ONLINE POKER - SITE - PokerStars

[mrkromer]

Recently I wrote on here about winning $2200 in a big tourney and then placing in 2 sit n gos immediately after, saying that the cashout curse isn't true. However,

Since then I haven't placed in 15 sit n gos in a row and have seen some of the sickest bad beats there can be, for example:

My AA against 55, flop 553, turn A, river 3.
My AJ against KQ, flop KQ10, turn blank, river Q.
My A2 against 45, flop A34, turn 5, river 5.
My AA againt AQ, don't remember flop, but turn and river Q.

I went back and studied my previous 25 sit n gos, and my first ten I cashed in 6. My next 15, none. Out of those 15, 9 times I was first out.

Can someone throw a little decent professional advice my way? Am I just in a bad streak? Have I probably gotten too loose since my big win?

All my sit n gos are either $10 or $20, 9 or 18 people.

I appreciate any comments that aren't riddled with sarcasm. Thanks,

mrkromer

[billythebody]

Let me respond to the last poster who posted this; " When I return my luck changes--first hand: A A. I go all in. How do I lose? Jacks full of deuces--but first my aces tripped on the flop." I don't understand what that means. If you hit a set of aces on the flop, there is no way possible that jacks full of 2's could beat you in that hand since you'd have aces full.

This is more proof that Pokerstars is rigged. If Aces full loses to Jacks full, then you know the site is really messed up. LOL.

[lucid]

There is no debate. If you have played more than 500 hands at this site and you cannot tell it is rigged you have no I.Q. Of course if you are a stooge for the site you have no scruples. If you actually can't tell that it is rigged you are the kind of person that would catch the cabana boy balls-deep in your girlfriend and say he's just a nice guy. This site has no connection to real poker and the folks running it are infected viral pustules.

[lucid]

There is no debate. If you have played more than 500 hands at this site and you cannot tell it is rigged you have no I.Q. Of course if you are a stooge for the site you have no scruples. If you actually can't tell that it is rigged you are the kind of person that would catch the cabana boy balls-deep in your girlfriend and say he's just a nice guy. This site has no connection to real poker and the folks running it are infected viral pustules.

[Syn]

Yes, Pokerstars is definitely rigged:

These are only recent hands as I lost my big old database... If you think Stars is rigged wait till you try Full Tilt, Ipoker,etc...

[KROOK RAT]

Oh my God ...This "Jokerstars" ,as players there call it ,is so obviously programmed for eliminating low stack ( probably 98 % ) for next rake that those who now know simply call with anything if they have more chips...sick site. Someone said it should be called Satanstars.com ..lol ..It is unbelievable to know this is allowed on the internet at all and that not even Governments/Law cannot stop these criminals from take and National advertising etc. It is also UNBELIEVABLE that the REAL PRO's and WPT are involved / promoting these RIGGED SIGHTS...WOW !! Personally , since trying this and finding out like other unknowing / trusting suckers I have eyes wide open on the scary world of internet poker and disrespect totally for all Pro's who accept money from those involved. To all my friends of REAL SHUFFLED /DEALT /LIVE CARD POKER ... STAY AWAY and do not promote this EVIL .. Or let us all get together and come up with a sight that somehow has a real dealer on camera for every table !! They will then be out of business and we will be on our cruise ships enjoying our success... Grab a deck call some friends and enjoy a real poker game ......GL P.S .. If anyone has found anything close to a trustworthy online sight and can prove it please let us know so we can have a good chuckle !

[flukie81]

just hit tile tables.

[yleecoyote]

I see others have had the same observations. I am a retiree who enjoys poker and would like to think pokerstars is legit.But it is not. I generally play in low or mid level tourneys and have seen the same thing happen daily for about a year now. I will usually seem some good cards at the start and then nothing for almost 2 hours. When you get close to pay off or slightly into,those " remarkable" hands start showing up.You are either forced to call with a suck hand, (and I laugh because I know it will lose), or you will be ground out by the blinds.The same thing happens whether playing holdem or omaha h/l. I have also noticed that after making a deposit you get somewhat good cards for a short time. You may even win or come in the money in a tourney, but then you will be dead for the next month. It happens too often to be just coincidence.

