I'm hoping someone(s) on here will be kind enough to help ease my mind
(or, for that matter, to verify my reasons for concern!) And I should
say that, while I'm a good poker player, I'm only a marginal student of
mathematics and computing, so keep that in mind, please, as you answer
this question, but:

Is it possible that, as I'm playing online, any of the other players
are cheating by way of predicting the order of the cards in the
"shuffled" deck?

A few (some math, some poker) truths to keep in mind as you answer:

1. Many sites use an RNG algorithm based on 2^32. Isn't that pretty
easily susceptible to brute-force attacks from someone who has a
program relying on distributed computing?

2. In the most popular type of online poker (Texas Hold 'Em), there are
four rounds of betting, and the most important three rounds come AFTER
(a) each player gets two (face-down) cards and (b) three face-up cards
are dealt on the table -- SO, if the cheateer is, say, the third player
to be dealt cards at a table of ten players, then he will know the 3rd
and 13th cards (i.e. the two cards he's been dealt) as well as the
21st, 22nd and 23rd cards (the three dealt face-up immediately
following the two distributed to each player).

So, I guess my question is: how easily would someone be able -- either
by brute-force run-through of all possible combinations of "deck
arrangements" with those 5 cards in those specific spots, or by some
sort of reverse-engineering, or whatever -- to conclude the sequence of
cards in the deck (which, of course, would give him knowledge of
everyone's cards, as well as the two cards left to be dealt)?

And, for that matter, a related question: there's a piece of software
currently on the market (Check out pokerrng.com.) which claims that, if
a player enters into the software the details of a few thousands
recently dealt hands, the software will "synch" with the poker system's
RNG well enough to predict three of the five cards (not suits, but
values, which is enough to be dangerous!) left to be dealt! Is this
even plausible? Do I need to be afraid of this type of thing?

Anything online has inherent pitfalls, and cheating is -- both online
and offline -- a fact of life, but there's a certain level of security
I'd like, and I wonder if I'm jumping at shadows or rightly
concerned...

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Gerry

Perhaps my lack of knowledge of math led me to write the phrase
"algorithm based on 2^32" when what I actually meant -- and precision
is key to your science, so I'll ask for forgiveness in having misstated
this important premise -- was "a 32-bit seed space (2^32 possible
seeds)."

This, as per an article published six years ago
(http://www.developer.com/java/other/article.php/616221), can be
exhaustively searched (and perfectly determined) in just over a day,
using what at that time was a relatively state-of-the-art Pentium 400.
(And, given what I know of averages, the "average" time to find the
correct seed would therefore be about 12 hours, if the time to look
through all possibilities is a day.)

Given a Pentium 4 at 3GHz, or, better yet, a few of them distributing
the processing, is it REALLY unlikely that a guy somewhere with a few
lines of codes and a couple of chips strung together is using a
brute-force attack to find the seed within the approximately 2 or 3
minutes (depending on the game) necessary for him to make the critical
decisions?

I'm hoping someone(s) on here will be kind enough to help ease my mind
(or, for that matter, to verify my reasons for concern!) And I should
say that, while I'm a good poker player, I'm only a marginal student of
mathematics and computing, so keep that in mind, please, as you answer
this question, but:

Is it possible that, as I'm playing online, any of the other players
are cheating by way of predicting the order of the cards in the
"shuffled" deck?

A few (some math, some poker) truths to keep in mind as you answer:

1. Many sites use an RNG algorithm based on 2^32. Isn't that pretty
easily susceptible to brute-force attacks from someone who has a
program relying on distributed computing?

2. In the most popular type of online poker (Texas Hold 'Em), there are
four rounds of betting, and the most important three rounds come AFTER
(a) each player gets two (face-down) cards and (b) three face-up cards
are dealt on the table -- SO, if the cheateer is, say, the third player
to be dealt cards at a table of ten players, then he will know the 3rd
and 13th cards (i.e. the two cards he's been dealt) as well as the
21st, 22nd and 23rd cards (the three dealt face-up immediately
following the two distributed to each player).

So, I guess my question is: how easily would someone be able -- either
by brute-force run-through of all possible combinations of "deck
arrangements" with those 5 cards in those specific spots, or by some
sort of reverse-engineering, or whatever -- to conclude the sequence of
cards in the deck (which, of course, would give him knowledge of
everyone's cards, as well as the two cards left to be dealt)?

And, for that matter, a related question: there's a piece of software
currently on the market (Check out pokerrng.com.) which claims that, if
a player enters into the software the details of a few thousands
recently dealt hands, the software will "synch" with the poker system's
RNG well enough to predict three of the five cards (not suits, but
values, which is enough to be dangerous!) left to be dealt! Is this
even plausible? Do I need to be afraid of this type of thing?

Anything online has inherent pitfalls, and cheating is -- both online
and offline -- a fact of life, but there's a certain level of security
I'd like, and I wonder if I'm jumping at shadows or rightly
concerned...

