Are The Poker Rooms Cheating You, Too?

Here’s an email I sent to my subscribers last night:

I just have to share this story with you…

I get a lot of emails and see a ton of allegations that the
poker rooms must be cheating, especially from folks who
are taking bad beats. So, are they cheating?

Let me try to answer this with a true story that recently
took place in our poker club…

To maintain his privacy, I’ll just call our poker player
Dale. Dale joined our Club in January, and it wasn’t long
before we started seeing a bunch of forum posts about the
bad beats he was taking.

He posted hand history information, proving his case. As
usual, we took this seriously and analyzed the hands
and provided our feedback as a mentoring team.

The very next week, Dale posts more bad beat stories. A
few days later, Dale accuses Poker Stars of being rigged.
He provided a bunch of “evidence” and made numerous
accusations, but we could not find enough compelling facts
to really support his point of view.

We made a special effort to spend even more 1-1 time with
Dale, as we felt bad for him and his continued losses. We
urged Dale to take the time to study the instructional
videos on SNG and MTT tourneys.

Then the accusations and bad beat posts subsided for a
few weeks. Then all of a sudden, Dale reported doing well
at Poker Stars, but he was now convinced that Full Tilt must
be rigged, as he was once again taking an improbable number
of bad beats there.

There must have been a collective sigh from all of us who
were deperately trying to help Dale improve his poker game –
I know I for one was growing weary of this…

But, instead of deriding him and shewing Dale away (he’d
have been blasted out of existence on any other poker forum
on the planet right after his original, first post), we
redoubled our efforts and started mentoring him along as
best we could. He was somewhat argumentative, so this
wasn’t easy.

Dale’s next post shocked us all. He said he was quiting
poker – he’d had enough of the bad beats and just didn’t
think he could take it any more.

Man, I’ve never seen so many people step up to help someone
before in my life. It was as if Dale had fallen overboard
into a raging sea full of sharks.

Everyone jumped in and offered about every form of persuasion
and advice I’ve seen. In that one instance, we all pulled
together to save Dale’s poker life.

As painful as it had been dealing with his continual whining,
crying, bitching and moaning and accusing everyone except
the real cause of his poker woes (himself and his bad decisions),
none of us could bear admiting defeat and seeing him fail.
It would be like someone dying and being gone that we knew
so well.

And that was the turning point. From that point forward,
Dale never accused another poker room of being at fault.
He started listening and learning what we were teaching him.
He started seeing improved results. He actually started
posting positive results for a change.

About a month ago, Dale came in 2nd place in our Club’s
weekly MTT tournament. A couple weeks later, he came in
2nd place again. He’s also reported a positive ROI at his
Sit and Go’s for a change.

Best of all, we don’t have to defend the poker rooms anymore,
since they were never at fault in the first place.

So why am I sharing this story with you? Because Dale’s is
not a story of going from nearly broke to being a WSOP multi-
millionaire like Chris Moneymaker. It’s not a story of increasing
his bankroll by 50X like some of our other members.

Dale’s is a story of survival to fight another day, and realization
that the real enemy is within when it comes to poker. We must
first master our own demons, accept the responsibility for our
own actions and decisions…

Then and only then, is it possible to become a winning poker
player. Dale still whines a little and talks too much at
times, but that’s just Dale. We’ve come to understand and respect
him.

And we’re glad he’s still with us – fighting to win another
pot along with everyone else at the final table.

Rick
www.RoyalFlushClubMembers.com