I love Pokerstars

[BunniesMan]

I generally play SNGs but I've found the cash games are so much softer. I think I'm going to spend the majority of my time in cash games, it seems like all the best players go to SNG leaving the more predictable players in cash games.

 

[T.T]

how do you guys use bankroll management? what limits and goals do you set for yourself

 

[Parra]

how do you guys use bankroll management? what limits and goals do you set for yourself

I haven't worried about it for years. But for a winning player 30 buy-ins for SNG's or 100 big bets for cash games were the numbers that should cover the risk of ruin. These are decent size variations that allow for the statistically inevitable losing streak, even for players who can be seen to be winning in the long run.

These figures also allow you to set targets. Want to move from $10 SnG's to $30? You'll need to turn a $300 bankroll into at least $900 in the $10 games before you consider it. And then you have to allow for the higher skill levels at the higher levels and the changes in your game that will be required.

It is the only way to improve though - be disciplined and honest and keep stats to keep you honest.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

The best bankroll management plan at pokerstars is to stick your money in your pocket and never deposit at that rigged abortion of a site.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

Straight out f**king crooks.

 

[T.T]

i've redeposited this time enforcing limits to ensure i don't play higher than $7 games.

last night f**kn shit me.. entered a $3.30 tourney and after 4.5hrs there is about 14 left

i have a decent stack and get KK, chip leader calls with A10

flop comes K, 3, 10.
i raise he reraises, i push, idiot calls.

cards predictably come, A, 10.

4.5hrs for $10 work.

was a f**kn russian kent too

 

[T.T]

also im getting quite good at omaha hi/lo NL.. not as boring as holdem either. any of you guys play it?

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

i've redeposited this time enforcing limits to ensure i don't play higher than $7 games.

last night f**kn shit me.. entered a $3.30 tourney and after 4.5hrs there is about 14 left

i have a decent stack and get KK, chip leader calls with A10

flop comes K, 3, 10.
i raise he reraises, i push, idiot calls.

cards predictably come, A, 10.

4.5hrs for $10 work.

was a f**kn russian kent too

I told you not to deposit there. They're bent as f**k.

It's now an Eastern European friendly site. I've noticed that if you're in a heads up with a f**king ex-commie, you won't get far no matter what the dopey merkin is holding. When the Yanks pissed them off they turned their attention to Eastern Europe so it seems they have given players from there a *wink wink* advantage.

Same tourney yesterday and today, same scenario, AA vs a Russian. First one holding A/J unsuited, rivers the flush, today Q/9 unsuited, rivers the flush. I win both hands and I'm looking at a $500+ payday but Stars would rather that money go to some ex-commie f**ker to help promote their site in the eastern bloc.

Porkerstars is dirty and they won't allow people to question the integrity of their software on their forum. They have something to hide.

They're dirty and they know it.

 

[Parra]

also im getting quite good at omaha hi/lo NL.. not as boring as holdem either. any of you guys play it?

Get decent at it and you will have a bigger edge than you will in hold'em.

I played PL years ago, but I prefer 7 card stud to Omaha.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

And to add to the intrigue, I have a theory which is being more than backed up by what's happened over the last 6 months.

I play the pokerschool open skill league, it's 6 per day and it's a point score over the month, usually there's 100k+ players. You have to have 20+ VPP's in the previous month to qualify for the higher level of prizemoney. You can only play it once every two months, the top 500 go to a premier league where you can only play for decent prizemoney if you had 150+ VPP's the previous month. I just miss every other month

I won it in October '11 and immediately withdrew most of the prizemoney. Since then in the 4 that I've played, coming towards the end of the month I've been in line to pick up some of the big prizemoney, when all of a sudden I've have aces cracked over and over again.

It has happened prior to the last couple of days but generally only the odd one in this tournament. But as soon as I get a sniff off the big prizes, bang, I get hammered. If it happened once, I'd accept it, twice, I'd be a bit suss, three times in a row....

