If I would be a superuser/software hacker I would choose to use my superpowers on 11$ buy-in tournaments thnq

That's why I'm going to start playing mtts where they will respect my raises.


I don't think he means that they have superhuman powers. More likely that they have cracked some sort of algorithmic code.

I got the same experience right now.
2007-2009 is was a regular Winningplayer on NL25 to NL100.
Right now I am stuck already on NL2 haha.
For me its since Pokerstars took over Fulltilt things got so bad.
My games got so swingy.
Most of the time I get sessions where I can play almost any Hand, connect on most of the boards and win almost every pot or it is the other way around and I cant play anything and lose almost every hand.
Its like either I get a sick heater and just crush very hard or I get a downswing and get destroyed.
Its impossible for me to get consistent results and is really tough to play.
On the other side it makes it really easy for fish because it is instinctively to play aggressive and lose if winning play passive and tighter if losing.
Sure it evens out in the end but it generates tons of rake and reduces my edge too.

I wonder if the overall skill level of players has increased over the past decade? :thinkingemoji:

Guess so or the average style has changed.
Maybe I just got worse thought about all that too.

But its kind of extreme.
For me NL5, maybe even NL2, right now is harder then NL50 back in the days.
Sure it got tougher but that much tougher ?

Also I do table selection and if you play 6max vs 2-3 Players with VPIP and WTSD over 40 % you kind of doubt that its a matter of skill ^^.

What also freaks me out is that i got no consistence anymore,
sure if I would play bad and get a consistent bad result I would feel much better about it but right now its just sick up and down.
I play the same strategy one day I totally crush next day I get annihilated,
I mean one would expect not such a huge spread.

And it also not just how I play certain spots or hands it is also the amount I get them.
I play a quiet conservative line and a strict opening,
some times I get VPiP 14 WTSD 20 with WonSD 15-40 % and WonWithoutSD 10-25 %,
other times I have Vpip 30 with WTSD 40-55% and get WonSD 75-90% and Without 45-65%.
Its kind of super sick, just few days ago I made 11 Stacks in 3000 Hands and the next day lost 8 Stacks in 3000 Hands.
Its hard to believe that I could influence that by my play-style.

That's the problem with games getting tougher. You probably have the same standard deviation as before but close to breakeven winrate, at that point swings are the biggest and take the longest. Nobody cares about a few beats when they are winning at 10bb+/100 because a downswing doesn't last long. When you're grinding out 1,5bb/100 you start getting annoyed by beats and notice them more.

Yeah sure thats right smaller edge lead also do more swings.
Because 1-2 Stacks more or less make a big difference.

For me its kind of crazy, because its most of the time bet bet bet win win win or fold fold fold lose lose lose.
That is just so annoying, I mean I just get a burst of hands and get almost unbeatable then after that I got to wait for hours or days to get a decent pot or few of them.
I dont know maybe its just a coincidence and I just run weird.
You know before it was more like you win some you lose some but right now its more like you either win almost all or lose almost all during a session.

two words: payout cycle

So the payout cycle for the players that are up millions of dollars ( from 25/50 up alone ) for years now has somehow decided to avoid them ?

Yes there is definitely something at work here and those who deny or try to negate that are part of the game. Has anyone here ever seen a short stack in a large field online mtt ( let's say 7 bbs )who has crept into money by playing ultra tight ( perhaps not throughout the entire mtt) manage to go on and a final table or win a tourney? I doubt it has ever happened? There reaches a point where big stacks just keep getting bigger by going on munch man frenzy with the short stacker's chips...They just eat them all up and nots fair!!!!!!!

I tend to agree with this. I play at Ignition (which pretty much sucks with their ridiculous limitations/rules). I've been a winning grinder for a few years. But just bc I'm winning, that doesn't prove that the RNG is really R. There have been so many times when I got it in 75%+ on flop and called out my loss once I saw that I was a significant favorite, only to see the turn or river kill my hand. Maybe I'm running good on my predictions, but my accuracy is uncomfortably high..I wish it wasn't. And no, I don't think I'm a psychic lol. I guess that's possible in a world of very few absolutes, but I think a not so random RNG is VASTLY more likely.
But one thing is for certain, online is definitely tougher now than it was several years back. And with that in mind I'll pose this question: for a solid poker player, do you think he can make more money live (let's say playing no higher than 5/10 or 10/25, as in the bay area), or online (Ignition, specifically)? I don't have enough current experience with either to really say. But it wasn't all that crazy difficult to clear 100k 4 tabling at Bovada/Bodog several years ago. I think it's REALLY hard to pull this off today, but that's just my educated guess.

Then why don't you utilize the big stack strategy ? Register as many tournaments as possible, shove the first hand of all of them and continue playing with a huge rig advantage ( as you say ) in the one's that you don't get busted.

I've seen short stacks win, not as often as big stacks, but that's supposed to happen. And considering that the obvious answer alludes you somehow I'm gonna spell it out for you.

Big stacks have a big advantage to win, you know why ? Because they cannot bust if they lose a hand against the short stacks which makes them call lighter sometimes. And some of those times they are going to win even if they are the underdog.

