ONLINE POKER - SITE - Full Tilt

[VA Poker]

nitemare6,
I have played with you on full tilt and you are a cheater, you play 2 computers at once and you cheat. you are a cheater. you cheat, you are a cheater. how you like those apples? Why don't you admit that you are a cheater? I want to audit your hand h istory to prove you're a cheater but you won't let me. Why not?

[nitemare6]

You and your comments sound like you're a whack-job, psycho.

I haven't played a cash game on FTP for about 5 months, and when I did play it's small games and mostly cash tournaments. I never played more than one table except a few times in over FOUR years - u fking a-wipe retard!

You certainly must be some retard that gets paid by the corrupt, scumbag cheaters who run full rigged tilt poker site. Go ahead - admit it! It's so obvious anyway.

LOL

[VA Poker]

Considering the fact that I was mocking you, wack job psycho was exactly what I was going for. Do you really think FTP owes you anything? If you live in the USA you are breaking the law by playing real money on their site and you want to audit their records. You are clearly insane and believe the world revolves around you and your penny stakes poker losses. MAYBE YOU JUST AREN'T AS GOOD AS YOU THINK YOU ARE. I actually have played on full tilt the past month just because I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I deposited 400 and started playing 1/2 cash games. After over 100 hours of play I'm up well over 1500. By the way, how old are you? Are you really calling me a "retard". I have a SPECIAL NEEDS daughter, not a retarted daughter as you would put it and people like you make me sick.

[Denethor]

I am pretty new to poker (online or otherwise) so I understand that my comments probably won't carry much weight. I found this page when I started doing some searching because I was becoming so disillusioned with poker in general after playing on FTP.

To me, it seems that there are plenty of advantages to orchestrating the outcome of hands. The biggest of these being that the goal of the site is mass traffic - not a small group of elite players competing with one another.

Imagine two individuals become interested in poker and begin playing on FTP. Bob is in marketing, is a people person, and has always been told he is "lucky". He sees a heads-up tournament and thinks he could have some fun and probably get lucky and maybe even rich and famous at that. Joe is in accounting, is a numbers person, and likes odds and puzzles. He thinks that, with an understanding of the underlying fundamentals and odds, he could probably make a little money every now and then in addition to the enjoyment of playing the odds.

Both are in a tournament on FTP. Bob is dealt K4s and Joe is dealt AA. Bob knows nothing about the strength of his hand or odds and is out-of-position but thinks he remembers his favorite pro shoving all-in last weekend with K4s. Joe is in late position and knows Bob has been playing every hand he gets so he calls all-in. Both players show their cards.

Now, let's follow two different scenarios. In the first, the flop comes 39J rainbow, the turn comes 4h, and the rivers comes Qs. Joe is rewarded for his research and patience and wins with AA. Joe continues to play the same way and increases his skill. Bob is disappointed and assumes it is just bad luck. He catches a break everyone once in a while, but just continues to lose and ultimately gets bored. He think that he's just not lucky.

In the second scenario, the flop immediately comes KK2 giving Bob three of a kind, the turn comes Js, and (to add insult to injury) the river comes 4d. Bob wins with his miraculous full house, congratulates himself on his luck, can brag about his "great hand" to his coworkers, and keeps playing the same way. Joe is crushed, but knows he made the right call. He knows that if he plays enough, he SHOULD come out ahead as long as he plays the right way.

I can guarantee you that there will be far more Bobs than Joes. So, clearly, it would be in the best interest of FTP to artificially keep the Bobs winning against ridiculous odds. If Bob loses, he won't think that he should research his odds and play more carefully - he'll just quit. When Joe loses, he'll continue playing knowing that the odds SHOULD be in his favor.

I'm no statistics guru, but it seems to me that the argument that more bad players equates to more bad beats doesn't make sense. I would think that more bad players should mean more reward for those who play correctly. That never seems to be the case, though.

[VA Poker]

First of all anyone can call with aces, doesnt make you a good player. "joe" doesn't have to know "bob" will play any hand to call with aces, you call with aces everytime pre flop no matter what. Secondly, my point is that the more loose play you see the higher volume of bad beats you will see, I didn't say it increased the percentages of bad beats just the volume and you can't possibly dispute that. Finally, how do you think these sites tell who the "joes" are and who the "bobs" are? Do you think they employ thousands of people to go through every players hand history and peg them as a joe or a bob and decide who to cheat and who to make win? The better player doesn't ALWAYS have the best hand. You can be the most patient player ever, finally pick up KK and run it into AA. So what if the better player has KK does FTP know that or do they give him the king on the flop anyway? Most of these complainers play low stakes, FTP has very high stakes tourneys and cash game thats where they make most of their money. However, you would have us believe they are expending vast resources to make sure the bad penny stakes players are beating the good penny stakes players. Please enlighten me as to how you think the rigging works? Alllll these complainers no one has told me how they figure out who is good and who is bad. I'd really like to hear it.