 

[Parra]

Are you wearing your tinfoil hat every hand? Or just donning it when you see the pocket rockets? There could be a significant difference.

 

[Parra]

How's this for timing. First hand in a 27 seat SnG started immediately after my post. Goes to show rockets hold up even when they shouldn't and no matter how bad you play them.

PokerStars Hand #1: Tournament #1, $1.29+$0.21 USD Hold'em No Limit - Level I (10/20) - 2012/07/01 4:01:30 ET
Table '581431759 1' 9-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: hero (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: C_Gorin (1500 in chips)
Seat 3: Lena330 (1500 in chips)
Seat 4: skukka (1500 in chips)
Seat 5: blaylook (1500 in chips)
Seat 6: edu_zancan (1500 in chips)
Seat 7: saafina (1500 in chips)
Seat 8: Fon Maxi (1500 in chips)
Seat 9: DUBAK29 (1500 in chips)
C_Gorin: posts small blind 10
Lena330: posts big blind 20
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [Qc Ks]
skukka: folds
blaylook: folds
edu_zancan: folds
saafina: folds
Fon Maxi: folds
DUBAK29: folds
hero: raises 40 to 60
C_Gorin: raises 40 to 100
Lena330: folds
hero: calls 40
*** FLOP *** [7h Kh Jc]
C_Gorin: bets 220
hero: calls 220
*** TURN *** [7h Kh Jc] [Qd]
C_Gorin: checks
hero: bets 290
C_Gorin: raises 890 to 1180 and is all-in
hero: calls 890 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [7h Kh Jc Qd] [Ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
C_Gorin: shows [Ah Ad] (three of a kind, Aces)
hero: shows [Qc Ks] (two pair, Kings and Queens)
C_Gorin collected 3020 from pot
hero finished the tournament in 26th place
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3020 | Rake 0
Board [7h Kh Jc Qd Ac]
Seat 1: hero (button) showed [Qc Ks] and lost with two pair, Kings and Queens
Seat 2: C_Gorin (small blind) showed [Ah Ad] and won (3020) with three of a kind, Aces
Seat 3: Lena330 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: skukka folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: blaylook folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: edu_zancan folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: saafina folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: Fon Maxi folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: DUBAK29 folded before Flop (didn't b

 

[cleary89]

Lol at any kind of online poker is rigged. Why would the company rig free tournys? Lol.

Only sort of cheating is colluding which I've seen cracked down a bit, multi accounting (having 2 user names or more so people don't know you're good), bots or super user accounts which I doubt will happen again after the UB stuff.

If you are truly interested in getting better join up to 2+2, one of the biggest poker forums. I've been on there for a few years and my game has improved immensely. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32/beginners-questions/

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

Make of what you like, it's just what's happened.

And it's rigged, just not against individuals (although, the story I posted makes me wonder and I'm not the first). They admitted as much to me in emails. There is no random shuffle because a computer can't do it, it can only do what it's told and you can't tell a computer to shuffle or pick 52 numbers in a random order. Someone has to give it instructions and parameters.

And the cards that hit the table are dependent on what the players at the table do. So, in essence, unlike an actual live game where the 52 cards are set in place before the first card is dealt, pokerstars software decides the next card to hit the table as the hand is played. The next card out depends on what occured during the round prior. That means you could deal the same 18 cards to the players an infinite number of times and if the first 7 fold, the small blind calls and the big blind checks, the flop will be the same every time.

It's not such a stretch to believe that their software is set against smaller stack, even a miniscule % can make them millions over the course of a year.

It aint rocket science.

And just accepting the word of a company that has links to organised crime and has been banned in the US doesn't seem too smart to me...

 

[cleary89]

Of course it's not random, but it's as random as it could possibly be. Nothing computerised is truly random.

You got a source on that the cards are dependent on the action?

If anything, it would be biased against the big stack. More money turned over back and forth, more hands played more rake paid.

