Originally Posted by Kilowatt
I hate to make rigtard accusations in this thread, but I feel it would be irresponsible not to say anything given what happened 10+ years ago on AP/UB.
In the limit holdem games 15/30 and 30/60, there is a guy who sits and waits alone for many hours at a time. He will play heads up and ring.
Every time he absolutely crushes it. He wins thousands each session. In the past 6 weeks, I've never once see him run bad. Occasionally he will lose a few hands in a row and get $1k down or so, but then comes back to crush.
He hits hands over and over and over again, even heads up. He rarely takes bad beats, and rarely seems to miss, other than check/fold type situations on the flop where he isn't losing much.
It's also rare that he takes coolers where you have something huge and he also has something big, and a lot of action goes in. When you flop big against him, nobody's home.
This doesn't even seem exactly like the AP/UB superuser situation, because it's not just a matter of him being too knowledgeable regarding what you have. It more seems like the guy just hits hands way too well, especially heads up, but also in ring.
I will say that he's also very good at knowing when he's ahead or behind, though, rarely putting in raises or bets unless he has a chance at getting you to fold or your hand is too weak to re-raise.
For example, if I check-raise middle pair on the flop, he's raising the turn if he's holding top pair on the flop, even with a bad kicker. However, if I am holding a set or two pair in the same situation, somehow he knows to just call down.
I haven't done any analysis on this yet. It's actually difficult because of the anonymous tables, though I know him by his playstyle and several other factors. It's very specifically one guy.
Keep in mind that this isn't a whine post because I'm losing. I'm actually not losing. I'm still winning on the site despite this dude. Against everyone but him, I'm doing very well.
I've been watching him not just in hands with me, but also in ring hands against others, and he just crushes every time.
Maybe it's an insane heater where he's just hitting the world, but I'm starting to get concerned.
FYI he tends to sit with funny buyin amounts, made to trick you into believing he's a fish sitting with his entire roll. So he will be sitting at 30/60 with something like $489 or at 15/30 with $238.50.
Anyone else have experience with this person? I'm definitely going to avoid games where he's present from now on, unless there's a megafish present or it's a 5-6 handed game with more than one soft spot.
Thinking about it further, the guy seems to play more like he knows what's coming, rather than what you have.
If you know what's coming, but not your opponent's holdings, you can adapt your playstyle to make the most and give the appearance to always be hitting.
For example, let's say you have J8 on the button heads up and the board comes Q94. If you can see that the turn/river is going to come 3-8, then the smartest thing to do is to check behind twice (if your opponent lets you), and to call his bet on the turn if he fires after your check. Why? Because you are ultimately going to make third pair, but aren't likely to get much calldown from worse hands if you fire, so your best option is to just get to the end cheaply and either induce bluffs or get river value out of ace high.
However, if you can see you're going to miss completely, then you can choose to either barrel bluff or just fold to any bet. And if you're going to hit something big, then obviously just fire.
I will say that there were some times where I had something like top pair plus big draw, and I would three-bet the turn in position, and he wouldn't 4-bet with better than that, even though doing so would be correct if he could see my cards (and not even hard to justify upon scrutiny).
So honestly his play is more consistent with someone who can somehow see what's coming on the board, and has tailored his play optimally to that.
If there is something shady going on, it's probably something like that.
Or maybe the guy is both really good and really lucky, and I've been unfortunate enough to run into that.
This post is more putting out a feeler to see if anyone else has noticed what I have, rather than a direct accusation.
I have not reported it to Bovada, and won't bother doing so unless others are noticing the same.