[Denethor]

In response to VA Poker:

I wasn't trying to talk about the proper way to play pocket AAs preflop. That had nothing to do with my post. I was simply pointing out that it's not like the sites would have nothing to gain from having the sites reward bad play.

My point was that, as many have said before me, these poker sites need the masses to be pleased with their play and their results. If people find out that they have to actually devote some time to learning the game or they will lose all the time, they will not play.

The system doesn't have to be told who is "good" or who is "bad". That is making things far too complicated and is not at all necessary. The site only needs to systematically provide miracle turn and river outs that would never happen in real poker. The players who would be the recipients of these magic bad beats would obviously be the players who made bad decisions. Instead of losing because of their mistakes and allowing good players to benefit from exploiting those mistakes, the system would bail them out.

You say the better player doesn't always have the best hand but isn't that what constitutes the "better player"? And, in my example, didn't the better player have the best hand? Are you saying that K4 is a better hand than AA?

[VA Poker]

In your example, why do you think the better player had AA? It makes no sense, everyone gets AA every once and awhile. Why does this guy picking up AA and having someone shove in front of him make him a better player? Please explain.


Also, you say these "miracles" never happen in "real poker" what does that even mean? Heads up pre flop AA against the worst pre flop hand (72o) still has a 12.5% chance of getting beat. I have been playing "real poker" as you put it, since I was 18 years old (im 34 now) and I have seen my share of crazy things. The last time I player live poker (I'm assuming thats what you mean by "real poker"?) I had JJ, flop went KJ7, he bet, I 3 bet, he 4 bet, I shove, he turns over KK, turn is a blank, river is a jack. Thats a one outer, in "real poker". Even if someone is a 99:1 dog they are going to hit that one time out of a hundred, you can't say something never happens in "real poker" that doesn't make any sense. There is obvious reasons why more unlikely results happen online, I'm not going to bother going into all of them again as I've done it on every post I've made and no one listens. If you read these complainers posts a lot of them say that they are winning live players and lose online, so it has to be rigged. The fact is that unless you play in a live game with crazy crazy action the online game is a whole different animal. I player for 13 years live before ever playing online. The first 6 months online I lost about 3,000. Now I am a winning online player, it took me awhile to realize that I can't play the exact same way I do online as I do live. If i played that way I'd get run over. So alot of these guys, instead of realizing that they should change their online play because its a whole different game, they just say its rigged because they see more beats.

I'm not trying to attack you or anything. Your posts seem to be comprehensive and well thought out, unlike alot of guys who post here who just want to curse and call them cheaters and say they should be thrown in jail. I'm just saying there's alot of variables in poker and you have to realize that. Back to my original point the perfect example of that is your k4 v AA thing. You think the better player obviously has AA but that is in fact not at all true, he just got lucky to pick up AA in that spot. For all we know, the same guy might make the same call with qj suited and be behind the k4.

[Denethor]

I wasn't trying to say that the player receiving AA was a better player just by virtue of receiving AA. But clearly the player going all in with K4s is not going to be a good player. So I should have reversed in my example and had the AA player go all-in first. That really isn't at all relevant to the point I'm trying to make. I chose a poor example.

I was wrong to make assumptions about odd things happening in real poker because of my very limited experience. The problem that I see is that on FTP those 99:1 miracles seem happen all the time. I'm not just talking about to people against whom I'm playing. I see it even when I observe.

I set up an account on PokerStars a couple weeks ago, but hadn't played there hardly at all because I prefered the FTP software. I went to PokerStars and entered a play-money tournament equivalent to one I had been in most recently on FTP. The difference was like night and day.

I play tournaments ridiculously tight and agressive. That's not any brag on me because it's not "my" style or anything. That's just how much of I've read suggests beginners play. On FTP, I would blind out over and over before reaching the top 20. I just never received any playable pocket cards. I would go 50 hands without ever receiving anything better than K8o. When I did get what I counted as playable cards, I never hit the flop and others with significantly inferior pocket cards would get exactly what they needed (three of a kind, flush, full house, etc.). There were never any reasonable victories - only over-the-top ones. People didn't win with pairs or high cards. They won with straight flushes and four of a kind. Strong pocket cards just could not win in FTP tournaments.

The first and only tournament I played on PokerStars (just finished), I used the exact same ultra-tight play that I did on FTP, and I cruised to fourth place - even with antes! I am certain that I would NOT have won (terrible in heads up) but am confident I could easily have finished higher if I hadn't called an all-in because I had to leave. Most hands were decided by pairs or an occasional three of a kind. Players weren't as crazy about calling any raise with any card. Every hand didn't turn into an all-in-fest. It was so much nicer.

