I'm not sure if this has been brought up before but I am going to address it. It will be somewhat of a long post, but please read it.
As I have read, many argue that there is too much variance and too many bad beats for one to consider online poker legitimate. I think where a lot of you make mistakes in judgement is about what variance actually is.
You frequently and erroneously chalk up your poor play as bad variance.
-Let me explain:
Here are some examples of some frustrating variance:
You get it all in preflop with AA against a smaller pair and he or she hits their 20% two-outer.
You get it all in on the flop with top set against an opponents flush draw and he or she gets there.
You flop top set on a rainbow, non-drawy board, fire three barrels of value into your opponent and find out his overpair hit a better set on the river.
Here are some examples of things you do that are not always bad variance, but rather poor play in general:
You continuously get it all in preflop with AK, QQ, JJ.
You continously play for stacks with overpairs and top pair.
You call off your entire stack with a set or two pair when there are three or four cards to a straight or a flush on the board.
In other words: You simply have a bad misunderstanding of the game. You have no sense of pot control, a gross obsession with preflop holdings, no comprehension of or capability to consider opponents ranges, and (in my opinion, the most devastating) the inability to fold. You wet yourself when you make some kind of mediocre hand and do not consider the fact that other hands exist that are stronger than yours; no do you consider that maybe (just maybe) your opponent is holding one of them if his or her betting pattern suggests so.
Let me think of an example to illustrate my point:
Say you are full-stacked, hold 2
2
, and open from early position. You get calls from two full-stacked regulars behind you.
The flop: 2
,3
,4
.
You throw out your continuation bet. The first caller raises you. The second caller shoves his entire stack in.
Now, no matter what you say here right now, I know that 100% of you rigtards snap-call this and thank God for finally giving you a hand.
In reality, this is an extremely (and I mean, extremely) easy fold.
What you should be doing here?
You should be thinking "Wow, what could they have to make them show so much strength? I mean, I know the first guy wouldn't raise my early-position open too often without a hand; and wow, the second guy definitely would not shove his entire stack in with complete air given what has already happened. Yeah, they must have something. Well let's see...
What beats me? They could have 33 or 44 for a better set. They could A5 or 56 for a straight.
What can I beat? They could have some kind of overpair, although that would be odd. They could have two pair. They could be on a straight draw or a flush draw. Surely one or both of them has me beat with one of those hands... even if by some miracle I am ahead and they both have draws, I sure as hell have a ton of outs to dodge. Yeah, I have almost no equity in this pot; easy fold. Whew, glad I only lost less than 10 big blinds in this pot. It could have been ugly."
But is that what you are thinking? Absolutely not. You are thinking "Thank you God, thank you, thank you, thank you." And then when the opponent flips over the winning hand, you think something like "Holy ****, WTF, that is so disgusting set over set," or "WTF, what a fish, playing A5o," or "Wow! ****ing again? Online poker is so rigged; they make the software so everytime I have a hand the opponent does too to increase the rake."
In conclusion: You all really need to improve your understanding of this game. Learn to fold. When you play correctly and truly consider opponent's ranges, you are going to stop losing so much money. You guys give off so much value with lesser hands without thinking that it significantly overshadows any value that you do extract with strong holdings. That is poor play, not riggedness. Stop negatively influencing the poker community simply because (weather you believe it or not) you are are poor player and do not understand poker. I feel like I explained myself decently well, but if any of you have legitimate questions, feel free to PM me or ask here.
Last edited by salty7; 08-13-2009 at 12:39 AM.
Reason: trying to fix grammatical and spelling errors; I am tired - sorry