Wrong. iirc rake at 1/2 is like 3 ptbb/100, less at higher limits. So in reality if he's playing 1/2 he's taking ~3.2 out of the game where a super-fish would probably be donating even before rake. They take up space, don't lose money, and just the fact that the learning curve is so small to become a winning shortstacker compared with fullstacking makes it so they infest the games pretty quickly. It would be like if someone invented a fullstacking bot that could break even and win rakeback. If enough off those infested the games they'd be unbeatable soon.

I vaguely recall you saying quite a while back that more ~breakeven shortstackers would be bad for the games. Have you honestly changed your mind or... is this a case of being devils advocate...

Or how about I play what I want to play and you take your whiny crap elsewhere?

cap games = shortstacks only
normal games (20-100bb) = shortstacks and fullstacks
deep games = fullstacks only.

Things are perfectly fine as they are.shortstacks and full stacks can either play with their own kind, in cap games or deep games, or they can join the normal games and play with everyone. No change needed, perfectly fair.

i really think known shortstackers should be banned from 2+2 you are a disgrace to everything and everyone

I don't get the argument that shortstackers play an unexploitable strategy. Are you people claiming that it is unpossible to profit from them? I guess that's what I think it would mean but that doesn't really make much sense to me. If someone could explain in a little more detail that would be cool.

I'm a limit FR player and couldn't give a crap about NL or shortstackers, but could someone plz ship me one of these handcharts so i can SS NL for extra rakeback on the side?

breakeven sss`lers are worst for the gameflow of Poker.

thats no joke.

please min 30 bb for all tables.

If you could play with 100 bbs you would. Cause you would rake more money per hour. But you are not good enough. Most SSSler are not very smart, that's why they stick to a 'strategy' even the not so bright understand.

I agree with the opinions that FT is not going to ban the ratholers completely, but let's hope they will increase the time a ratholer can rejoin a lot. That would cut the hourly rate in a significant way and keep the shovebots away.

One time, Santa!

raising the min buyin will keep bots from infesting NL

See all these arguments don't really matter because full tilt IS doing something about it. From what I've read they have had many meetings on the subject and seem to think it is an issue that needs to be addressed.

So, all the shortstackers making claims of whining and trying to reason this and that, it doesn't really matter. The ship is sinking.

Don't really need to beat a dead horse guys, time to move on.

This is a sincere and genuine question to the few shortstackers in this thread (it seems like most of the posters here are actually people denouncing shortstackers and applauding FTP's decsion):

Why don't you guys just play the NL cap games? These are games explicitly designed for short-stacking, and you wouldn't even have to worry about ratholing since you'll never be allowed to wager more than a short-stack on any given hand. Why not just play these instead of ruining our games?

The reason I like Full Tilt is that it's owned by poker players, and poker players completely understand this issue.

Howard and the guys do have say in what goes on, and if they have looked at this issue, then it will be handled.

poker4life, we all know the answer. Obv it's in their interest to defend their livelihood. Flawed or not.

99.9% of shorstackers are degenerate losers who live in their parents basement who spend 12 hours a day grinding out a mcdonalds wage dreaming of moving up and being a baller, but they never will. Those who complain about ss's ruining their 50 cent games are just as bad. 10-20 bb pre raises are standard in most 1-2 live games but most ppl on here do not know that because they have never played live because they are too broke and scared because they are socially inadequate.

The game is such a bad state, just a bunch of jaded 18-25 year olds who are too lazy to go to class or get a job who have been decieved by online poker marketing in pursuing this ridiculous "profession". Poker is meant to be played for fun and enjoyment, it is unfortunate most play with such parasitic intentions stooping as low as ssing and ratholing to squeeze a buck out of people. This is the poker sites fault for their marketing and vip/rakeback programs encourage it in every way.