Now, you may just say that the difference was that the other players were playing tighter than those do on FTP. Or you could say that I was playing with worse opponents and was able to finish higher. Either of those could be the case, but they were still playing pretty poorly (all-in with TQo when I had AQs and raised substantially pre-flop) and this was a very low level tournament. Instead, my thinking is that the players on FTP play the way they do (calling everything, all-in all the time, etc.) for the simple reason that playing that way works on FTP. If people consistently lost when shoving all-in with 78s, they would either quit or learn that it's not the right way to play. Instead, for whatever reason, they hit these bizarre miracles on the turn or river upsetting much better hands enough that they think they are playing well and are making the correct calls.

[VA Poker]

I understand what you are saying but you have to see the big picture. You, and most of the other people who claim FTP is rigged are playing pretty low stakes (not to degrade I play low stakes myself). My point is, why would FTP bother rigging these small games when most of their profit comes from high level cash games and large buy in sng's and mtt's. We are lucky they even offer the low stakes games. Why would they risk losing the high stakes guys by rigging the low level games? To me, it just makes no sense. Not a single high stakes player has come on here claiming its rigged, nor has a single player come on and claimed the site is working in their favor, how can it be against everyone?

The other thing is, I've played on 4 different sites over the past few years and on every single site, every time there is a bad beat someone in the chat box screams rigged. The only differences I've seen on these 4 sites (ultimatebet, pokerstars, fulltilt, and playersonly) is the level of play. UB and PO have way more fish than stars and ft. Granted I've put in the least time on full tilt, I've still seen about 20,000 hands by multi tabling for about 100 hours. Poker players will always look for any excuse why they got screwed or are unlucky (haven't you heard those who claim they have NEVER won a single race?), the bottom line is that if these people really truly believed ftp of any other site was rigged they would never spend another penny playing there (unless they are crazy).

I don't claim that I KNOW for sure 100% that these sites are not rigged. It's just my opinion that sites worth billions of dollars wouldnt jeopardize their whole net worth and reputation by rigging a 10 dollar sng so some fish will like poker more. It just seems to me that everyone who claims its rigged for sure is just looking at their small immediate experience and not grasping the full scope of these sites operations and the consequences vs rewards for these sites to rig the lowest level games.

As far as your claim that people only play poorly bc they know it works, you have to think about the nature of gambling. Some guys really want to be skilled poker players and some guys simply want to gamble. There are rich guys who sit down at the highest level tables and play horribly just because they crave the action. I lost 5k on the blackjack tables last time I was in Vegas, it wasnt because I thought I somehow had some advantage playing high stakes blackjack drunken and sleep deprived, I was just gambling. Thats what those guys who never ever lay down the suited connectors pre flop are doing. You'll see those guys no matter how high you make it up the ladder in poker. It's kind of like me writing these posts when there is about a 10000:1 shot I will convince anyone to think like me who already doesnt.

[Denethor]

I guess to sumarize what I'm trying to say:

A system designed to encourage poor and below average players to continue playing would very much benefit a poker web site and would not need to mark each individual player as either "good" or "bad".

My claim isn't that "good players" are punished and "bad players" are rewarded. I'm saying that it APPEARS that bad play (not bad playERS) is rewarded too often and consequently good play is punished.

Also in a completely different direction, if you just look at society, everyone loves action and excitement. No one likes the defensive-oriented team that grinds out wins. They want the high-powered offense that scores big. Likewise, most people are not going to be happy playing in poker games where they have to fold 80% of their hands and often win uncontested pots when they raise with good cards. They want showdowns and big twists. They want big hands being beat by bigger hands being beat by huge hands all decided by the river.

Lastly, the fact that I didn't treat calling all-in with AA as a foregone conclusion shows how little faith I have in pocket aces after playing on FTP. I can't remember a time when I saw AA (mine or others) hold up on FTP.

[VA Poker]

Here's what you guys don't understand; The guys who play terrible hands all the time are action junkies. They aren't playing those hands because they think they are always ahead. They like action, you see guys like that at every single level of poker. So, if you are one of those guys you are going to keep playing win, lose, or draw(ever heard of the Beal game?). However, the guys who play solid poker with the goal of making a good profit aren't going to keep playing if they keep losing. So, tilting the odds in favor of the action junkies is not at all the way to increase volume of players. They are going to be there no matter what and all the solid players are going to switch over to pokerstars or some other site. If they are in fact doing what you guys claim they are, they aren't only corrupt but very very stupid. To use the original example given by Denethor to prove his point; the guy with K4 is most likely an action junkie, he'll keep playing whether or not his bad hands hit an unusual amount of times. He plays because the action is thrilling to him, its not about winning or losing. However, the patient guy in his example with AA plays to win money. So, how does tilting the odds in favor of the straight gambler help? He's there to gamble and he'll stay reguardless. So tilting the odds in his favor is useless all it is going to do is make the patient guys who are really there to win money leave your site. Once again, I have NO IDEA if full tilt is corrupt or not. I've only played 20,000 hands there and I'd have to play about 100x that before I even started to make an educated guess based on my own results. I am just saying that in my opinion rigging the site the way you guys say they do would make absolutely no sense.