[yleecoyote]

Ever notice how many hands that you fold would have been winners? They will throw you a couple of those in a row setting you up for a suck in.Also have you ever noticed how the cards will favor the chip leaders late in a tourney ? Otherwise tourney would go on too long.

[yleecoyote]

Just finished a 10+1 tourney at jokerstars. After reading the blogs here I decided to chart the game. Starting with 5000 chips, I was able to double it up to the first break. During the next two hrs ( 2 breaks )about 72 hands I had two hands that were callable. Torney started with 2100 players and I survived to 460 out 0f 520.My chip count had now dwindled to 3500. They then gave me 2 hands in a row - AsKc and finally AdQd. I of course called raises with both and of course was eliminated. This is a pattern I see every day. I agree , Poker Stars is Joker Stars and we are fools to play there. Too bad, because I am retired and have nothing else to do but I hate playing against a stacked deck and don't enjoy playing for nothing.

[Hunter]

Rigs are real, smart people know that. However, in the case of PokerStars you can use it to your advantage if you've never played there. Like PartyPoker, where I turned $50 in to $300+(cashed out), I thought I'd give PokerStars a spin. Deposited 25 euro's, but unfortunately I never got past $75 of which $50 is left. Time to make a cash out of course. If you have never played at a certain poker room, just deposit some money, try to double it up and cash out. Its a good way to make a quick buck every once in a while without getting cleaned out entirely. Just stop playing when you lose the ability to win hands, no matter how good your holecards are. Another thing: ignore people that give you a hard time because you know poker is rigged, they are just people that are paid by poker rooms to bash your views on this, they are everywhere, just ignore them, they are bad people that have conscience whatsoever.

[Hunter]

Follow up: I meant, no conscience of course. Couple of hours later I have lost the $50,-. Now what did I do wrong? I tried to cash out, which didn't work because somehow magically pokersnobs needs 48 hours to do some magic with your deposit before you can make a cash out. So I tried, and decided to play. To prove my point, the $50 was gone in an instant. I was weak. I have to much time on my hands on a Sunday afternoon. Considering there are about 130000+ players at times, that is a lot of fraud for just one poker room. I had already learned my lesson, and I only deposited 25 euros, but still, its a waste. My fault. Even if this fraud is discovered somewhere in the future, they are already to rich to care, so we lose anyway. Again, don't bring yourself down because of people that claim they win all the time, it isn't possible if you're a daily player, unless you've signed some shady agreement to lie or play for the house.

[PokahPlayah]

I've come to the conclusion that all major poker sites have their random card generators completely and utterly scccccrewed. I know we all know this but yet we keep playing, while I have ne way. I used to complain about PokerStars soooo much and ended up in FullTilt. Fulltilt blows my freaking mind. It's way worse then pokerstars, as bad as pokerstars was I still won, though went through a lot of bad beats. But like someone said about winning something then losing during your 48 hour bull*^&* hold on your cashing out. I won a tournament at roughly 1000 dollars, and decided play some heads up games, the cards people were pulling on were just un frickin believable, in an hour or two of playing HEADS UP I lost to two different straight flushes with the better hand pre flop betting not to mention a million other stupid bad beats. So I was fed up and went to Full Tilt. It's even WORSE 80% of the people play like complete and utter donkeys calling draws n stuff.... but they catch them all the time??!! I think they just cater to casual poker watchers and dreamers, cus when i first started playin from watchin it on tv I played like a complete moron because I thought the random hands they show throughout a tournament on tv had taught me something.. but it almost seems they REWARD them on fulltilt. Maybe it's so bad and unlucky players will come back, but my bad luck on fulltilt has just blown my mind. Even though I had lots of bad beats on PokerStars I won more so through aggressive play then actual cards, but I find people on fulltilt just make the dumbest calls I started playing tighter so I got no cards and got bled dry by their stupidness... I think Im done with online playing. I have had a theory that people's luck is applied in a multi-tier way on these sites. Say there are three tiers of "luck" from the deck. If you've been winning you will be knocked down to a 1, if youve been losing you're a 3, and you're just being average you're 2. Two 2s going heads up will be true odds, a 3 against a 1 will almost always win, and well you get the drift. This would balance out the skill difference between casual or dumb/wanna be players and real players who actually study and put effort into their craft.
It's just a theory, but I've had thought of it long before I ever read any of the rants of other people like me and I wasn't sure if I was just nuts like my friends thought I was. (I didn't read any of the stuff other ppl wrote for a long time cus im lazy and avoid forums and what not on the net)

