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The group I play with had been using the Pokerrr2 app for a coiple years. I believe the algorithm is set to force big showdowns.

The other night the app dealt two full houses and quads TO THE SAME PLAYER (not me) by the 73rd hand with 7 players. I made a big deal about it, but some other players said that it is statistically possible. I call bovine excrement.

What do you experts think?

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  • it would require much more data to even indicate, the software is a foul. while what you posted indicates anything is possible, it in no way indicates anything else
    – Jon
    Oct 15, 2022 at 0:11
  • Another factor is that weak hands tend not to be played through to showdown when players are making an effort at taking chips from each other. Most "nothing" hands will be folded easily, resulting in small pots given up and the big pots being big hands competed by aggressive players - which tend to remain in peoples' memory stronger as compared to the many, many other weaker hands that just floats by because only one player had the best hand with no one to contest - confirmation bias. I've seen three quads show up at one night in live poker so two full houses and one more feels quite normal.
    – Unihedron
    Oct 17, 2022 at 21:23

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Let's check the odds for different hands.

The odds of the hands you mention with seven cards are like so.

Quads 594 : 1
Full House 37.5 : 1

In 73 hands it is not unreasonable to see full house twice. The quads are a little unlikely, being 73/594. It is unlikely but not grotesquely so. Very roughly 1 in 8.

In order to check you would have to do a much more extensive statistical examination. You would need several thousand hands at least. You would need to record every hand and see if they were distributed in a manner consistent with randomness. It would not be sufficient to observe a few "outlier" hands and conclude anything from that.

Unless, that is, you consistently started seeing quads at one-in-73 or so frequency. If you had the app deal, say, 10,000 full Holdem hands and got quads in the range of (very roughly) 20 times, then it is reasonable. If you got quads 160 times then you could be fairly confident that the app was fubar.

Possibly you can get the app to interact with a script and do the dealing without humans having to play the hands?

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