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I've played poker in real life and I've played Poker Night at the Inventory (but not Poker Night 2).

I have the feeling that the Poker Night engine manipulates the deck to give players a more interesting game experience. I'll come right out and admit that I base this entirely on subjective evidence, but it seems like when I'm betting big and hoping for a miracle to come along on the last card, I'm more likely to get it in Poker Night than I am to get it with a real deck of cards.

Is this just luck or do the Poker Night games cheat to make things more dramatic?

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  • I've played about 20 tournaments now (on tiny baby normal difficulty) and I don't remember the last card ever favoring me. Curse your good luck.
    – kotekzot
    Jun 5, 2013 at 1:41

2 Answers 2

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Poker Night and Poker Night 2 are not rigged.


Jake Rodkin of Telltale Games said:

It's not cheating. The game has no motivation to cheat! Why would we write cheating code into a game which is only fun when it's authentic? There's no money on the line, only unlocks which we want you to have. No cheating, I promise.

Mike Stemmle of Telltale Games said:

Speaking as someone who waded through much more of the poker code than our lead programmer was probably comfortable with, I can say this with a nigh-absolute degree of certainty: The amount of extra work that would be required to make the the game cheat (even a little bit) would've prohibitively annoying.

And like Jake said, cheating would gain us nothing.

Mike "Winners Never Cheat" Stemmle

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Poker is not predictable. A specific occurrence may have definable odds, but such odds are only useful in the context of thousands of hands. Much like how a coin toss may land on heads 5 times in a row even though the chance of a specific side is 50/50. In poker this can manifest as the same cards popping up more often than you would expect, going many hands without getting a single pair, or even getting a royal flush twice in a game.

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  • 1
    This is quite an interesting point, but pretty much entirely irrelevant and does not answer the question.
    – shanodin
    Oct 25, 2015 at 22:59
  • Yes, while posting poker odds or whatever might be relevant to a question regarding poker overall, this question is asking if this poker implementation has "cheating" built in.
    – zero298
    Oct 26, 2015 at 5:48
  • Truthfully, as Poker Night is likely not rigged, I don't see why this answer would get negative marks since it likely explains why the player would notice a different experience while playing on the service. Either games on the service are in fact different, meaning the game is somehow manipulated, or it just feels different because the way the cards fell for him during the periods that he was using the service. And the OP specifically asks (in bold) if it is "just luck" which seems to put this answer directly in the ball park. Are they cheating, or is it just "luck of the draw"...
    – JSON
    Feb 28, 2019 at 20:54

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