And how do you respond to the people that say that it's rigged for the short stacks ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJN5gVuZ48c&t=14611s

Just a recent example of a short stack winning a tournament. Charlie "Epiphany77" Carrel from England won the Scoop 2017 Main Event coming in at the final table as the short stack with about 20 BB's.

If you're in doubt about why so many players with 5-10 BB's bust when they make the money consider the fact that many of them shove with pretty light hands because they have to avoid being blinded out and when they get called they are at best flipping.

Live poker is about finding games and a lot is based on location. If you're in a good location and have some social skills making 100k+ is way easier live. The advantages of online are obviously that you can play anywhere (where it is legal) and have more different games to choose from but opponents are way better.

A good 5/10 player should already be able to come close to 100k/year.

But with what volume ?

5bb/h (~15bb/100) is $80k for a 40 hour week.

I think the big challenge for online poker is going to be to deal with cheating in the future.
Collusion and bots are going to be a serious problem in my opinion.
Also how knows maybe even someone is going to find some leaks in the software and will be able to hack it.
I think especially bots are going to be impossible to deal with as soon as one gets a AI that no human can match.

If someone ever manages how to predict the cards that are generated from thermal noise or mouse movement, then that person should have bigger endeavors than online poker.

From what I've read, the toughest bot right now that can beat humans is the one faced in the newest Brains vs AI challenge. That bot ran on a supercomputer and people don't have supercomputers at home. Sure, in the future as technology advances it is quite likely that that bot will be contained on a regular laptop. But that's years away. Hopefully the sites will get to work on detecting them as best as they can. If they don't then online poker will surely die. At least as a way to make serious money from it.

Collusion is already happening. It's happening in live games too.

On the first point yeah it would make more sense to go right away for credit card companies and banks.
But who knows if you could manage away to get your opponents holecards or read out the deck which is already build and stored on the site before it gets dealt that would be huge.

With bots it would be enough to get a bot that plays like a good regular.
Also the advantage is that it doesn't tilt, which is already huge.
To detect it will be almost impossible i think because you can just type in the hand into a other device and let the machine suggest the correct play.
It doesn't have to beat the best in the world but even if it just beats the majority or lets say 80 to 90 % of the players it will destroy the game.

I know that Stars generates the deck just before the hands starts out. So someone would need to have access to their internal system in order for them to see the cards. I don't see that very likely to happen.

Lets get back to the topic or poll here.

It is kind of concerning isn't it ?
1 out of 3 members on a major poker forum think the games are rigged.
Outside of the poker community that number got to be even higher.
I think there is a good increase of distrust when it comes to poker.


P.s.
I hear it now for years from other people that their opinion is getting more and more either its is pure gambling or its rigged.
Before I was also noway but even myself is slightly moving towards that opinion and getting the doubts.
And I play now for over 10 years.
Sure one will come with the common argument "the games got tougher".
But I start to doubt that is all to it.
I mean I played better players before and got beat, that is nothing new to me.
It just the way the hands play out what causes my doubt.
I really cant remember seeing a 30 % underdog to win like 3-5 times in a row that often and so on.
Or sitting there and just getting dealt crap for 500-1000 Hands.
Or just running for that many times for a such long period of time into one monster hand after another.
To sum it up for me its not that it just turned tougher it kind of turn weirder and stranger.
I played tough games before that is nothing new to me I moved up several times and was outclassed that is not the issue for me.

Only a little more than 9000 people voted in that silly poll, myself included. A lot of the votes on the riggie side were multi accounters so the actual number of people that voted is less than the number depicted there. Needless to say, I don't know the exact number of 2+2ers but it is a lot more than 9000 so your statement that 1 out of 3 members believe online poker to be rigged is wrong.

Ok one could argument members how think the games are rigged are more likely to take part in the poll then those who are not.

But I feel in general the reputation of online poker took a big hit in the last several years.
Lets say when I was starting maybe 10 years ago the number of people in a poker community that would feel like its either luck or rigged would be close to zero.
It was more like 1 or 2 people argue for it and 20-30 against it.
Also talking to people outside of the community you would get more of a positive response.
Before it was like "ahh that is interesting" now its more like "are you stupid".

If the "omg it's rigged" camp still doesn't have a shred of evidence at this point then they are indeed stupid.

This isn't true at all.

It may be 1 out of 3 voters in a thread that most members don't read and where many casual readers don't vote, but I would suggest that the members who vote "not rigged" are more likely to be the more serious players who have only one account here, and those who vote "rigged" are more likely to be those who have had numerous accounts here after being banned numerous times for one reason or another.

I'm not interested enough to do the count myself, but if you take a realistic sample size and check banned voters against current users for both sides, I would be surprised if it wasn't quite obvious that the count should be more like 1 out of 5.

I think people opinion has changed.
Several years ago there was no "rigged camp" at all.
You would have a hard time to find 5 or more people for that.
And its kind of hard to think its just because more people are losing, which is kind of true.
But there where always a lot of people losing and it wasn't like "ohh its rigged" it was like
"the other are just better".
Sure one can argue the game got more complex and the leaks are less obvious.