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Thanks,

Gerry

Second, if I were playing online poker for money this
would be the least of my worries, because there are much
easier ways to cheat. For example collusion - if two
players agree to support each other's plays that gives
them an advantage (because it effectively means their
betting limit is twice that of the other players'.)
It wouldn't be too hard for one person to arrange to
be playing two hands (presumably the site would notice
two players at the same IP address so it would maybe take
a little trickiness.)

I'm hoping someone(s) on here will be kind enough to help ease my mind
(or, for that matter, to verify my reasons for concern!) And I should
say that, while I'm a good poker player, I'm only a marginal student
of mathematics and computing, so keep that in mind, please, as you
answer this question, but:

Is it possible that, as I'm playing online, any of the other players
are cheating by way of predicting the order of the cards in the
"shuffled" deck?

A few (some math, some poker) truths to keep in mind as you answer:

1. Many sites use an RNG algorithm based on 2^32. Isn't that pretty
easily susceptible to brute-force attacks from someone who has a
program relying on distributed computing?

2. In the most popular type of online poker (Texas Hold 'Em), there
are four rounds of betting, and the most important three rounds come
AFTER (a) each player gets two (face-down) cards and (b) three
face-up cards are dealt on the table -- SO, if the cheateer is, say,
the third player to be dealt cards at a table of ten players, then he
will know the 3rd and 13th cards (i.e. the two cards he's been dealt)
as well as the 21st, 22nd and 23rd cards (the three dealt face-up
immediately following the two distributed to each player).

So, I guess my question is: how easily would someone be able -- either
by brute-force run-through of all possible combinations of "deck
arrangements" with those 5 cards in those specific spots, or by some
sort of reverse-engineering, or whatever -- to conclude the sequence
of cards in the deck (which, of course, would give him knowledge of
everyone's cards, as well as the two cards left to be dealt)?

And, for that matter, a related question: there's a piece of software
currently on the market (Check out pokerrng.com.) which claims that,
if a player enters into the software the details of a few thousands
recently dealt hands, the software will "synch" with the poker
system's RNG well enough to predict three of the five cards (not
suits, but values, which is enough to be dangerous!) left to be
dealt! Is this even plausible? Do I need to be afraid of this type of
thing?

Anything online has inherent pitfalls, and cheating is -- both online
and offline -- a fact of life, but there's a certain level of security
I'd like, and I wonder if I'm jumping at shadows or rightly
concerned...

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

Gerry wrote:
[...]

FWIW, here is an opinion from a professional poker player:

[...]

As for collusion, all the big sites have extensive collusion detection built
into their software. People have been banned from sites with their money
confiscated (and, in the case of pokerstars, that money is distributed to
their opponents) when caught. So while I'm sure collusion exists,

1) It's very hard to do profitably as it is

2) Colluders are often caught anyways, and this I believe deters most
colluders

So I don't worry about it. I've played hundreds of thousands of hands at
thousands of tables online and perhaps twice have I ever thought that maybe
I'm at a table with some colluders--and I was far from certain at that.
Each time I simply left the game, since there are thousands of other ones
going on at any one time.

But yeah, ultimately there's no way to know for sure. Sometimes I think
one cardroom screws with the odds a bit. Not a whole lot, just a bit. So
if
someone is a 60/40 favorite, they're really maybe 55/45. 90/10 becomes
85/15, etc. This would be hardly detectable, and keep bad players in the
game playing longer, making the site more popular, and keeping it able to
collect more rake. But who knows, that's probably just my own paranoia. At
the end of the day I continue to play as do so many thousands of others
because it's been many years and many billions of hands dealt out online and
people are satisfied with the way it's been going.

For me, David, collusion-detection is part scientific (i.e. I own
software which tracks the number of times particular players are
involved in hands together, and looks for "markers" of collusion --
raises and reraises in an effort to isolate a "mark" and drive him to
fold, etc., etc.) and part from-the-gut (based on years of playing B&M
and online poker). Certainly, incontrovertibly, your statement (I'll
paraphrase it as: "Good colluders know, as part of their colluding, how
to minimize the risk of detecion.") is true. But it isn't my particular
worry, wrong or right.

My particular worry is that, as was shown possible in 1999
(http://www.cigital.com/papers/abstracts/developer_gambling.html),
someone can "know" my cards...

Again, the authors of pokerrng (at pokerrng.com) make this claim, and I
have no way of knowing whether it's true that their product is snake
oil or that my fear of it is well-grounded.

None of you (and I mean this as a complimentary term, and one of
respect!) math geeks are curious?

My particular worry is that, as was shown possible in 1999
(http://www.cigital.com/papers/abstracts/developer_gambling.html),
someone can "know" my cards...

Again, the authors of pokerrng (at pokerrng.com) make this claim, and I
have no way of knowing whether it's true that their product is snake
oil or that my fear of it is well-grounded.

...
So, in short, yeah, I see your point...but I don't know if there's a
direct link between the fact that the software is advertised as a
"cheating" aide and the fact that the authors are necessarily lying
about the software's ability to deliver as promised...