yup

Hi, I have been on Stars in the USA for about 5 years. I make money, but only by multi tabling. I mostly play low stakes 10 nl and 30 nl. I think these low stakes pools are actually stronger than the average live 1 2 and 2 5 player, by far, in fact no doubt about it. Let's face it, most live players are total fish which is a wonderful thing.

I beat live cash games and online cash games, that is I do this full time for a living now, it is my only job. Though I have done a lot of studying. I have a lot more to learn about poker though, I am working on a LAG style, and better bet sizing, though I have improved these things a lot over the last few months. I am a USCF Chess Expert, my name is UFOClub on lichess dot org so you can see I am brilliant at thinking games, at least in some wasy, though without books and great poker writers like Jonathan Little, James Sweeney, Bart Hansen, Polk, and Carrot Poker, I would probably not be that good at the game, I realize that I am good at learning and have some natural talent for hand reading and reading people and seeing patterns, but I owe a lot to the books I have read. So no, I do not think I am some poker god or anything like that, but I know that I am very strong at this game and have a lot of talent. But yes I know there are a lot of people out there much smarter than me at poker, Ivey, Stu Unger, many many top people out there are way better than I am. I don't have a big ego about poker, I like the game and think it is fun, and I love the excitement and the fact you can make good money. Unlike chess I do not want respect, pretty much just want the money and to have a good time.

I got OCD pretty bad, it has pretty much ruined my life in many ways, but at least poker gives me a way to use my mind and some of those OCD things actually may help a bit.

I am not saying I am a genius or anything like that so I hope people do not take what I say the wrong way, I am honest and just say what I think. I am very good at this type of stuff, there are people out there a lot smarter than I am, I know that, but I am high rated nevertheless.

I played 200 nl and 500 nl on Stars during the pandemic and those games were very soft, softer than 10 nl, why is this, because most recreational players are going to go right to 1 2, not 30 nl, in the usa it is 30 nl instead of 25 nl btw.

Here is the question I have for you all. I have played close to 2 million hands on stars. Why is it that I virtually NEVER see any giant stacks, like 700 bb stacks?? Like ever, where are those monster heaters that even the biggest fish will get from time to time? I am sure most people on stars cash games will know what I am saying, many of you probably have dismissed it because that seems to be the trend of thinking, but it obviously makes no sense to never see these huge monster stacks. In the USA especially there are plenty of awful players in the online cash games. For years it has been thought that the player pools are just this strong, maybe that is partially true in europe, but sure as hell is not so in the USA.

This makes no sense. I have seen 2 million hands and multiply that by 6 for the other players for all the other players at tables. so that is about 12 million hands seen and yet no real huge monster stacks.

This tell me something is not right. Time and time again I get the great made hands to have a monster stack, but always some BS happens. I often do get 300 bb stacks, but can never get anything over that. There is something not right about this, and there are plenty of big fish in the USA on poker stars. This week, several times I was ready to get that 400 to 500 bb stacks, I have a set all in on turn and villain hits gut shot river. This is NOT a bad beat story, but it just does seem that there is some kind of governor to prevent good players from getting monster stacks on that site. I understand variance and am fine getting a bunch of bad beats in a row, but to never be able to get a stack over 300 bb is absurd. I may have had it happen about 5 times over the years, but that is about it. Makes no sense.

They certainly can do this too. When they were giving us free play at black jack on poker stars casino, meaning fake money, I could hardly lose a hand at black jack, but as soon as I started playing for real money the obvious happened. Anyway I do not play black jack anymore, but that made it obvious they can certainly manipulate these things.

I am talking about the cash games themselves.

Then there is the lack of high hands, I play at casinos often and not unusual to have quad 9s beat by quakd kings in a half hour in a 12 table room.

Hell, at Parks you virtually need a straight flush to get high hand lol Yet we see so many more hands per day playing online poker cash games, and how often to we see quads and straight flushes, hardly ever, yet all the time in live cash games that are only about 360 hands per hour for 12 tables and a Parks there are many more tables and yous see tons of quads and straight flushes in an hour. But we do not see this playing 3000 hands per day on stars cash games? Clearly something is wrong with that. Is it intentional, I can not say for sure, but I suspect it is, and if so it is a very stupid policy.