Odds are online poker will not be legalized and imo it is the last thing most of you want for your profits will be heavily taxed and the vip programs will not be as generous. Do not delude yourself into thinking legalization will open the floodgates of fish because most people with disposable incomes are adults with responsibilites such as wifes, gf's, kids, and friends. When they want to gamble they go to the casino where they can see shows, eat good food, socialize and have fun not sitting in front of their computers playing hold em with a bunch of punk ass classless kids trying to squeeze a buck out of them. So take your ppa card and shove it up your ass, it will have more use up there.

Hai, welcome to the forums, Barney.

i just wanted to say to OP:

LOL

nice first post

Well I don't play on FTP any more but not enough CAP tables to mega table would be an issue i'm sure. Though playing against fishy fullstack regs who instead of learning how to counter shortstackers, bitch about it in chat may have something to do with it to.

And noone is 'ruining' your games'
When did they become your games?
I full stack as well, and sit at the table with other shortstackers... they don't ruin my game... I will sit with 100bbs at a table with 5 other shortstacks or 5 other full stack or any mix in between. I know how to adjust to a variety of table dynamics stack sizes and instead of whining I actually study the game and shortstacking helped my fullstack game immensely (and vice versa)

Why don't you play on deep tables if you can't handle shortstackers, thats what they are there for.

Short of outright closing accounts for shortstacking or raising the min buyin to 60-100bb's., I really can't see what they can do that will stop people whining about it. At around 60-70bbs you are better off buying in for full than trying to create a shorting strategy. Below that it is not to difficult at all, just needs adjustments.

If FTP raise the min buyin to 30 or 40 bb's I will even consider putting some $$$ on there to shortstack with 30 to 40bb's to exploit all the shortstack fish who will still be using 20bb strategies.

I too have a hearty LOL at the amount of personal bias and misinformation in the thread.

That said I fully agree that the massive influx of professional shortstacks is bad for the game, and that such players are basically parasites.

It's no secret that we all want to play where the fish are, which is why all the shorties screaming to the fullstack players "why not go play 50-200bb tables" is every bit as empty as the counter-argument to the shorties as to why they don't simply play cap games. The fish are at neither of those types of tables in any great numbers, and we don't want to trade stacks with regs any more than you want to trade min-buyins with other professional shorties. An equivalent argument is simply to play pot limit, as that works to nullify the mathematical advantages of general shortstack strategy, and it's equally inapplicable.

Why I think shorties are a parasite is quite simple:

1) No Limit Hold 'em is, at its heart, a multi-street game. The majority of the tough decisions, creative plays, and in general the arguments (which are, let's not forget, of great legal importance at the moment) that poker is a skill game rely heavily on the decisions faced on the later streets of the game and NOT in following a simplistic preflop push-or-fold matrix that, thanks to the mathematical advantages inherent in playing with a short stack, all but guarantee long-term breakeven or slightly better results.

2) Ratholing is against the spirit of the game. HUDs are not. It's that simple. At a live game, you can (and some players do) keep hand-written notes that approximate stats on every player at the table. In general, you can still form an opinion without detailed notes when still playing only one table as to someone in general being loose, being tight, being aggro or passive, being fond of squeezing, etc., and the fact is that playing only one table at a time there wouldn't be much in the way of a need for a HUD to begin with. All that HUDs allow is to keep those same general reads over multiple tables, something for which there is no live analogue because there is no need for one.

Ratholing, on the other hand, has a very direct live analogue that is not tolerated in any form of poker but the realm of online shortstacking.

3) If left unchecked, professional rakeback breakeven shortstacks will eventually dominate the tables until they ultimately drive the fish away and effectively kill online poker. Fish don't want to play against professional shortstacks; at least 90+% of the bitching I hear about pro-ss's at the table is from the fish. They as much as anyone recognize that pro ss's are not playing poker as they understand it, and as they want to play it when they go online. It has less to do with losing money to them (they don't understand the mathematical advantages of shortstack play, and they of course lose money to everyone), it's that they want to play what they perceive to be actual poker and they recognize that buying in for 20bb, and ratholing immediately upon doubling up is simply not that.