[VA Poker]

what odds,
I'm not attempting to debate you on whether or not full tilt is rigged. As I've stated over and over I have no idea, only played 20k hands, haven't seen anything too weird but that is irrevelant. The only thing I'm 100% sure of is that you and I can't possibly know either way, so that isn't what I'm trying to debate. I was merely trying to challenge the point made by denethor that tilting the odds in favor of the guys who play poor hands means higher volume and more rake for full tilt. I know gambling and I know poker; in my opinion the guys who are consistently overplaying hands and pushing with nothing are simply using poker as another form of gambling. Every true gambler (people who play against the house over and over even though they KNOW the odds don't run in their favor) knows, the fun of gambling isn't even winning it's the thrill, it's the moment right before you find out if you hit that river card, or the thrill waiting to see if your huge bet is going to get your opponent off of his monster. Now in my opinion if a guy just loves the action, you don't need to tilt the odds in his favor to keep him around. Why cheat the guy who is there to win money and give it all to the guy who doesnt really care and just loves to gamble? Take yourself as an example, you play to win money ( I assume), you felt like you were getting a bad deal at FTP so you left. If they are consistently cheating players who are playing to win, they are all going to leave. If anything it makes more sense to cheat for the guys who play to win money so they will stay because the gamblers are staying reguardless. Do you see what I'm saying? I understand the psychology of both because I pride myself on playing the best poker I possibly can but often partake in other gambling avenues in which I know I don't have an edge. I do it for fun. Many guys take that same attitude to the poker table and those guys will play poker forever, why cheat for them and scare off the guys who are playing to win money? I'd like to hear what you think about that, but once again I am not trying to prove full tilt is not rigged. It's just my opinion that it makes no sense to rig it the way all of you suggest.

[VA Poker]

what odds, I wanted to ask you about RB. I've played over 1 million hands online on pokerstars, fulltilt, ultimatebet, and playersonly and have never used rakeback. I've only heard about it a couple of times. How does it work and how do you use it? Thanks.

[VA Poker]

Thanks for the info. If you are looking for a loose Cake site, try playersonly. It's probably the loosest site I've ever played on. I've also seen more hands than I have on any other site and can say that I have definitely not seen the high frequency of odd things that you all swear to see on FTP. If I am playing a tournamenr or Sng and I look up someone on sharkcope, their stats are generally what you would expect based on their play. It is a low volume site though, you can always find a cash table but it's weak for sng's and mtt's.

How do I take advantage of rakeback? It sounds too good to be true for me considering I already have a Cake site I like and am comfortable with.

[Cransley69]

Ahhh...full tilt strikes again. I'm getting so good at this that I can now predict the future...sadly, my days as a psychic are numbered as my account on full tilt is nearly out and I am never playing there again...anyone who does is an idiot (as I was for several years before I worked out what's going on.)

So this time I get A5clubs. I'm in late position and a player to my right, who tends to raise whenever he enters a hand raises three times the BB. I call and we are heads up. Flop comes 5h 3d 6d, giving me a pair of fives.

Player checks and I bet two-thirds of the pot. Player calls. Turn comes 5s, giving me trips. THE VERY MOMENT IT APPEARS I RECOGNISE THIS HAND FOR WHAT IT IS. AN ACTION HAND DESIGNED TO TAKE ALL OF MY CHIPS. I know that I'm ahead, I know he's going all-in and I know the miracle suckout is coming. I sat there and predicted it, and - being a sad old git - actually said to the computer - "come on then Full Tilt - prove me wrong".

Player checks. I bet two thirds of the pot, he goes over the top, putting me all-in. At this point I'm putting him on a high PP and recognise that he has just 2 cards that can rescue him, whilst I have 42 safety cards, but I still know, absolutely with certainty that I'm saying goodbye to my money. I call.

Sure enough Pocket Kings. In the fraction of a second before the river I say to the computer "come on then, show me the king", and whoopee doo ...right there on the river out it pops.

Now of course, I recognise that 2-outers do happen, but it's when they happen time after time after time after time, against the odds, that you know there's something fishy going on. Since my last post my account has dwindled. Every single all-in bet I make has the same result - I'm ahead when I make the bet, and behind by the end. There is no way that the dealing on this site is random. Give me a live casino any day.

Anybody recommend a site that works - I hear Titan Poker is good. Good Luck all.

