I agree. Skillgambler, if you behave like this the prostitutes will come to you no more.

them be da pimps

ok skill. I understand U play to make $$ and all but how do u expect peep to play if they are constantly abuse?
do you also make fun if they play badly? might as well with your logic

what kind of abuse are you talking about. The only things i consider "abuse" in online poker are insults in chat and actual cheating(that includes buttoning people IMO).

if people feel constantly abused, i dont expect them to keep playing.

I cant remember ever making fun of someone in chat, although i def have responded to people insulting me first for no reason(other than winning a hand). Rudeness also very much doesnt align with my logic and with my personal beliefs on how i should act. As said in this thread, i treat every player with the same amount of friendliness and respect as a standard.

I don't play high stakes live that often, but the times that I have the same thing has happened fwiw. The fish sits out or goes for a break and unless the regs in the game are stuck or are particularly gambly they will sit out and wait for him or pretend to sit out and go for a smoke or take a walk. It's just not as obvious and doesn't happen as fast as online, and it's usually coupled with some phony excuses.

"yes it's pretty difficult not to realize that making recreational players happy is "good for the game." I, and many others, have come to the conclusion what is best for me though, at least short term. There are many theories that say giving up that short term benefit would increase earnings in the long run, but those are dubious at best. hello prisoner's dilemma."

This is all you needed to say in the first place. Admit you're part of the problem and explain what that problem is. That's a heck of a lot better then blaming it on Poker Stars and giving no explanation.

It's a dog eat dog world in poker. Many people are starting to realize this. With scandal after scandal, and shady story after shady story, it is finally dawning on people that when there is real money on the line, the purity of the "game" goes out the window.

It is serious business, and people are trying to pay bills and keep from being homeless. So, if you happen to be in the way of their plans expect that everything will be done to relieve you of your cash. Usually it is done on the up and up, but there are little moves that make it easier.

It isn't pretty, so get used to it.

You're completely wrong with everything you said and apparently didnt even read my posts.

Firstly, I didnt blame Pokerstars in the slightest. Youre the one putting blame on pokerstars ("But Poker Stars is largely responsible for not implementing/enforcing rules better to prevent this kind of thing.") I suggested that if he had any complaints he should shoot customer support an email. Pretty sure youre the one lobbying for people to express their feeling to stars to get them to change their rules so i dont see the problem.

Secondly, I'm not part of any problem. At best, my actions (as well as the actions of roughly 99% of other regs, including yourself) are at the most a symptom of the problem of games drying up. It's quite obvious to everyone what caused that though, and that is black friday and the online poker ban in the US. You pretending to not understand that seems quite disingenuous, and running around pointing fingers saying "YOURE THE PROBLEM AND YOU SHOULD CHANGE YOUR BEHAVIOUR" is pretty laughable. Your constant pretending that games would magically get better if everyone just behaved in the way you want them to is false and you know it.

Lastly, it isnt really a problem either. Money-making opportunities arise in time and die out in time, it's evolution. Printed newspapers made a ****load of money for a long time and now are dying off because their time has passed. Limit holdem has had declining traffic for a long time and black friday was a giant blow to the player pool. Couple that with players getting better and putting in huge volume, obviously there is less money to be made. You making long, disingenuous posts here, trying to get pokerstars to tailor their rules towards you while arguing that it would be better for everyone is just something i have enough of and i felt compelled to post it.

Fwiw, skillgambler has always been one of the bravest LHE players on Stars... one might go so far as to call him a degen

And ya, it is def much easier to talk about playing in tough games and having flawless etiquette when you are either #1 on the food chain or very close. It does bother me in these debates that everyone seems to forget about the average reg... the guy who is usually the 3rd-5th best player at the table. This guy is always going to exist, no matter what we do.

He's supposed to hang in there getting beaten on by top tier players for the good of the games? That sounds like quite a sacrifice. When you add up both the rake and edge his better opponents have over him... we're really prolly asking way too much from him.

Tpir, I would seriously consider the possibility that you are speaking with your ego a bit. It's a pretty sick brag to be able to just sit down in almost any lineup and still have a slight edge. But when you ask for regs to hang around and play each other, you are really asking for regs to hang around and feed you chips... whether you mean to or not.

Pokerstars just seems really focused on the rec player at the table and the world beater. It's like they're completely forgetting about the other 4 players.