[sackmaster95]

This has been the most entertaining read I have had all week. The suggestion that PokerStars is in any way rigged is probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Ever think the reason you see so many bad beats is because you see about 3 times as many hands per hour as physical poker? And have you actually thought about the implications of rigging a whole database to somehow knock out small stacks, take your bankroll back after a big victory and give you the "cashout curse"? You really think PokerStars cares about rigging their games when they're making huge rakes from their 20,000 or so tables and tournaments and SnGs? Stop blaming your bad luck on unfounded conspiracy theories and accept the fact that you'll have a bad run once in a while. All the pros have had their pocket aces cracked, multiple times. All the pros have had bad runs. And if you're the person who attributes a bad beat to "Jokerstars", I will begin a personal vendetta against you that will culminate in me taking your whole stack. Get over it.

[mrkromer]

Originally Posted by sackmaster95

This has been the most entertaining read I have had all week. The suggestion that PokerStars is in any way rigged is probably the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Ever think the reason you see so many bad beats is because you see about 3 times as many hands per hour as physical poker? And have you actually thought about the implications of rigging a whole database to somehow knock out small stacks, take your bankroll back after a big victory and give you the "cashout curse"? You really think PokerStars cares about rigging their games when they're making huge rakes from their 20,000 or so tables and tournaments and SnGs? Stop blaming your bad luck on unfounded conspiracy theories and accept the fact that you'll have a bad run once in a while. All the pros have had their pocket aces cracked, multiple times. All the pros have had bad runs. And if you're the person who attributes a bad beat to "Jokerstars", I will begin a personal vendetta against you that will culminate in me taking your whole stack. Get over it.

Yeah, and I guess you didn't get the memo about the poker site employees who cracked the system and were ripping off hundreds of thousands of dollars on AP or UB, I forget which. Nope, no way you could rig anything online. Reality check, if man can program it, man can manipulate it.

mike

[HPG ADMIN]

Originally Posted by mrkromer

Yeah, and I guess you didn't get the memo about the poker site employees who cracked the system and were ripping off hundreds of thousands of dollars on AP or UB, I forget which. Nope, no way you could rig anything online. Reality check, if man can program it, man can manipulate it.

The problems with using the AP/UB fiasco as supporting evidence is that the culprits were players and former employees who were able to crack the system. Even though many people patted themselves on the back for supposedly being correct about online poker being rigged, that didn't prove anything about the sites themselves. 99% of the "online poker is rigged" crowd are accusing the sites themselves (hence the "Riverstars" and "Jokerstars" labels) of being corrupt. Pointing out that cheating occured doesn't validate that point. To me, having a few selective games (out of the billions of hands) being rigged is nothing close to being a systematic problem.

Second, his point was that almost all losing poker players think the sites are cheating when they lose. This list of poker losers runs to about (literally) tens of millions of people. Even if there were people who did lose because of some type of online rigging, this doesn't validate the other 99.999% of people who lost because of lack of skill.

[mrkromer]

Originally Posted by HomePokerGames Admin

The problems with using the AP/UB fiasco as supporting evidence is that the culprits were players and former employees who were able to crack the system. Even though many people patted themselves on the back for supposedly being correct about online poker being rigged, that didn't prove anything about the sites themselves. 99% of the "online poker is rigged" crowd are accusing the sites themselves (hence the "Riverstars" and "Jokerstars" labels) of being corrupt. Pointing out that cheating occured doesn't validate that point. To me, having a few selective games (out of the billions of hands) being rigged is nothing close to being a systematic problem.