I beat these dull cash games on stars, I got a strong win rate of 12 bb per 100. I guess I am playing TAG now though been playing more LAG recently and that seems to work fine too. Still my red line is not where I want it to be, but I am bluffing more, calling more, and not folding as often. I used to fold way too much.

I make great money on there sometimes, but up swings are only because I am multi tabling, you never have many big wins on a single table.

I said before that I think their cash games are nerfed, and I still do. Though as I said I win. My rate is 12 bb per 100 for 30 nl, so that I not bad, and I am talking about close to 1 million hand sample size. But I noticed these issues early on, and these inconsistency between live cash games and online are obvious, and it is not just the player type who make this happen.


Anyway I am winning at this crap and feel super lucky to have been able to learn and practice poker on stars cash games. Truth is you will never be a good cash game player unless you can crush online cash games, only way to really be a strong cash game player, most people think they are but they have tons of leaks.

6 years approximately. I am very lucky to live in a state with legal online poker. I can not even begin to say how much practicing online and using poker tracker 4 has helped, and a lot of studying. I study all the time and also develop hand reading skills with Flopzilla. IMOP that is way more important than using these solvers.

Frankly, you have to be a sucker to just %100 trust any online site that is dealing with "gambling" and money.

I am a winning online cash game player on poker stars, and I do not %100 trust them at all. I feel the games are nerfed to prevent extreme results at a single table.

I do 12 bb per 100, at the low stakes games 30 nl in the USA mostly, that is 25 nl in Europe.

I have observed a lack of monster stacks, a lack of big made hands that for some reason I see all the time during high hand bonus sessions at live cash games, but virtually never on stars. Why would I see more straight flushes and quads in a 8 hour session of live poker during the high hand bonus that is far greater than a half million hand sample on poker stars cash games? This is a very obvious red flag.

There is no doubt at all that online cash games do not play the same as live cash games.

Are they cheating, technically not, but it is still a shady and deceptive practice.

If you are flipping a coin and the results always alternate from heads to tales heads to tales and heads to tales for example, then the results will still be 50 50, but guess what sucker, the game was nerfed. I believe poker stars cash games do this in a more sophisticated way. And remember, I am someone who beats these games with a strong win rate of 12 bb per 100. I am just not a sucker who trusts an online gaming corporation %100, like so many others.

I see monster stacks all the time and I've played far less than 2 million hands in the last few years. Saw one tonight in fact. You see less monster stacks online compared to live because the buy ins are usually capped at 100 bb, there's a lack of straddles, open sizes from regs are almost never more than 3x, and in general less big multiway pots cause there's not five people limp calling an 8x raise.

Not this idiot again.

rigged site I got dealt 22 on a 2 6 8 flop, turn a 5, river a K, I go all in villain calls he has KK.

Wtf is that. The chance of something like that happening is literally 0%.

Prove me wrong.

i used to think online poker was not rigged, untill yesterday. I am in a pot against this Russian player. before this hand he played very tight and only premium hands. i have pocket fours. the flop comes: 4AK, i flop a set. i bet big, 15 x big blind, he calls, turn is a 9. i go all in, he calls, and shows pocket nines, he wins the pot with a set of nines over a set fours. Now why in the world would a player who is known as a nit suddenly make this loose call on the flop when he has just a pair of nines, while there are two overcards (ace and a king) on the flop? You can never convince me that he did not know that that 9 was coming.

You are not seeing these monster stacks on poker stars in the USA, that is for sure. Please attach a screen shot of this, I do not believe for one second you are talking about poker stars, but you can prove it easy with some screen shots.

I have been playing on there a lot for 5 years aprox. Remember I am talking about POKER STARS cash games, I have no idea how the other sites play as I have only played online poker on stars.

that is actually funny, why do you not try thinking for a change. I doubt you ever played on Poker Stars cash games in your life, yet you make these absurd comments. Though it did give me a laugh

That does not mean it is rigged, NOT at all. Just a bad beat. Sometimes you get lucky and hit your set on the turn. It is about a 1 in 23 chance, but will happen. That being said if you are playing on an illegal or unregulated site then who knows what is going on.


I would never put a lot of money on any site that is not regulated at legal, you are very likely to lose it if you do.

What a lot of people forget is that there is no requirement that even legal online poker has to play like the real thing, it just has to follow certain frequencies.

It does not take a genius to figure out that there are many ways to do this, slot machines are based on this type of thinking.