Links to organise crime? Source? Banned because online gambling is illegal in the US, surely you would see that a gambling website might be banned due to it being gambling....

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

Of course it's not random, but it's as random as it could possibly be. Nothing computerised is truly random.

You got a source on that the cards are dependent on the action?

If anything, it would be biased against the big stack. More money turned over back and forth, more hands played more rake paid.

Links to organise crime? Source? Banned because online gambling is illegal in the US, surely you would see that a gambling website might be banned due to it being gambling....

Yes, an email from pokerstars. The wording is along the lines of "dependent on the clicks at the table", I'll find the email but it's just in a hand history email and I have 1,000 odd saved from this year so it may take a while to find it.

The card is dependent on the players clicks. So when you watch a hand play out that you're not involved in, there's no point thinking you should have been in the hand because if you were involved, the cards that came out wouldn't be the same. It's not like they shuffle a deck into an order and that order doesn't change, it does change, every hand.

Yes, pokerstars had/have links to organised crime. There's plenty about it on the web.

US players can still play poker online, they just can't play at certain sites.

 

[T.T]

I think I have found my edge

Hyper nl Holdem heads up
And nl Omama hi/lo 18 man turbos

 

[Parra]

And the cards that hit the table are dependent on what the players at the table do. So, in essence, unlike an actual live game where the 52 cards are set in place before the first card is dealt, pokerstars software decides the next card to hit the table as the hand is played. The next card out depends on what occured during the round prior. That means you could deal the same 18 cards to the players an infinite number of times and if the first 7 fold, the small blind calls and the big blind checks, the flop will be the same every time.

That is not what it means at all. Stars use several sources to seed the RnG, including movements of players at the table - in other words random input. No, you could not produce the same outcome every time. The players actions do not determine the cards dealt, the movements are just used as on of the sources of randomness in the deal.

And it does not matter an iota if the deck is shuffled once and dealt, or is continuously shuffled. The odds stay exactly the same.

 

[Everlovin' Antichrist]

That is not what it means at all. Stars use several sources to seed the RnG, including movements of players at the table - in other words random input. No, you could not produce the same outcome every time. The players actions do not determine the cards dealt, the movements are just used as on of the sources of randomness in the deal.

And it does not matter an iota if the deck is shuffled once and dealt, or is continuously shuffled. The odds stay exactly the same.

Of course you could produce the same outcome every time in the scenario I posted. Deal the players the same hole cards and have the players play the hand the same way and the cards that hit will be the same every time.

It is 100% guaranteed that if the 9 players receive exactly the same hole cards and the hand is played, by the players, exactly the same way, the cards that are turned face-up on the table will be the same every time, that makes it as un-random as possible. The odds of that happening live are astronomical.

But the odds of that happening at Pokerstars are 1 to 1. It will happen every time if the hole cards are the same and the hand is played the same.

They should have a program that simply puts the cards in an order and leaves them that way for the duration of the hand. To decide the next card to be put face up on the clicks of the players is ridiculous and leaves them open to criticism, which they most certainly get. Mostly that's just put down as "Whinging bad player" or "You're just unlucky" but you're not unlucky, the software has shit on you because you didn't play the hand the way the software deemed you should have played it in order for you to hit your cards, or for your opponent to not hit their cards.

The software they use is made by them for them, they set the parameters and it's incredible that anyone thinks that they wouldn't have the software set to make them the most $ possible and I'm sure they know where that is.

There is nothing random about their software. Each outcome is decided by the software not by anything random. If the software decides that you calling a raise means that your opponent hit's his one-outer, how is that random?

FTR, I cash at a rate of 23% in MTT's, 27% in 90 man SNG's and 25% in 45 man SnG's and I've withdrawn $1,500 yet never deposited, so I'm not talking from a losing player's perspective.

 

[Parra]

EA that is not the way it works at all. The cards are not determined by your actions in playing the hand. Player input is used - It is every mouse movement, the timing - and it used to seed the RnG, not determine the outcome.