Second, his point was that almost all losing poker players think the sites are cheating when they lose. This list of poker losers runs to about (literally) tens of millions of people. Even if there were people who did lose because of some type of online rigging, this doesn't validate the other 99.999% of people who lost because of lack of skill.

Regardless, if a site with that much money floating around has nothing in place to keep former employees from cracking the system, they are to blame and you might as well call them cheaters. Just my opinion.

Beyond that, I certainly agree that the majority of losers haven't been cheated; they just aren't good. But I still think there is way too much chance of any of us getting cheated at any given time online for us to try to say that the sites aren't or can't be rigged.

mike

[2HighIsTheNutz]

Months ago I was ranting about juiced games at Full Tilt Poker in the FTP forum on this site. I switched to Pokerstars after getting completely fed up. Out of curiousity, I lurked in this forum and was surprised to see the same sort of complaints.

If you people are getting worked this bad at Pokerstars, then don't even think about going to FTP. I've now played ~500 hundred tourneys at Pokerstars and have had nothing but a good experience. My ROI is about exactly what would be expected with solid TAG play and tournament strategy. I slink back to FTP for a game or two just to see if maybe my game has just improved, but it's always the same s*** EVERY time... it never fails.

FTP: just last game holding A-10 in the small blind, only one limper from early position. I complete to set up a trap if it presents itself, otherwise I can get away without looking like a pussy. I have a tight image, so I know that if an A hits the flop it will be easy to bet out and figure out where I stand. Flop comes 10-10-4. Of course I check in order to check-raise because I know this limper will bet out to try and buy it. Of course he fires out 1/2 the pot - standard. I raise him 3x pretty certain he's going to have to fold. But he calls, big blind gets out of the way. I put him on a flush draw (there's two hearts out there) or something like 10-J. Turn is a 2. Now I fire out the pot - and he re-raises me all in! I'm like WTF - does he have pocket 2s or 4s? Based on his prior play, that just doesn't seem to fit right with how the hand has played - the 4s are really the only slight possibility in which case I still have outs. Well, I feel like I've got the best hand and he's getting cute with a flush draw or a weaker 10. I call. Idiot has 7-7. River comes 7. I mean, this kind of s*** happens at Pokerstars, sure. And you can make a lot of money off idiots making that kind of play. But on FTP it is the rule, and they always hit.

[ALL ARE RIGGED]

The Rebuy tourneys are a joke. Mid stack lost 3x in a row on the river going into it a 80%+ favorite each time.

Playing tight or even normal doesn't work, you have to either be a donkey like the million other players there or suffer bad beat after bad beat... and then they try to make the argument that it's a game of skill. Total BS! All sites are running juiced software, you are just a statistic and their program will make sure you pay up.

[thomas.shawn]

I've ALWAYS thought PokerStars was a Hoax ... thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one

[fredrostein]

Just for clarification purposes, Potripper, the guy on AP, who was identified as one of the people cheating (he used an admin account that could see the hole cards of everyone at the table. This account was SEPARATE from his Potripper account), was a software programmer or a high level employee who had access to this account. Apparently the account that exposed the hole cards was used in testing and through negligence or insidious means, was left active after the site went live. This hardly constitutes the "cheating" or "rigging" that many people claim happen on a daily basis. I just felt that everyone should know who doesn't already. I am still undecided about the actual nature of these sites, though I can testify that a close friend of mine had made several thousand dollars of Full Tilt in SnG over the last few months, even after cashing out.

[PlayBaby]

I'm new to poker, so I just play playmoney. I do know the game, and have also played a while on bodog. I have dominated the crap out of the play money tables. I have had a few bad beats, but I have about 60K play money in only a couple of weeks. PokerStars invited me to a few freerolls, and I finished like 1500 out of 4000. They sent me free $5 credit last week, so I played it this weekend. Well, I think I got up to $5.25, and then went to $0. I played .01/.02 tables, and honestly I can't believe this garbage. I had about 5 winning hands. I was able to survive about 10 hours with the money. So many bad hands, just not believable. Went on yesterday play money tables, took 2000 chips to 12,000 in 30 minutes. Whats amazing to me is that no site is legit, maybe the mob is involved and runs the legit sites out of business with threats or something. Anyways, I'll wait and see if they send me any money again, I'm not giving this scam any of my money.