Cransley69

[VA Poker]

Are you really complaining? That is a terrible pre flop call. You tried to degrade your oppenent and excuse your poor play by stating he raises every time he enters a hand. That is actually the optimal play, it is far better to open a pot up with a raise than call another's raise(like you did) or limp in. If you would have just folded pre flop (like you should have) you wouldn't have lost any money. What about the fact that the pot was 20 BB's deep when you spiked a 5 outer on the turn? I guess your 5 outer was skill and his 2 outer was luck right? You were behind on every street but one, but somehow this guy is a luckbox and you got screwed.

Once again, Im not even here to debate the legitimacy of FTP(I'm smart enough to know when I don't have enough info to be sure of something). It's just my opinion that many times people post their hands that they think are hard evidence the site is rigged, the hand was played very poorly (this one being a perfect example). Instead of examining your own play and your call with ace rag facing a bet from MP pre flop you just cry rigged. Did FTP force you to make that call pre flop? If you would have made the correct play you wouldnt have lost a penny on that hand. I don't care if FTP is rigged or not, what I do know is that if you spend more time crying over an online site than you do examining your own game you'll lose no matter what site you go to.

One more point, if you were holding KK and raised from MP, the guy two over on your left called you with A5 and hit 2 5's you would be freaking out and putting it on here crying rigged. Get over it and stop posting your hands, the only thing you are proving is that you are a pre flop calling station.

[Cransley69]

VA Poker

you are a complete 100% arse. There isn't a professional player in the world who isn't going to call a raise of 3 x BB with Ax suited in late position, over an opponent who enters a lot of pots with that raise. As to being a calling station pre-flop, I note that you provide no advice to my previous post when someone goes all-in against you, pre-flop, and you're holding pocket Aces...presumably that's a fold to you!

You also miss the point entirely. I accept bad beats. What I do not accept is the regularity they occur on FTP - they in no way reflect REAL poker, played at a casino, where the cards are dealt in a truly random (or at least very close to random pattern). I should get sucked out on in the above circumstances 1 time in 21. On FTP it is more like 1 time in every 2...although recently it has been EVERY time. That isn't natural, but hey! you go on playing there...it's your money.

You also haven't got a clue about Texas Holdem principles. Since you obviously haven't a clue and you need a lesson in poker, here goes:

There are 169 possible starting hands in Texas Holdem. Amongst them, A,5 suited is ranked 27th strongest (28th in Sklansky's ratings, but 27th when played to the end against any random starting hand). It is a playable hand - moreso than, say A,8s and A,9s, because it has straight as well as flush possibilities. It is a good hand against a large stack because it has good payoff possibilities if you hit your draw.

It is a starting hand that can be either raised, or smooth-called before the flop to a moderate raise - even more so when in position (as I was).

On the above flop, out of the 26 stronger starting hands, there are 8 that are ahead and 18 that are not. Opponents bet could have been K,J, A,10 A,J A,Q A,K or any other of the non-pocket pair combination that my hand beats on the flop, but which were stronger holdings pre-flop. The odds are that I am ahead on the flop and the check of my opponent tends to indicate that (he was actually slow-playing, but there is nothing to indicate that until he's gone all-in later in the hand)

Had my opponent check-raised a considerable amount after the flop I would have folded, putting him on a high PP. As it was he smooth called, allowing me to see the turn, which gave me the dominant hand.

I have played this hand fine - you could argue that a half-pot sized bet after the flop is risking less to a check-raise, but I wanted to represent something stronger than a standard continuation bet , hence two-thirds of the pot.

My play here is fine, so take your head out from where the sun don't shine and get real. FTP is rigged.

[buck22]

No.1 I do not trust Full Tilt at all and will never play there for this reason. Denethor, on a table of 9 players, when you have KK some one else will have AA just under 4% of the time so it happens but not that often. However, being a great poker player isnt about always following the book, you've got to learn how to exploit the way others are playing eg the tosspot who called you with QK didnt make as big a mistake as he should because he got your whole stack. Like so:

Suppose you both start $1500

you raise 60 preflop then 240 on the flop

with QK he will lose $240 86% of the time

and win $1500 14% of the time

so your expected value (EV) is as follows:

(240x0.86)-(1500x0.14)= -$3.6

So even though he made what looked like a donkey play, and he probably didnt know this but he made the right play. You can blame luck but play this hand a million times and you'll be down around $3.6million.

Now, if you had checked it down when the scary overcard came along then:

you would win $240 86%
and lose $240 14%

(240x0.86)-(240x0.14)= +$172.80

It's these huge differences in mistakes that grinds the profit, so even though i think full tilt is dodgy, i think you'll have problems where ever you go unless you improve your game.

[Denethor]

Thanks for the tips, odds.

