Quote:
Originally Posted by OneOut
I may be starting to become biased, 19 losing days out of your last 25 will do that to you, but I've been becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the low limit 50BB games on Stars.
Yes, I'm seeing suited rags turn into flushes in my sleep and I feel like I'm being raised by limpers way more often than possible when I flop top pair or better from the BB, but I'm not going to just start posting random hands where I got it all in as a massive favorite and lost. I don't want to make accusations or even use the "r" word. I'm not a computer whiz or super math genius, I just want to present the patterns forming in my database and hopefully someone can interpret them and tell me that it's not as alarming as it seems.
My history
I've been playing for about 4 years somewhat seriously (but not a hardcore grinder) and have been about a 2.5 PTBB/100 winner over several 100K hands from NL25-NL100. Not a superstar, but I consider it respectable.
I've played almost exclusively at the 50BB tables since they've opened because the play is horrid (a pair = the nuts), but after 70,858 hands I'm a 0.55 BB/100 loser. Just about an informative sample size, but I don't think I've forgotten how to play all of a sudden.
Why I might be biased
I'm currently on a 37 50BB stack downswing. I've lost more than 60% of over 50 sessions (usually 500-800 hands) played this month. Yet, I'm starting every session with a fresh mind set and don't believe my play is suffering. Although, I do normally feel sick now whenever I'm dealt a premium hand and the highest VP$IP at the table (usually sitting on 4 stacks) also has been dealt 2 cards.
I find myself staring at the screen and mumbling to myself after sessions way more often than is mentally healthy lately, so maybe I'm just losing it and reading too much into things.
EV
I know it's not a perfect measure, maybe not even a good one. It might even be worse because it doesn't count the pots I get out flopped or turned before getting my last cent in, but none the less it's one of the few visible measures I have.
852 BB -EV this month, 1006 BB -EV in all - not the worst I've ever run so I know a bit about variance. And I've ended at least 150+ BB -EV each of the last 5 weeks.
Broken down into %'s when I get the $$$ in...
5-9% - 11% over 63AI
10-19% - 14% over 132AI
20-29% - 23% over 118AI
30-39% - 34% over 101AI
40-49% - 44% over 192AI
50-59% - 50% over 163AI
60-69% - 63% over 154AI
70-79% - 70% over 179AI
80-89% - 85% over 188AI
90-95% - 91% over 66AI
Nothing that looks terrible individually, but strangely almost everything on the lower end. Frustrating for sure, even if nothing to get too worked up about.
If this were it, I'd leave it as.....I run bad, life will get better eventually, but......
The most disturbing
While the above could just be a bad run of luck, the following patterns alarm me the most.
The other regs at 50BB
There are 12 players in my database with 850+ hands, your standard regs with standard reg stats (includes a few rat holers though - wish I could filter them out, but don't know how). Yeah, I know reg doesn't mean good, but they should be better than the fish, right? Yet, only 1 of the top 12 regs is in profit. (If I dig further, there's 1 winner in the next 4 before I see a couple more in about the 700h range.)
We're all just running bad at the same time?
The "fish"
Players with 45%+ VP$IP with 75 or more hands (there are 85 total) are running +1.74 BB/100.
So maybe we're all just running bad and they're all running good? This is really the most concerning to me.
The winners
I filtered for just ANYBODY winning 2+ BB/100 with 100+ hands and these were the average stats......
24/14 w/ 32% WTSD. Seems like someone who calls a little too often and has a bit of trouble folding their hand, but this is what constitutes a winner at low limit 50BB.
Stars response
Just because I'll try anything to break a losing streak, and because it worked in the past (twice my losing streak ended right after I e-mailed them) I questioned Stars about these games (really I just begged them to stop......and please give me a bonus).
While I didn't expect much, the reply was very disappointing, and maybe even bordering incompetent? Besides sending me to a couple of links on their own website verifying their RNG, they directed me to an independent study.
The alarming thing was that the study was done over only 100K hands in 2003!!! Alarming why? Because....
A) It had nothing to with 50BB games....or anything that has happened since Chris Moneymaker won the WSOP ME. It's like saying I can prove the Florida Marlins are the best team in baseball because they won the WS in 2003.
B) It sets a benchmark of proof at 100K hands. Are they saying that I've successfully proven something if I run bad for another 30K hands?
I'm of the belief that it would be almost impossible to prove anything for sure one way or the other because you can't see what hands your opponents are not showing down. So how can you really tell how often 2 suited rags hit the board? Sure you can tell how often certain flops/turns/rivers occur, but you can't say for certain how often hole cards connect if you can't see them.
But I do have concerns about why a site may be encouraged to fiddle with games (max rake in low limit games, difficulty in redepositing after busting, ability to procure a US license with probable regulation passing in the near future).
So, should I be alarmed by anything above or am I just not happy about running bad?
Not what you'd call conclusive evidence, but you've certainly dug up some worrying trends.
Your all-in percentages do indeed seem a bit low, (and vice-versa, high for the 5-9% stat.) Do you have stats for 0.01-5% and 95-99.9% ?
The fact that poor players seem to be thriving in general is also something worrying and something I've worried about myself in the past.
The site's generic response was a bit feeble as well, shows a bit of a lack of care and respect for their customers.
I'd encourage you to look into things further, if you have the time and resources.
It's a difficult situation. For anyone to take seriously claims of wrongdoing by a site, they expect you to gather masses of evidence which is a time-consuming thing to do. Also, as I think you yourself said, you could indeed run out of money, before you get the chance to gather enough evidence.
As well as that, we can't generally see what other people are being dealt, so we really have no great picture of what is truly going on at the table. Someone who is running FAR BETTER than they should, is unlikely to be on an internet forum shouting about it and demanding answers. So there could be lots of these people out there who are getting far better dealing than they should and either don't realise or understandably don't want to come forward and provide evidence.
Keep us updated.