[PlayBaby]

I just played the play money table again. The second hand, the flop was 10 10 10, next card was 10, then J. So the board was 10 10 10 10 J! What are the odds of that! What a joke, AC is 2 hours from me, might just have to drive there if I want to play legit poker.

[Cowman3340]

[url]http://www.rnrh.net/images/blog/pokerstars_five_aces.jpg[/url]

[HPG ADMIN]

anyone have details about that tourney?

[mrkromer]

The five aces thing is fake; I saw this awhile back and we looked it up. Funny, but not real.

mike

[HPG ADMIN]

That's what I figured. Thanks.

[VA Poker]

All of you people who relentlessly complain about these "rigged" sites really need to take a deep breath and think about it for a second. The main 2 sites people complain about here are full tilt and poker stars and most of the players complain seem to play fairly low stakes (not to degrade them I play pretty low stakes myself). My point is that these two sites have HUGE cash games on them where they make big rakes. So you guys think they make all this money off of these big games but still for some reason hire programmers just to screw you over in a 10 dollar sng? Also, if these sites were "rigged" for every single person they screw over on every single hand there has to be another player who benefits. Why would the sites just pick everyone who posts on this forum to screw over? They make the same rake off of everyone they could care less who wins. If you play online you see 2-3x the hands you do live and the play is 2-3x as loose. That makes for LOTS of bad beats. People just play differently online because they don't have to worry about getting read when they are bluffing and don't have to worry about being embarrased when they turn over garbage. There is an unwritten rule in poker that you don't accuse anyone of cheating unless you are SURE of it. I think the same should be said for these sites, alot of us play there and win money and we don't like seeing everyone crying that its rigged because you took a bad beat. So I ask all you complainers, why you? Why did they pick you out to screw? You guys act like they screw everyone which is impossible. You are probably the same people who thinks everyone is staring at you when you walk down the street. Grow up, if you don't like internet poker or think its rigged, just don't play. No one ever made you play, if I thought the game was rigged I'd never gamble a single dollar in it.

[Denethor]

VA:

I've pretty much decided that I'm not cut out for poker as you know from our discussions. Online is the best option for my geographic area, and I wanted to become more accomplished before venturing into a live setting, anyway, but if what I'm experiencing is an accurate representation of live poker, then I'm no good and am not getting any better. If anything I'm getting worse. The more I learn and the more I try to think things through, the worse my results.

Poker abilities and experience aside, though, I have a different perspective on a couple points of your post. These are just some different conclusions based on different thinking rather than any claims as to how things should be played or anything.

In regards to the argument that messing with the low stakes wouldn't be worth the trouble, I think most people who claim things aren't on the up-and-up usually agree that low stakes would be the area where the most people play and where oddities would be least likely to be noticed. Few people at that level would be using tracking software, and most probably don't have much live experience to which to compare. Start messing with things in a high-stakes game, and it would probalby get noticed right away.

The question of why the sites would target those who post here is a chicken-egg thing. People are posting here because they feel they aren't getting a fair game. But, again, I think the issue isn't that the sites would be designed to target certain players or even actively target a certain type or group of players. The assertion is simply that the dealing being less than random would benefit certain players/types of players while harming others. If draws are completed more frequently than they should, then it only stands to reason that anyone who chases draws will benefit while those who don't would be on the losing end.

I know a lot of people say that the more hands dealt, the more unlikely hands/bad beats. Statistically, though, that shouldn't change the likelihood of anything. If anything, the increased number of hands should increase the sample size seen by everyone and decrease the variance. Saying that more players means more bad beats would be like saying that having one thousand people each flip a coin would result in the results being further from 50/50 than having just one person flip one coin.