Tbh, I think the problem is that poker is just a ****ed up game. In what other game do the world class players have to pay not just a little money, but tons and tons of money for the right to even sit down? I mean if we were getting appearance fees, salaries, etc. I don't think there would be any problem. Even just free rake would be huge. Then,we could complain about people being afraid to play each other and it would make a lot more sense. But that's never going to happen, so here we are

What's wrong is to have a new player come into these forums saying he'll never play again because of the current environment (you're a part of whether you admit or not), and offering him no explanation other than, that's the way it is, deal with it.

Blaming all of our problems on Black Friday and saying well that's just the way it is and there's nothing that can be done about it, is a defeatist attitude. You can choose to sit idly and bemoan the situation we're in while the ship sinks or you can take action to try to improve the situation. I for one choose the latter.

A large part of the problem, too, is having realistic expectations.

Poker players are not generally the nicest of people. In an ideal world, I suppose they would all be holding hands and singing kumbaya. In the world I live in, they are mostly degenerate peckerheads trying their best to screw each other out of as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. It's simply the nature of the beast.

It reminds me of an old saying I heard in a Western movie, "Don't go to a whorehouse if you're a looking for a wife."

If you're looking for nice people and a "swell group of guys" to be friends with...don't go to a poker room. That's not where you'll find them.

I don't think online players are less 'nice' than an average person, I'd even say they're above average on the 'nice' scale. The game however is about taking edges, and some people might go a bit too far to take those edges.

I don't play highstakes, but I don't think you can expect a player not to sit out when an amateur leaves. Say a non-'world-beater', makes like 1 big blind/100 in such a game, if the amateur sits out before 100 hands have past he's making a loss if he chooses to sit-in, since all others will sit-out.

The game naturally evolves towards an equilibrium, if you want to change the result you'll have to change the game. The only one who's able to change the game is pokerstars.

For 15/30+ I really dont think this is a concern. For probably 90% of 6-handed games that run the difference between #1 reg and #5 reg is completely dwarfed by the skill difference down to player #6 (the reason the game runs in the first place).

Maybe I am forgetting someone but I honestly cant think of one reg at these stakes that play a lot and I wouldnt a consider very good. These poor`ish regs probably moved down or quit some time ago imo.

This is also why games running with regs only will never ever happen with any consistency unless PS removed rake completely (ofc never going to happen either).

I'm in complete agreement with this. I would take it even a step further and say the skill level difference between 90% of regs is a half bb/100 or less.

Agree, this ballpark number seems reasonable to me as well.

Hello. Mihail happy to see some of the insight view from good players. I just dont agree with it and make me feel like property or ATM mashine. I just dont like. THe lenths the peep go thru are pretty extreem.

Today i was play and some player threaten report me becaus i button him twice? wat is that mean? HE say this after he follow me twice even he knew i not want to play him then mad when i leave? i not understand

See, youre wrong again. I'm not blaming any of my problems on black friday. Actually, i'm blaming most of my problems on my parents, but that's beside the point. My position is actually, that there is no problem. Yes poker gets harder and having the occasional 100k month gets harder and it's a huge problem for you. For me it's the way things are. You can call it defeatist that i think you cant change things. I call it rational thinking.

Also note i'm not sitting idly. I would love to sit idly and not bemoan anything since i dont have any real issues. You are the one bemoaning your terrible terrible situation and your lobbying to change the rules to what benefits you the most forces me to make posts arguing to keep the status quo. You are one of the loudest voices on the forums and stars seems to listen to you a good deal, so i felt it was time that a different point of view is heard. Any rules implemented that would prevent/punish leaving games that a player does not want to play would be a slap in the face for me and a lot of other players

I am well aware that I may be alone here, but I think the skill difference between the top reg at the table and the 4th-5th best player at the table is going to be around .5 BB/100. .5 BB/100 + rake... that is really pretty brutal. In other words, I think that the 4th-5th best player at the table is often breaking even while the rec player is there or even losing. This is consistent with everything we see imo... the weaker regs having breakeven or even negative winrates in the PTR era. So many regs being forced to move down or retire in the last year.

Also, it definitely looks like the top bots manage to clobber the top HUHU specialists pretty bad... perhaps for as much as a full BB/100.

And I think that we may be very surprised if we somehow knew which regs were losing nowadays. It could very well be some pros who have won millions over the years or that we considered top tier a couple years ago, but who failed to improve for awhile.

In live poker, I went through a phase where I really looked down on the other pros for leaving tough games or being unwilling to try to keep a tough, shorthanded game going. I was hazed quite a bit when I first started playing live poker, so I was actually kind of a dick about it as "revenge". But in reality, they are mostly just nice people who know their limitations.

