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Hi guys,
Well I for one am certainly glad I've found a site where I can share my stories with a bunch of people who can see the same obvious anomalies.
My story is very similar to 2HighistheNutz, where I used to cash regularly in tournaments (approx 20%) and single table Sit'n'Go's (approximately 30%). I had a nice flurry of wins about 3 weeks ago on FT including a nice second in a 200 person tournament. Now, I had already undergone a long period of bad luck a few months ago following a 4th in a large tournament so I was no stranger to the FT 'curse'. That time I tried to deny that something odd was up with the site. This time I cannot, with any kind of logical explanation, make any sense of the bad run of luck I've had over the last few weeks.
I have not made the money in any tournament or SNG for the last 30 games straight on FT. After my spate of good results I started getting bad beat after bad beat. I cannot count the amount of times KK has resulted in me being knocked out. KK should be a wonderfully profitable hand but on FT it is showing a big negative EV for me. AA is a 50-50 at best like someone has already said on this site. In a 50-50 race it is like winning lottery to win the hand. The flop has been atrocious for me in these last few weeks. I cannot seem to flop anything and if I do I get a good, but 2nd best hand. If I am ahead on the flop someone sucks out on the turn or river. I almost cannot win a pot let alone a tourney or a SNG!! I used to win 50% of the hands I played (VPIP). That stat has dropped to under 25% in recent times. Everyone seems to catch their hands against me. It is unbelievable how often a flop of 5-4-4 could come out and I am playing KA or KK and I do a continuation bet and they go all in. I call it and they have A4 in their hand. This had happened so many times it defies general mathematical probability.
My love for poker and the combination of odds, wit and psychology is poisoned by this site. I have lost my confidence for playing good hands aggressively and I am playing as though my main opponent is the site first, opponents second. I’ve stopped thinking mathematically and play like I am treading on eggshells. Full Tilt is blasphemous to everything poker is. It rewards poor play and misplayed hands. It rewards players chasing long shot draws and catching them to beat a solid, smart player maximizing his pot equity edge.
Lately, Full Tilt has been playing even worse than ever. For instance, I had AA, a hand which always makes me think I am about to be knocked out. A player to my right raised and I re-raised with my AA. He called my re-raise. The flop was 9c 9h 2c. The player bet and I went all in. He called. The turn was a Tc. Cards turned over. He had Jc. He had a flush! What was he doing raising with K-7s in the first place and why did he call my raise? It is like he knew that a flush draw and a flush was coming. The chance of a player with suited cards to get their flush by the river is something like 6% but this player played the hand like he had the EV of aces. Within 2 minutes I was again involved in an all in pot. I had KK. I raised and someone re-raised me. Flop was something like 2-4-5. I could see there was a straight draw but who is going to re-raise with 33 or 44. I knew he might have aces but he was playing so loose that I had to play with the 2nd best hand in poker and a shortening stack. I went all in. He called. Cards turned over and he had 88 – a poor hand against such aggression pre-flop. He should have put me on a high pair. The cards came down and by the river he had a straight. A 6 came on the turn and a 7 on the river.
There are an infinite number of other examples I could give but these were two that stuck in my mind because of how poorly my opponents played and yet knocked me out.
For the record I do quite okay in other sites. I am making tidy little profits in CDpoker, Titan and Party Poker and those sites, at least for the moment, appear to be dealing realistic cards. I am doing even better at casinos.
There are a couple of observations I’ve made about the way cards are coming on FT. These are just observations. Is anyone else seeing these patterns?
1 - SB and BB often have big hands at the same time.
2 - Players next to you often have a big hand when you do and it is often the guy to the left who has the bigger hand.
3- Big hands like AA KK come out at the same time a lot.
4-The big stack wins a high % of stacks even when they are behind.
5- The cut off always seems to have a big hand.
6- If I play in more than 1 table at once I get the same luck on all tables.
I could see how these anomalies would support programming designed to create ‘action flops’ and expedite the knockout rate of players. The sites officials and employees and the general body of players often say there is no reason for a site to rig the cards. If using programmed measures to speed up the rate of knock out isn’t beneficial to the profit maximization of the site, then I don’t know what it is.
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