Quote:
Originally Posted by complexion
I can't possibly be the only one concerned about the amount of Russian players on the highest stakes on BOL? There is an average of four Russian players at any given table 400nl+ when I play, whom not to mention all play very similar and show many shared tendencies. It is NOT very common IMO to have regs multitable literally everything from 1/2 to 5/10 as many tables as possible,yet most of these Russian accounts seem to do so.
At the very least it's save to assume some of these players know each other ( and therefore talk to one another about playing, whether it's during their session or not. More likely IMO is that this is a group of people that just systematically play everything and collude . Another option is ( based on the ridiculous amount of hours and tables they play all the time ) that it is either one guy who has several bots running on different accounts, or several people running a bot. Again I would like to refer to their (largely) similar playing styles and table tendencies.
I remember reading a thread about Party and how several of the biggest winners anywhere from 1/2 to 5/10 were all ran by a bot. Save to say it would be possible that the same thing is happening here.
I don't have any evidence to back up my theory. All I am going off is my years of experience playing online cashgames. I apologize for stereotyping and just talking about Russians as a whole, as I am sure there are some of them that are just hard working grinders like me. Needless to say I would be a far happier man if BOL would for example limit the amount of Russian players to 1 per table ( not that this is ever going to happen and it does sound discriminatory ). I am posting this because I want to find out if some of the other regs feel the same way, and if so if anything could be done about it. The last couple sessions of 5/10 I have played, the recs at the table were commenting on how they 'were playing against Russian cheaters' and how 'it's obvious that they all know each other' etc. If not for us regs, it would be at least important to offer an environment where the recreational players are not feeling as if they are literally playing a bunch of cheats all located somewhere in the same country.
Thanks
Your not alone in this.
Let me start off by saying i actually really enjoy playing BOL and i think there is a lot of good action.
Secondly im not you typical 'i cant win so the site is rigged and im being cheated' people.
Im a regular at BOL. I disapear here and there for months at a time when im focusing on live play but ive played here regularly for a good while now
Im not a pro. This is not my main source of income. Im not crushing the games. Im winning over a large sample but i have a lot of improving to go. Im not the best im not the worst.
I regular between NL25 - NL200
There is something going on with a lot of the Eastern European players. Idk about bots. Idk enough them. Ive heard conflicting info about winning bots at NL not even being very possible, yet. I also dont worry to much about them because i feel like a good player should be able to beat a bot, especially if you suspect them and play accordingly.
But there is without a doubt collusion going on, and something that happened to me 2 nights ago confirmed this for me.
I was at a 6max NL5O. me and 3 players from random european countries. I got the vibe that they were playing against me together. So i sat out. For awhile. Not 1 hand out of a good 100 i sat out for did they create a raked hand, not 1. Then another USA player joined. Raked hands again only when he was in the hand. On chat i told him to sit out and why. He did. Again not a single raked hand. Not 1.
This is by no means proof. But proof enough for me. Confirming what i already believed.
The unfortunate fact of this (pretty great action) site is this stuff is happening, and either BOL is ill-equipt and ill-informed enough to know and stop it, or they dont care.
However all that said doesnt stop me from playing there. I dont have many other options and even so i think the action is great. But i do my table selecting accordingly. I have every non US player marked and easily recognizable (i dont think they are ALL involved, i think tigergaming brings plenty legit players, some very good.
I think if you play here you should take this information into consideration and make your own decision about it, and play any suspected players accordingly. I still enjoy playing here regularly.
Today especially there seems to be a whole lot of non reg USA players and the games are especially easy to beat.
I dont think BOL has malicious intent, i think they just dont really even know all that much about the game, and its just anothrr gambling avenue for them to bring in money. Which unfortunately created a beautiful environment for anyone to carelessly collude or test out bots without much worry of being caught