Additionally, the idea that looser players would result in more unlikely hands seems a bit off to me, as well. Just because more players chase draws doesn't mean that they should hit any more often. Even if a player chases every flush, he still shouldn't hit it more than odds dictate. Again, if anything, more chased flushes should mean a larger sample size of hands that go to showdown. As long as the odds hold up, then more people chasing draws should mean more wins by their opponents playing sound poker when the chasers miss - not a higher chance of draws being completed.

Anyway, just some alternative perspective. I went into poker thinking the results should be more reliable (not necessarily predictable) than they apparently are.

[VA Poker]

Denethor

That is a good point about the high stakes games being more risky to mess with because the players are much more serious, experienced, and financially invested in the games. Maybe thats why the only internet cheating scam that has been exposed was in the high stakes level? I hadn't really thought about it that way but it makes more sense than what I said especially considering that the nosebleed cames have capped raked which are actually very low so, because of that and volume, the sites probably make more money off of low stakes than high. I know all of that goes against one of my original points but I just thought about it.

As far as the bad beat thing; I wasn't saying more loose play means bad beats are any more likely, as you said you get more hands in online so if anything the numbers over a given number of hours should be more what you'd expect because you get larger sample sizes than live. However, the VOLUME of bad beats obviously greatly increases with more hands and loose play. Thats all I was trying to say, and some people don't understand why the see a bad beat every 5 minutes online and one every half hour live. The see a bigger VOLUME of beats and thus think something is wrong. Players tend to notice bad beats and sometimes an increased volume can be mistaken for a greater percentage of bad beats because all the hands that don't end in bad beats tend to go unnoticed. Take your flush draw thing as an example. The guy who chases every single time isn't going to increase his odds to hit a flush by doing so. However, that guy is going to hit ALOT of flushes, he'll miss twice as many as he hits obviously but if he chases everytime he will hit a lot. The problem is that you aren't going to see his cards when he misses. So a lot of times it seems like a guy hits every draw when in reality he is missing a lot too but you aren't seeing his cards in those hands. Again, its just a volume thing, the more flush draws chased, the more flushes hit. Anyone who plays live and online will tell you they see 2-3x as many flushes online. I think that is expected only because people chase flush draws 2-3x as often as they do live. So its not increasing the likelihood of a completed weird draw but it does increase the volume of such hands.

The part about which players get screwed over and why is the part that really gets me. Every poker player, live and online, thinks they are the unluckiest guy in the whole wide world. How many guys do you know that claim they NEVER win a 50/50 pre flop race. Do you think these guys really NEVER win a 50/50 race? Or the guys that ALWAYS get rivered. Do they really never make hands on the river, are they really always on the losing end of that? The nature of hold'em makes everyone feel unlucky. Couple that with the human nature of quickly forgetting your good fortune and letting thoughts of your bad luck linger and all of the sudden things don't seem right. Take all that, mix it in with the fact no one can see or really know for sure in these sites are on the up and up, and you get the inevitable accusations of rigged websites. For a lot of guys it ends up being a self fulfilling prophecy. Look at whatodds, he wins on other sites and still plays on FTP and loses even though he's sure its rigged. He could be losing on FTP for any number of reasons but I don't see how he could possibly win going into every game not only thinking he's going to lose but be cheated in the process. Everyone has days where they feel like it is impossible to win and thats when you take a break. So if you are sure you can't win at a certain site, for any reason, why keep playing there?

I just honestly think that with all the statistical databases it would be really hard for these sites to have rigged RNG's. Also, rigging in the way a lot of people here describe would be a lot of trouble considering the fact that these huge poker websites can constantly make a ton of money by being completely straight up. Also, alot of the things people accuse them of can be explained by the nature of gambling/poker. They have been accused by many of tilting the odds in favor of loose players to keep them in the game. Otherwise, why would losers play people ask. Losing poker players will ALWAYS play. FTP doesn't need to cheat to make sure of that. Half of these guys are just there to gambe for fun and don't even really care one bit about winning. The other half think they are about to break through and start winning any deposit now. Either way they are coming back reguardless.