Easy to prove you wrong, do the math. There are two Kings left in the deck. Using the Dan Harington shortcut you can just multiply the outs by 2, so 2x2 =4 percent equity for KK to hit a set on river, which is 1 in 25 aprox. Though just take the cards. There are 52 cards in a deck, and we know what 8 of them are in this scenario, so 52-8 =46 and there are two kings so 46 cards divided by 2 kings is 46/2= 23/1. So there is the exact answer, KK is going to hit a set on the river 1 in 23 times. It happens. That is poker and it is great it plays this way because it makes the game profitable and fun for everyone.

I should add it makes the game profitable for winning players, but also fun for the fish. I played chess for money in the 90s and early 2000 and after a while people realize they can not win, but at poker most never do. This random element and the bad beats are what make the game amazing and profitable for good players, without these things happening no one would play the game.

Sigh, not you again. At least you have some new nonsense to go with the old!

Hardly anybody here plays Stars US, but when I 8-tabled Zoom back in the day from the UK, most regs used to leave and restart once they got above 250bb. I see 1000bb stacks on reg tables quite often on my current site.

Anyone who could be convinced by a single hand that a site is rigged is someone who was just "waiting for the evidence" to confirm their beliefs.

I agree with you. I actually do not think it is rigged, though I do not see a lot of big high hands like straight flushes and quads, see them all the time during live sessions when they do high hand bonuses with 12tables running. I do not see this on stars cash games.

Not sure if this is intentional or a flaw, but it is certainly different than live cards. I do not think it is rigged to make people lose. I can not complain too much because I make pretty good money even on the low stakes games, but I feel that it should be easier.

The only people I ever see getting monster stacks on there are a complete donks that are losing way more than they are winning.

Truth is I am getting better at getting bigger stacks cause I am betting bigger and raising bigger at appropriate times. But I think there should be more action hands.

I am playing the 30 nl which is 25 nl in some countries, and I also multi table the 10 nl which adds up. I am doing a bank roll challenge. My goal is to make 100,000 this year at poker. So far on average I make about 500 per month playing 10 nl and 30 nl about 5 hours a day, 6 tables on average.

I do think it is a huge mistake for people to be so complacent and trusting of online poker though. Why drop your guard? It is kind of stupid to have such blind faith.

I know people run statistics, but I have found ways they can nerf these cash games and still make the expected values come out correct.

It is obvious to me from playing live poker that the amount of huge made hands like boats, quads and straight flushes happens an incredible amount of times in live games per 300 hands, probably and easily much more than you would see on stars on a 500,000 hand sample size. No doubt at all far far more than a 30,000 hand sample size, but to be safe, I would wage there are far more big high hands in a 20,000 hand sample sizse of live poker for the whole room, than you will see on all the tables of online cash games on stars for 200,000 hands. In any case there will be a huge difference without a doubt.

A few days ago, like normal I saw many quads, straight flushes and boats in just a 3 hour live session. Including a 6 high straight flush that got beat by a Jack high straight flush in about 2 minutes. A few days before I had quad 9s that got beat by quad kings in a half hour, and this happens all the time. Where are all these huge monster hands on poker stars cash games is what I am asking?
I am making money on poker stars, but I noticed early on that the action seems dull or nerfed. Now I am a good winning player and I still think this isso.

That is interesting, but are they winning players. I do sometimes see people with big stacks, but they are generally donks who are losing way more than they are winning.

In the last week I am starting to hit 400 bb stacks here and there. Jonathan Little did a great video on when to over bet and it has helped me quite a bit, as my sizing before was often to small when it should have been larger.

I am here to learn, I am still learning this game, every time I used to think I was a great player, but over the last few months I realized how much better someone can be at this game. Which is great. It is like chess, often it is easy to think you are good, but the game is just so much deeper. Anyway I am a pretty good poker player with good stats, and improving, but if I can learn from others here that is great.

I do notice things on the site that do not make sense for the cash games, and they are not bad beat complaints, I do not see all these huge big hands like I see in live games, the quads, the straight flushes, not so much from me, but from other tables when they run the high hand bonus.

I don't know if it is intentional, or just the way their system works, I do know that there is a video from poker stars of some lex luther looking clown claiming their random generator uses a laser and that sounds like total BS.