I know that I played it poorly. It seems that quality cards come along so rarely that I push them too hard when I get them. In this instance, I bet way to much on both the flop and the turn putting myself in a bad position, and I should never should have called the all-in. I was trying too hard to get him to just fold rather than hang around and pick up something to beat me on the turn or river and found I'd dumped too much already when he went all-in.

Aside from not knowing when to quit, was there anything specific about my play or betting that would have told him that I didn't have AA or KK? Obviously, you can't know how this specific player would have responded, but do you think that going all-in after the flop might have saved me? I guess, what I'm asking is what I did to telegraph that I didn't have him beat. I don't think I would have had the guts to ride it out the way he did if the situation (and betting) was reversed. I probably would have folded after the flop thinking the other player had three As. If I did make it to the river, I would have assumed he had a straight A high.

Played another $1 SnG trying to burn through what's left of my captive money. I botched my last hand on there. I was in the BB with A9 and the flop came A8A. I was running short on time, so I went ahead and played as though I had it. Since I knew where three of the As were, I thought maybe I'd get lucky and nobody would have the fourth, but I got knocked out. Another player had it, though with AK, but they didn't win it either. As usual, I didn't keep in mind that whatever the most improbable hand is, somebody probably has it. The player that won the pot had 88 for a full-house. The full-house flop was annoying enough, but also one of the other players had KK and another 77. So we had AK, KK, 77, and 88, and the board was A8A5T.

In hindsight, I'm regretting a lot of my posts on here and may trim or remove them altogether. Considering no more than I've played and how much of the oddities I've encountered, I would think that my experiences that I've posted add a small amount of additional evidence to support the claim that something just doesn't seem right at FTP. On the other hand, though, I think my inexperience and how poorly I've played in the examples may make them seem less valid or credible.

Your last comment about top pair seems all too true. It's almost like it's necessary to rethink the odds on various hands - like AA and KK are no longer the pre-flop cards with the best chance of winning. That's one thing that has really driven me crazy. The whole reason why I'm playing so tight and agressive as instructed is because it's supposed to make it so that I'm usually going in with a premium (if not the best) hand. That should minimize the impact of my inexperience and bad play. If I was limping in with 56s or 9To, then it wouldn't surprise me if I was always getting myself into trouble. If I were to play nothing less than AA and don't fold, then mathematically I should still win the majority of the time regardless of how much I botch the play after the flop. Obviously, I do play less than AA, but the guide I use has me playing pretty selective. Other than when I'm the BB and everyone checks, I absolutely won't even call the BB with anything less than 99 or QJs and only play those in late position if nobody before me has raised. Early position, I won't call the BB with anything less than TT or AJs. You would think that would provide some amount of security against my ineptitude after the flop.

[Denethor]

I've read a bunch of different sites, but haven't looked much at the one you provided. Thanks for the link. And I'm definitely at the very beginning as far as experience.

When I asked about the other player folding, I probably was confusing. Obviously, he wasn't going to fold if he knew I had AK. He had me beat with the first card of the flop unless I got a miracle on the turn and/or river. If I were in his place, I would have assumed that the other player had AA and hit a third A on the flop beating my three Qs. I was curious what I did wrong that gave away that I had AK rather than AA. Or was he going to play it even if there was a chance I had AA just because of the odds? With my brief playing experience on FTP, I don't think I can remember a time I had QQ and won.

[VA Poker]

Denethor,
I know you want to play TAG, but you are thinking way way too tight. If you have QQ and the flop comes AQ4 rainbow, you should be jumping up and down, not thinking you are beat. Not only is your hand going to be tall almost everytime this happens, but you don't even have any strong draws to worry about (no flush draws and only one possible gutshot straight draw). In hold'em the odds to get dealt a pocket pair are 13:1 and when you do hold a pocket pair the odds of flopping a set are 11:1. You aren't going to flop sets that often on a non paired board and when you do, you almost always have the best hand. The odds of you having AA, him having QQ and you both flopping a set are extremly low. If you are going to throw away middle set on a regular basis because you put the guy on top set what hands are you going to like? The other thing I don't understand is, you had TPTK and you bet the pot all the way through. However, you said if you were him you'd have thrown away the three Queens. Why would you throw away three queens but play top top for all your chips? Top top can be beaten by alot of random hands becuase all it takes is two pair to beat it(in that hand he could have easily had aces up). However, his three queens was the second nuts so I don't know who would lay that hand down. If I were you, I'd loosen my play up alot, see alot more flops. I read your earlier posts stating that you have an ultra tight starting hand selection to minimize post flop mistakes. If you are just starting to play you should play more pots and welcome mistakes (thats the only way to learn). When I started playing poker there was no online micro stakes and I had to learn the hard way playing 1/2 hold'em and losing hundreds of dollars at a time. You should take advantage of the fact you can learn on very low stakes (or ever for free if you want) and loosen your play up a little bit. If you try some different styles you'll learn more and get a feel for which style works best for you when you start moving up in stakes. Just a thought, good luck.

