Here is Al's article in this month's 2+2: The Worst Year of My Poker Life

Al writes about dealing with his horrible luck playing LHE in the twelve month period leading up to, and including, summer 2007. Pretty much a fun read.

After reading his article I Googled Al, and came across this article of his from October 2006 (from a source other than 2+2) titled On Losing Streaks. This earlier article was written near the beginning of Al's Worst Year (which began in mid-summer 2006), which of course Al didn't know at the time. On Losing Streaks mentions losing streaks previous to and possibly the beginning of Al's one year epic.

In case anyone wanted more.

There is NO evidence that this guy Al was ever a winning poker player. In the following piece, Al admits to being an online Paid Shill... and also claims:

"At the lower limits, say anything under 3-6, it’s often literally impossible to be a long term winner, so onerous is the house‘s cut."

(1) This is the first "proof" I've ever seen that Online Casonos are filling tables up with Paid Shills... so people on 2+2 are covering this up.

Consequently, I would put the probability that MANY poker sites are running House Bots at precisely 100%. That's why they are hiring Bot Experts from universities... who are in no way security experts skilled at stopping external threats.

(2) The stats below (run on 16,000,000 $1-2 and $2-4 NLHE PP hands May-Dec 2008 with a 70,000 hand cutoff)... completely discredits Al's view on low stakes winners. About 1% of regular players at this level make > 100K/year.

http://www.rsspoker.com/2008/08/21/poker-propping/

Your stats are for NL, Al is talking about limit.

I don't believe that statement. Too strong. Maybe a weaker statement.

On any given year 1% of regular players at this level make > 100K.

Only very few are making > 100K year after year.

You can certainly be a winning player and lose for six months straight online if you are lol 1 tabling.

I don't particularly care if he's a winning or losing player, and I agree the vast majority of low stakes FL players are losers unless they prop or get significant rake back.

I found the article an interesting and fun read. I've also read several other articles Al wrote on various message boards.

The more I read from him the better I like it. I especially like the humorous posts I've seen him write on various message boards.


Keep them coming AL!

This is well known and completely legit. Here's a link to the first site I found:

http://www.premierpokerprops.com/

First lets fet out terminology correct. A "shill plays with house money and is paid a salary of perhaps a percent of the profits.

A prop plays out of his oen bankroll and i basically just getting a rakeback deal. Their rakeback however is between 75% and 125%. In the good old days it was sometimes higher. The props must follow some simple rules like only sit at shorthanded tables and their purpose is game formation.

The problem is big sites like 2+2 or stars have no need for such players, so the props have to play at tiny sights with limited game selection. Some sites that start off small and happen to hit it big keep their props just a s a thank you. Most of them just drop you when you aren't needed.

As a low stakes FL player 2/4 thru 5/10 My prop pay is aproximately 5X my net win.

I won't say it's impossible but I would be shocked to see more than a couple % who can do better than break even long term at 2/4 or 3/6 FL.

NL is a completely different story

A goodly percentage of online props are no better than anyone else. In my experience, many to perhaps the majority of them can't make money even with 100 percent rakebake. They do not make a salary. Some sites used to pay per hand, but in that case props had to pay rake along with everyone else. Maybe there are still a few who pay that way, but if so it's currently rare..In the end, it all amounts to pretty much the same thing..

Props are used by small and struggling sites who for the most part who would not be able to make it if they had to rely on regular customers....

If you want to avoid props, and in my opinion there's no reason to do so, simply play at larger established sites. I suppose it is true that at the smallest sites your average weak and passive newcomers are going to lose their money faster than they would otherwise, but they were going to lose it pretty quickly anyway.

I lawled