I am not saying they are cheating, or making people lose and setting people up, I am not saying any of that, my point is that the stars cash games may have had some adjustment done to make it harder for good players to dominate. You can still be a big winning player, but I believe they made it more difficult than it should be. They certainly can do this and keep the expected value numbers the same too. This happens with slot machines as well, and it would be legal no doubt.

Any adjustment to the RNG would constitute cheating by definition.

On your point about frequency of big hands, I would go back and properly consume all of the responses to your previous posts about more big hands live.

I would like to say it is cheating, but they can legally do things like this. Slot machines are set up to make a certain payout, how they make those payouts is up to the operators. Slot machines are set up to give people a lot of small tiny wins, that have been found to stimulate people to keep gambling, they slowly take the money, but they give people little wins along the way.
Nothing illegal about them setting it up that way and it not being random, the only thing they must do is pay out a certain amount each month.

I have been playing a lot of online poker and live poker and it is easy to tell that there are not nearly as many of these huge big made hands in online poker.

Have you ever played the high hand bonus at a casino? I won 3 last month, this month almost won one. I had J 9 and board came 999 lol, 26 minutes to go and someone at the last 4 minutes got quad Kings, and I was not suprised happens so often. I was at a table last month and in a half hour in our room and on different tables, about 12 running, we had quad 6s then quad 7s and quad 8s !!! consecutive numbers too, but they all beat the other out, then a straight flush beat them all out.

I see this all the time, every half hour there is typically at least two huge hands, and usually more than that. I do not see this when I play online.

I am winnning at these online cash games but I do get tired of how hard I got to work. The last 6 days I have been breaking even and it is boring after a while. I am getting it in good and still just breaking even this week. Happens I know, but if real poker played like this in casinos, no one would play lol

Also I do not mind working hard, but I think it should not be as difficult as it is. Last month I ran very well, I turned 10 dollars into almost 400 dollars in 10 days, started with 2 nl, then 5 nl, and then 10 nl.

I got pissed at running super bad and dropping to 300, and I took everything out but 15 dollars, so I ran that up again and now am at about 200 bucks in like 14 days. So from an online poker point of view I think I am doing pretty well, but I still do not think it's playing the way real cards play. Not sure if this is intentional or not, but I don't like the way online plays, though I love live poker.

Am I the only player with a good win rate who feels this way? Honestly, if I lived in Europe or Asia and had tons of tables to play on I might not even bother complaining about this BS, but in the USA we only have about 6 to 12 tables running for each stake, so it is a lot harder when I do not have a lot of tables. I can play 15 tables at a time effective ( and that is stacked on top of each other, I can only see 4 of the tables at a time when playing, but generally I am playing about half that many cause not enough good ones, at peak hours can be 12, but normally much less.

4.5% on the river sir

You think you are clever, most people who say online poker is rigged are total fish, for sure. However I win good money on Poker Stars cash games and I have no doubt that the games do NOT play the same as real cards.
The games are clearly nerfed because there are so few huge made hands. When I play any live poker at a casino,during high hand bonus people on the 12 plus tables generate many boats, quads and even a surprisingly high amount of straight flushes per hour.

Anyone who plays live poker sees this. I played well over 2 million hands on poker stars, multiply that by 6 ring tables and I have "seen" 12 million hands, and in those 12 million hands I have not seen as many quads, straight flushes in 12 million hands,then I see in a live card room in one month. In fact 2 weeks in a live cash game of 12 tables most likely is more.
How can this be? It's actually very easy to prove, but do I have to? Any smart good player out there will notice this at some point, maybe they will think it's all because their opponents play so much better, but this is no excuse, even many good players over call with suited connectors, one gapers and pocket pairs for sure.
They certainly do in the USA.

I beat the lower stakes games at 12 bb per 100. But it is very boring and I am tired of having to play so many hands to win money.

I knew from the first time I played online cash games that the action was far more subdued than what I see in live games, and we got plenty of bad players here in the usa.

If we had a huge amount of players then I probably would not bother complaining, but when you only got about 4 to 8 decent tables to play at a time, then it gets ****ing annoying dealing with how slow the action is.

For your guys in Europe and Asia, you have huge player pools, so I get it that these things are less of a concern cause you can play so many tables at a time, way more than what we have.

I do not know for sure if online cash games on Poke Stars are intentionally nerfed, but I know they do play different than a real cards in a living setting. You really have to be dense if you have not noticed this.