[buck22]

Hi, i know this isnt about full tilt but i need a good moan. I just spent 12 hours as chiplead in a tourny out of 1286 people only to bubble the final table because of the fekin retards that shouldnt have got that far in the first place! I spent the whole tourny avoiding big coinflips and big stax only for some tosspot to shove all in with AQ and spike an ace, then tosspot number 2 shoves in with A9 to spike, guess what, another fricken ace! Bubbled in 11th position taking $100 for my efforts, not even minimum wage! So this rant is dedicated to all the f***ers that shove half a mill with AQ, damn u all. Damn good game though. lol

[Denethor]

Thanks for the advice VA.

Even in just the short time I've been playing, I've been burned quite a few times. That's why I have so little confidence in hands that should be no-brainers.

I do seem to spend a lot of time just folding. That's why, even thought I've sat through a decent amount of hands, I really haven't had much chance to play many of them or gain much experience after the flop. I'll experiment with more risks

[eldave1]

No one knows if the site is rigged or not since we do not have access to the HHs and FT has failed to provide a reputable audit that would at least put a dent in the debate. So - in my opinion it is rigged. I have a caveat - my working definition of rigged is that the results do not reflect what one would experience in a live game.

In live - when you get down to 20% of the field, there are mostly solid players left with a few donks sprinkled in (who normally do not last much longer). At FT - it is just the inverse.

In live - you RARELY get the totally inexplicable calls (e.g., 8 3 offsuit calling an opening bet of 4 times the BB). At FT - you get them all the time and they get paid (i.e., you love the call live, you hate it on FT because your lose more often then you should).

In live - your odds stay pretty consistent throughout - e.g., AA wins 80% in the beggining, middle and end (over the long haul). At FT - my stats are totally skewed - I may win AA 80% overall, but it is 40% when all or most of my chips are at risk, etc. I win half the coin flips early and when there is little at stake, I win 30% when it is late and a lot at stake.

etc.

Lately, I have been polling live players (I paly tourneys about 4 times a week) to see which of them play on-line. The vast majority no longer play (i.e., they used to) because they believe it is rigged. So even though it is what they love to do and can do it from the comfort of their bedroom - they chose not to any longer. They say because it is rigged. I interpret that to mean that it does not mimic the expereince they have in live games.

[Denethor]

I'm just glad that I'm running out of money on FTP so I can leave.

Last night, I played a little and lost quite a bit when my QQ lost to J5o when the board came 75598.

Then this morning, I was messing around again. Sat through about 25 hands. Lost most of what I had with AKs when another player had AA. The very next hand, exact same thing happened again to someone else - AKs beaten by AA. Obviously, AA is the better pre-flop hand over KAs, but it's the same thing what odds keeps talking about.

Just sat through another 20 hands at a low table. Got only garbage the first 18 hands and folded all of them. Then was dealt JJ both the 19th and 20th hands. Lost the first time to A3o when he paired his A on the flop. Lost the second time to AA.

At least I'm almost free from FTP.

[nitemare6]

Cransley...

you are 100% correct so why argue. I only post on hre to help other newbie, uninforemd (suckers) from losing more money on a nonrandom, fixed and rigged poker site.

The real proof of your poker ability and discipline is whether you can stop playing there like I did, a couple years ago, or maybe just play $1 turnaments from time to time, and not risk more than $50 if you don't mine getting frustrated every other hand, and ruining your live playing skills.

For me it's not fun playing on a non-random and skewed RNG site where, anecdotally, there seem to be far too many unusual hands. This has nothing to do with AA v. Ak or A5 v 56, etc.or whether Qs hold up. Rather, what bothers me is when I fold a hand that mnany other more aggressive or newer players would not (i.e .make a good fold) and I see the hand unfold with what is almost certainly a SET-UP deal such that more players have to see the flop, turn, and river, unless they are psyhics, which of course is not playing poker... and then some miraculus card is dealt that had a 10% chance. this happens all the Fking time. Not poker.

Fortunately there have been a lot of live tournaments and live games in Chicago lately, and sure enough, there are bad beats adn suck-outs. But FOR SURE they do not occur in any unusual pattern and at least I know that deck has 52 cards and is shuffled each hand AND without any pre-design subtely programmed into the deal, like on Full Rigged Tilt.

So, if you or others who bitch on this forum continue to play for any singificant money on FTP, then please stop bitching. Either stop playing there or take the crap that you will continue to receive on this rigged, off-shore, unregulated "poker" site, and call it F-T-BINGO.

