transfers together..just a thought.
There are a couple of reasons for that. Since you're essentially given infinite chips when "Allow negative balance" is enabled, there's no reason for anyone to give you any more. The original purpose of that feature was that it would be an easy score keeper and the admin wouldn't have to keep reloading broke players. If you had a positive balance, you were a winning player and if you had a negative balance you were a losing player. So allowing transfers would defeat that whole system and it would just encourage people to create second accounts and transfer millions of chips from one account to another. You can of course create your own chip transfer system with the API and make you own rules on how it should work.
lildamien09
Posts: 72
Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:08 pm
Location: TX

Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by lildamien09 »

yea thats what im doing currently. i was just curious to why it was like that.. i just figured that option should be upto the person running the server whether or not he wanted to allow both or just one.. but thanks for the reply.
Xarius
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2009 2:21 pm

Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by Xarius »

I am currently trying to link an audio and live feed of mavens with me predicting the river card. Last night we played for several hours and I was consistently able to predict either the suite that would come, or if it would pair the board on the river.

I think however it would not be completely valid as it could not be verified that I was calling these cards at the same times mavens was running (meaning I could have potentially just made things up)

so next time I play I will be typing my predictions into the text part of mvens and I hope that there is a chatlog I can access that has times associated with the hand history.

If it does I will post those results.
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
Posts: 5878
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Changes needed to randomizer or add burn cards.

Post by Kent Briggs »

Xarius wrote:I am currently trying to link an audio and live feed of mavens with me predicting the river card. Last night we played for several hours and I was consistently able to predict either the suite that would come, or if it would pair the board on the river.
What is your definition of "consistently"? 25%? Because that's the odds of the river card pairing the board if it's not paired already. You realize of course that what ends up being the river card is dependent on the number of players dealt into the hand. Just someone leaving or joining the table completely changes the hole and community cards. Does your magical psychic abilities take that into account also or does that not matter? You must be a big time winning player at the site you play at if you can consistently predict the river card. Are you?
so next time I play I will be typing my predictions into the text part of mvens and I hope that there is a chatlog I can access that has times associated with the hand history.
The copy of the hand history saved on the server contains the player chat also, unless the admin turned that feature off.
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