More than that, it's the accessibility of the 20bb-breakeven strategy that ruins the game. I understand that some shortstacks are better than others, and that there is a great deal of tweaking possible within the shortstack strategy to maximize winrate, but the vast majority of shorties are not doing this; they're simply following a very simple preflop spreadsheet that by itself guarantees long-term breakeven results, which is possible to follow without any actual knowledge of poker or gambling theory in general (in theory, in fact, you could quite easily teach children to follow the spreadsheet and run a sweatshop for that purpose; I doubt that exists today but I wouldn't be surprised if one showed up in Russia or Estonia or wherever if the current pace continues; given the economic conditions in those countries I can certainly see the appeal of making a virtually guaranteed $10/hr or whatever so long as you have access to a computer and the Internet).

For solutions, I see two possible ones which are not mutually exclusive:

1) Make default tables 40bb min, 100bb max. This would have a positive effect on both the default tables and on the deep tables. Regs congregate at the 40-200 tables today mostly to avoid short-stacks, and this would remove that concentration and make those tables more profitable for those that enjoy 200bb deep play. It wouldn't have a great impact on the fish as most fish buy in for 40bb (as that's the default), and those that buy in for 20bb today would likely be willing to buy in for 40bb (as they tend not to rathole when they double up anyway).

And yes, it is possible to use a modified shortstack strategy at 40bb but the edges to be exploited are much smaller than those at 20bb, which is of course why the shorties all rathole when they double up right now.

2) Increase ratholing timers. Some analysis would be required as to how much to bump it to, but they are nowhere near high enough now. I would be fine with a 12hr+ timer, give them nowhere near enough time to cycle through the tables as they do currently. This alone, however, would likely be gotten around, and you'd probably see an increase in multi-accounting if it and it alone were implemented.

Why don't you all just come play Badugi?

Up the time limits to get back on a table and it should balance everything out.

Very solid post, Shaffer. Thanks for sharing it.

No more so than a massive influx of professional fullstackers or set miners or 2+2 ABC tags

Playing with a push-or-fold matrix will work against just fish. Just as playing tag ABC no frills 100BB poker works against fish. Sure the push-or-fold matrix is easier to than tag ABC, but other than that there is no difference and both are insufficient to win at anything other than uNL and maybe even some donkey SSNL tables.

Online poker is not live poker and there are no requirements for it to be. Online poker is modelled more on online games since that what it is, an online game. You can jump in, play a bit and jump out without having to set aside huge amounts of time.

Oh?
But 5bb/100 winning ABC Tags stacking fish repeatedly for 100bb+ pots won't drive them away?


I suspect a lot of those same fish are in this thread.




fyp.

How about you take the spreadsheet and go shortstack MSNL and HSNL games then?

This is already easily doable 24 tabling nanostakes FR games and set mining. And that requires simply the ability to notice you have two cards with the same number and then look for a matching card on the flop. Without a doubt I could teach a 4 year old that much more easily than shortstack strategy, so should we ban the full stacked set mining nits because its too accessible?

At least the post wasn't a DIE SS DIE post but it is still full of bias and misinformation. Which makes the first line of your diatribe all the more ironic.

This. Can you really tell me that if SSing was as perfect and easy as the doomsayers are making it out, everyone in this thread wouldn't be at $5/10 using this unexploitable strategy? Do you all really hate money that much or is it maybe not quite as easy as you are making it sound?

I would love to see someone here who is playing 100 or 200NL prove how dangerous SSing is by taking one of these easly available strategies online, jumping up to the nosebleeds for a few 1000 hands, following the strategy to the letter (since all shortstackers are too dumb to adjust, right?) and then posting their graph.

The games are in a balance right now. If you are making money, do you really want to do anything that might throw off that balance? If you are losing money do you really think getting rid of shortstacking is what is going to turn it around for you?

You can outplay nits. You can't outplay shortstacks because they are either all-in or not in the hand.

+1

Keep the deep tables (50bb min - 200bb max) and cap tables. Get rid of the "normal" tables. Problem solved, next thread.