[Denethor]

Originally Posted by nitemare6

Cransley...
For me it's not fun playing on a non-random and skewed RNG site where, anecdotally, there seem to be far too many unusual hands. This has nothing to do with AA v. Ak or A5 v 56, etc.or whether Qs hold up. Rather, what bothers me is when I fold a hand that mnany other more aggressive or newer players would not (i.e .make a good fold) and I see the hand unfold with what is almost certainly a SET-UP deal such that more players have to see the flop, turn, and river, unless they are psyhics, which of course is not playing poker... and then some miraculus card is dealt that had a 10% chance. this happens all the Fking time. Not poker.

I've noticed that, too. There have been a lot of times where I thought if I played the terrible hands like others do, I'd actually be winning more. I get a 63o which would have been a full house if I'd played to the river. I get A5o which would have been a straight with 234 on the flop. Etc. And in each case others had respectable starting hands like AJs or something (or even AA or KK) that would have lost had I played the junk.

[VA Poker]

Cransley, thank you for you post cursing me. Keep calling with A5 against a raise from early position, you'll do great. Let me ask you this, even if FTP is rigged, why do they screw you EVERY time like you say? Just by chance wouldn't they have to rig it for you sometimes? Did they pick you out once you set your account up to screw you? Given the fact the you have "69" in your name and you curse at people on online forums, I'm guessing I'm much older than you and have played much more live ( I guess thats what you mean by real????) poker than you ever have so I don't need a lesson in "real" poker, thanks though. If you think professionals would make that call pre flop you are absolutely dillusional. Are you saying you called that pre flop hoping to make a flush? Why else would you call, even if you spike the ace on the flop you have no idea where you are in the hand because his range of raising there would include A6-AK all which would have you dominated. But you think it's good to call A5 even if he could have you dominated because you are suited? Thats good for a laugh atleast. Next time you complain about a hand why not pick one in which you were behind basically the entire time. Whether or not FTP is rigged complaining about it on this forum does nothing to help your game, however if you were willing to examine your own play that would help you alot. OK, now you can reply cursing me because I critisized the way you played one poker hand, that really shows your maturity.

[eldave1]

"There is nothing wrong with playing A5s from LP in a NL cash game (I'm referring to 6 max here...."""

What Odds - you got this perfectly correct in my view. I would add this to the "you played it wrong crowd" - According to who???? I have read several books and I know that the pros would have played this a dozen different ways:

* Danny N would have probably min raised
* Ivey calls for sure
* Grinder calls for sure
* Hansen - please - he probably thought it was the nuts.
* Helmouth folds
* Gordon folds

etc. etc. etc.

The point being, we mere mortals ought to be a bit less confident in whether a hand was played correctly or not since the poker Gods can't agree amongst themselves. I - for me - would have played the hand exactly like it was played with a slightly different twist then "WHAT ODDS". I like the potential monsters - suited ace in late position is one of those where your opponent can dead hit their hand and you can still take all their money if the flop comes right for you as well. Finally I think the point is this from the prior post - at least in my humble opinion - the Hero played the hand much better then his opponent (with KK I raise at least 5 BBs preflop as I do not want rag ace calls) and I would have never let the hero see the turn if I survived the flop). The KK was played horribly in my view and still got rewarded. That does not prove anything about the randomness of FT - but the hand play was fine.

[VA Poker]

whatodds, eldave,
Both of you guys stated there is nothing wrong with calling with A5 suited, not in the blind, facing a raise from MP at a 6 max table. Cransley posted a picture of his hand and he was clearly at a full 9 man table so that was not the case in this hand. The reason I think it was a poor call is A5(suited or not) is totally dominated by 17 different hands(A6-AK and any pair 5's or better), all of which are in most players range of opening up a pot in middle position. The only way you are not dominated there is if your opponent has 2's,3's,4's or KJ, KQ, maybe QJ suited. So, in the average online players range of raising there, 17 hands have you dominated, 3 hands are a coinflip, and you are slightly ahead of 3 hands. Thats why you shouldn't call pre flop with ace rag in my opinion, it is dominated by the majority of hands people are opening pots with, and it dominates exactly ZERO hands. Even if the other guy has A2 you're just going to chop it. I'd much rather call with 10Js or even 78s than A5s. Maybe you guys disagree, but in my opinion people overplaying ace rag is one of the most common mistakes in hold'em.

I don't mind you saying I'm part of the "you should have played it that way crowd", but keep in mind; the only reason I even had the opportunity to second guess his hand is because he is part of the "lose a hand then post it on a forum as it is proof of something" crowd. The reason why I said something is many other players were in his seat they wouldnt have lost a dime and examining your own play always helps where as crying about a hand on a forum generally doesn't do much for your game. If you don't want someone second guessing your hands just keep them off an online forum.