Oh, and to avoid sounding like a defeatist... I think the biggest mistake we make as pro poker players is failing to promote ourselves and the game. It's really up to us to improve our situation. I am absolutely terrible at this... I have never had any desire to be "famous". I don't have a blog or website. I've never made any attempt to bring new people into the game. I don't think I give poker a very good image. I approach poker like a child approaches a video game.

If I really wanted to go all out... I would prolly try to get into making videos. I would build my presence in NVG. I would make myself a website/blog. I would try to become a competent enough tournament player to help get recreational players interested in the game. I would change my image a bit so that I am amusing to all players instead of just being amusing to LHE 2p2ers. And so on.

Oh you clearly are blaming the problems on Black Friday, I suggest you reread your own posts in this thread. Or better, admit you're part of the problem and do something about it.

And I'm not sure how this thread has turned into me lobbying for rule changes. I haven't suggested a single rule change in this thread. And if I have, please point me to it.

I started a sit-out thread early last year in the hopes that all regulars would agree to playing longer. We didn't have enough people in agreement so the idea was ditched. The end result of that thread was me offering to do something for the community which was play to my big blind for an entire month at high stakes (which I did). I encouraged others to do the same, but no one to my knowledge did. That's called standing up and taking action to improve things and it most certainly wasn't for my benefit, it cost me thousands of dollars.

What I have suggested is that you treat new players better when they come to this forum with questions. What I have suggested is you take some responsibility for the current environment instead of blaming on others or circumstances. What I have suggested is you take action yourself to improve the situation we're in.

Great post UG. A lot of really good observations here.

I have 99 problems but poker isnt one of them. my potential future earn decreases every day, but thats not a problem. I dont deserve any of this. I dont deserve to go play super soft 200-400 games every day so i can make a million a year. I dont deserve ****. I'm not entitled to anything. And i dont think youre entitled to **** either. I agree that the best players should be winning the most, but i disagree that we should design games to benefit those players.

also, i'm not part of any problems. My actions dont benefit you, but they re completely fine.


you said:

pretty sure the implication of that is that pokerstars should implement/enforce rules to prevent sitting out/snap-leaving when other players sit out.



fwiw, i dont think youre doing anything wrong. your actions and forum posts are all pretty rational (probably besides getting yourself buttoned every time for a month) and you obviously argue your point. I just felt that the opposing point wasnt really present on the forum, so i picked this thread to post it. Self-selection bias is huge in threads that suggest changes to poker sites and i hope they realize it.

In my opinion, a new player with questions shouldnt come here calling people unethical, moralless scum. I'm not unethical, moralless scum and there is a pretty damn good chance the guy trying to get the jesus seat on him isnt either. I also firmly believe that guy insulting other players is my customer. He is just (most likely) worse at limit holdem than i am.

oh also, i agree with henholland, yours and UG's posts concerning winrate/promoting the game. Once again though i choose to pass up potential fame and glory because i dont want to live my life like that, poker fame seems largely undesirable to me

Definately unethical scum^. YOUR type make it impossible for anyone who not a poker god to win. U make me and my frend feel unwelcome. you are a bad human, you hav no remorse and pokerstar should just get rid of U.

Something I did online was when a fish left, I would play the next 2-3 orbits slower. They also do this at LA's friendliest. I learned they DO act differently live than online.

Here is an example out there:

150-300 game 3 years ago and everyone is trying to kick it up to 2-4. It's 4-5 AM and a player leaves. I take this as are quitting point, and assume everyone will rack up. No one does. The experienced female player at the table says "kick it up to 2-4 and play." 5 minutes go by and everyone plays slowly. The same player who left the table returns with more chips. Play continues for another 3 hours.

Online what occurs is people break the game, the fish joins another table and everyone jumps on that - not realizing that at times keeping the game going is better.

also fwiw, I played with skillgamblin a bit and he is one of the nicest guys at the table online.

Mihail, I am not making this up...

Skillgambler has played almost anyone at whatever stakes he can afford for years. He's not the bad guy here. Believe it or not, a lot of pro players are recreational players too.

I do think it is rude to expect players who win money at the game to behave differently than you. Skillgambler should be punished simply because he happens to be good at poker? That doesn't make very much sense to me.

Skill has been posting here and playing for years. He genuinely loves playing LHE and is one of the least predatory players I can think of.

That was my inclination, too.

His Stars account is a very similar name and he also spoke the exact same way at the table using many of the same terms like peeps so I think it's extremely unlikely.