Richard Cabeza, 42, of Columbus, Ohio, claims to have uncovered flaws in the dealing procedures used at PokerStars, the most popular online poker site in the world. These irregularities have allegedly enabled Mr. Cabeza to achieve a measure of success at the tables that would otherwise be impossible to credit given his level of skill.

“It all began three years ago when I first started competing seriously at the play money tables,” Richard explains. “I was able to grow my starting bankroll of 30,000 chips to 500,000 from then to now.”

He went on to state that he had never read any poker strategy content, nor did he consult any math texts to inform himself of the odds and probabilities involved in poker. “Given my lack of experience with Texas Hold'em, it's virtually impossible for there to be any other explanation than that the deal was unfairly adjusted in my favor,” Richard elaborated.

Richard doesn't have any friends or relatives who work for PokerStars, so he doesn't exactly know why the site would act to benefit him specifically in such a manner. This hasn't prevented him from speculating as to possible scenarios.

“I guess they want to have some consistent winners at the tables to inspire confidence among their user base,” he surmised. When asked as to why he personally would be chosen for such a plan, Richard declined to comment. He also had no opinion as to why the poker room wouldn't just let winners and losers emerge naturally through the normal course of play.

“...it's virtually impossible for there to be any other explanation...”

“...it's virtually impossible for there to be any other explanation...”

Mr. Cabeza acknowledged that his theory seems farfetched at first glance, but he gave assurances that straightforward mathematical logic backs up his claims: “There's no doubt that something fishy is going on. I've examined my last 1,000 hand histories, just looking for anything out of place. I've discovered that I received a pocket pair 82 times while you would expect such strong hands to be dealt only around 59 times over this statistically significant sample of games. Thus, it's clear that the deal has been fiddled with.”

Richard first became suspicious after he won a play chip tournament for about 470,000 chips a few months ago.

“Everyone knows that multi-table tournaments are perhaps the most talent-based poker discipline,” he clarified. “I was just as surprised as the rest of the final table when the last pot was shipped in my direction. Although there is some luck involved in the results, I find it highly unlikely that a person of my abilities would be able to prevail against all the other entrants unless I was chosen to be the recipient of unearned luck.”

That's when Richard decided to do some research on the Twoplustwo.com forums. He realized that others had come before him in this realm of thought.

After encountering numerous tales of players who felt that they had been targeted for negative treatment from poker rooms, he realized that his situation made sense. “There can't be so many artificial losers without others being selected to become manufactured winners,” Richard concluded. “The whole system couldn't function if this were not so.”

Richard conceded that he by himself could not balance out the large and growing contingent of players claiming to be the unwitting victims of unfair random number generation. He countered that the reason for this discrepancy was that other ersatz winners were smart enough to keep quiet about the phenomenon.

There's no telling if this play money success would transfer over to the real money tables. Richard can't play at PokerStars for actual cash because he lives in Ohio, and the PokerStars USA division is only available for real money play to those located in the State of New Jersey.

“Every serious player to whom I've told my story expressed a great desire for me to play for actual cash,” Richard confided. “In fact, many of them were so eager to see if my theory held true for real money that they volunteered to sit at my tables should I ever decide to play for more than just fake chips.”

Sadly, it seems that Richard's prospective opponents will be disappointed as he is content to remain at the play money tables for now.