I suppose it does not matter cause nothing is going to change on stars, but just pointing it out. I make a living playing poker, and I am very lucky and grateful to have been able to learn poker on online cash games and with the use of poker tracker 4 to analyze my games and improve.
So that is good enough, but I point it out sometimes cause it's pretty obvious, again I do not know if Stars does it intentionally. But you have to look at it like this, if you flip a coin it is 50 50, we know with real variance you are going to sometimes get tales 15 times in a row, these things happen, but if you have a "random generator, that almost always gives you heads tales heads tales heads tales , then every now and then 3 or 4 heads, or tales in a row, then it is going to come out mathematically correct at 50- 50, but without the true variance spikes of real live games.

In a more complicated way this happens with stars cash games, possibly it was not intentional. On the bright side it really does force us to become very good and very accurate players with very few leeks, we have to or there is no way to win at online poker cash games UNLESS we are very accurate and get rid of many leaks we have.
I do not see how it is possible to get very good in a live setting if that is all you ever played. You can be the most talented poker player ever, but you will never be as good as you could be if you did not learn by crushing online poker cash games, that is the true test.

Hello, I have been recording (video) of bad beats on Pokerstars.
It is mathematically impossible to get knocked out by one outers this many times in a row in one sitting constantly.
Literally every tourney after winning a decent tourney and creating a small but decent balance.
Knocked out of games by 42 REALLY bad beats after winning a tourney for around $400.
Sorry but this is not natural.

Question: If I made a youtube channel posting this series of events, would you still be able to tell me its just my mind playing tricks on me? No way.

Ive played enough live poker to know that these one outers do not happen so frequent regardless of the more hands theory.
As that old youtuber, I guess now long gone, showed clearly, it definitely does this to certain players.
It definitely baby sits new players to hit whatever they play so they think they are good.
I started recording these to amuse myself but its no longer even funny.

The bad beats on there are most likely normal in the sense that you do not get any more than anyone else. I feel their tournaments play just fine actually.

That stuff just happens, bad beats are part of the game, only problem I have is that the cash games seem nerfed. I am a winning player, and I noticed there is not that many big action hands, so I have to work a lot harder than I should to win money off there.
Not sure if it's intentional or not, but I am a strong cash game player.

I think that I may know your channel, I am sure that Stars tournaments are NOT rigged, you will have to deal with a lot of bad beats in tournaments till you win, if you are good enough.

Believe I have seen your channel on youtube, are you a younger black guy who is a bit on the heavy side? No offense, but I am just trying to figure out who this is.

No, Ive seen that guy and TBH his videos arnt really that abnormal as far as bad beats go.
I find his comments, thought process and plays pretty questionable. Not sure what his videos really show.
I havent made a channel but certainly you would find it very odd.
Like I said its not normal to get beat out of dozens of tournaments in a row within minutes buy ridiculous calls and one outer rivers.
Runner runner miracles.....42 times in 42 games to be knocked out?
Thats some incredible bad luck or maybe Im just a terrible player putting all my chips in with the best hand.
This is not the first time this strange streak of weirdness has happened after a decent win.
I can make dozens of similar videos.
When I get a chance, i will try and actually make one and you tell me if Im nuts.
Cheers

I play SNGs for a considerable amount of my income. I multisite ACR/Ignition/Bet Online. I can definitely see and feel the difference between the RNGs on each site. Playing SNGs you see more run outs than cash games. Do I think at the end of the day its fair? Yes, but these sites are definitely skewed in some manor.

Just from reading a few of the posts you can tell who the rigtard losing players are just from the way they write the HHs.

This is one of the most interesting and exciting posts in this debate for a very long time, and could be the proof we have been waiting for.

As you can see and feel the difference, please post your stats, and tell us what can be seen as "skew" rather than the random fall of the cards. At the very least, knowing what is coming next will help us to reduce losses or increase wins. Others will be able to confirm with their stats that they see and feel the same things with those three sites, and we will all be better off.

Thanking you, in advance.

27 bad beats literally in a row today on jokerstars.
Some were absolutely amazing.
Man if I ever get to making this channel, you all will laugh your heads off for hours and hours.

Just put what you've recorded on YT. It's not difficult.

Looking forward to seeing it.

Thanks.

I have a feeling that you don't know what a bad beat actually is.