blonde poker forum

Pleno, or anyone really, who moves in these high roller circles.

I was alerted to an interview with Richard Chadwick. (I think....)

The whole thing, almost every word, just blew me away.

I just don't recognize this poker world.

Would love to hear more about these sort of things. Not sure I'd like what I hear, but I'd like to hear it, all the same.

Are ALL these guys on Staking deals? Does nobody play with their own money, & 'roll, any more? I do understand the whole staking thing, but then again, stuff like this makes me challenge it, too. What would happen if, in some parallel universe, somehow all staking was banned?  

The "reg wars" blew me away, too, it's almost like a little exclusive circle, where you need "approval" to gain admission. Just wow at how far Online Poker has come in it's short life, which is barely 15 years?


.


http://www.husng.com/content/interview-richard-chadders0-chadwick-i-stopped-my-1k-shots

Not read it but the interview is with a different guy called Richard Chadwick, you do realise that don't you?

Am way behind the times with online poker so that article may as well have been in another language :)

What does it mean when he says he 'shares the lobby' with this Dan bloke. Is that an agreement not to play eachother? Is there some sort of agreed code with all the regulars?

Ha! I get so confused. I'll edit my OP, but my point remains valid, it all seems an alien world to me.

The link was contained in a fascinating Post (which I may post, too) in which the "etiquette" & rules of who is allowed to play whom was detailed.

The whole thing just completely amazed me. There is, it seems, another online poker world out there.

The context of that Link being Posted Next Door, & some more stuff......

The chap, who has the alias Next Door of "TeddyBloat" is a really intelligent & highly articulate guy. I happen to like him, even though I have not met him, as he seems to have decent ethics as to poker generally, & has always been very helpful to me, & others, on that Community.

So, we were chit-chatting about something, he posted a 2 liner, & I asked him ro expand, as I never understood a word of what he had written.

So he replied.

More follows......

A later reply by "Teddy".....the last para in particular fascinates.

Its actually  really good system in theory, esp upto the 200's. It forces regs to play each other and means people cant bum-hunt above their level.

Good aspiring regs have clear entry goals that they can meet to get in.

Its bad for bad regs and any non professional regular as its hard to break into the divisions without skill and  time.

The politics are ugly tho. The 100's recently kicked a well known coach as his stundents were killing the members. And 200' above are closed shops without any clear entry requirements. Yoy have to force people to share by targetting some of the best in the world and making it unprofitable enough for them to be forced share. And they are very difficult to crush to the extent that it eats into their bankrolls, even making them pay the rake would be a huge achievement.

One more.....


Its a vast improvement on the behaviour that preceeded it where people bumhunted the levels and got stroppy if anyone semi-decent sat them. You had people who  couldnt beat $30 regs printing money at the $100 level.

Now if you want to play recreationals you have to prove yourself against the best regs at that level and also be willing to sit any reg that wants to move up and be willing to battle them.

Regs actually battle each other now, and the level they play at is a reflection of their skill level. It is a terrible system for bumhunters.

Stars have stated that it is none of their business who plays who. If you dont like being sat by players you cant beat either stop open sitting or move down a few levels. If you dont like queues then dont queue and sit whichever reg is open sitting. Its great for stars as reg on reg violence generates tonnes of rake and money leaves regs bankroll and flows to the site.

The politics of the higher levels where entry is near impossible without contacts or the ability and bankroll to crush the best for weeks on end is much shadier, but again it doesnt interest stars unless recreationals are put out. They dont notice anything except games firing off quicker.

In many ways its the natural equilibrium of the lobby system and  much better than cash hu where no regs ever play each other and can and do decline action.

Its a bad system for me as I would almost certainly be a bad reg at the $30s and that is the next level up for me. I couldnt bumhunt the level without being the bum that was hunted. Thats actually not a bad thing for the game. If I did gain entry to the 30's I could not simply bumhunt as I would have to defend the lobby against anyone else moving up and if I was one of the weaker members would be targetted by people battling to get in. I would constantly have to prove myself. Again that has to ve a good thing for the game.

I did seek Teddy's permission to steal his stuff.

I hope nobody wants to discuss Teddy, he just helped me (?!) by replying to my questions.

Everything about it blew me away, in much the same way that I only just realised that the "Face of Full Tilt" was $20 milly in the hole, & yet he was employed there for years.

Maybe none of this interests anyone, so be it.

Lordy Lordy, it's nearly time for me to go, I just can't come to terms with all this stuff. Thought-provoking to say the least, or at least, it is to me.

Do we have any blondes in this "system" on 'Stars? Would love to hear more about how it all works.  

These upset "regs" are laughable.  At the end of the day 80% of them are just people who can't find a job.

Cheers Tikay, that is fascinating :)   

Everything is so much more complicated than the old days!

It was to me, & you, but maybe the blonde High Roller boys will think it all perfectly normal.

Certainly opened my eyes. 

At reads as if they've essentially set up a league system, whereby to get 'promoted' from $100 to $200 you have to relegate someone down by beating them.

Haha, cartel system pretty cool I enjoyed that thanks Tikay!

Sort of like Breaking Bad but with "geeky spotty 20 year olds" in their pants living in their mums basement?

PS hasn't been a UKPC for a while eh? :P

;)

Glad you enjoyed it Alex, it was an awesome read, & eye-opener.

I have no idea what "Breaking Bad" is, so can't comment on that.

No UKPC news? Well I did say "never again", as you reminded me last time.......

Fascinating and news to me. Thanks for sharing.

Need DMorgan ITT, he could share a lot on this stuff too.

Yeah you have cartels at all stakes, it's pretty hilarious.

I don't think anybody playing cash games or hu sbags should ever be staked. Perhaps sell action of themselves in a higher game when they are taking a shot but I think only mtt players have enough variance that they should be staked.

I wouldn't say ever but in the long term. In the short term there can be valid reasons why somebody would want staking in cash games.

I saw an interview with Dan Colman and when asked about Cartels he said "no comment", is it like Fight Club? the first rule of HUSNG Cartels is you do not talk about HUSNG Cartels....fascinating reading

Does seem intriguing all this cartel type talk.

I think that's a pretty ridiculous statement pads.

Yeah if anyone wants to know anything about how the cartels/divisions work fire away, I set up the one for $100 turbos with a few others

A lot of the problems that the hypers cartels had with backers being in, some of their horses being out and the handbags/politics that comes along with it because hardly anyone in our group is staked.

These groups forming are just a natural evolution of the game with sharkystrator coming along. When you had to manual reg lobbies the big time bumhunters knew that they had no shot to get a lobby so there wasn't really a problem, but with the introduction of this software anyone that bought it could have it watch a lobby and sit when it opened up, which caused a stream of players to start joining the sharky queue knowing that they'd be able to grab the lobby for a little while and maybe get a game against a recreational player at a much higher stake than they'd be able to open sit.

The bumhunters getting games against recs takes money out of the pockets of the players that are good enough to play that stake (we can debate whether the idea of the best players being more 'deserving' of the games against recs all day, but most would agree with poker being a meritocracy) and the only way to fight it was to team up and sit these guys as soon as they get a lobby. The sharky queue was getting up to 12 or more people meaning you were waiting over an hour between games and that obviously isn't sustainable. At first there were obviously a lot of complaints from the players that were no longer able to maintain a good hourly by playing -10% ROI players all day.

It really shook things up, made regs look at each other and say 'do I really want to share lobbies with this guy?'

Some very well established regs that had great records from years ago but had fallen behind the curve got burned and tumbled down the stakes. Some people that were good and were moving up got stung in that they now had to play a lot more games against regs than they would otherwise have done to be able to open sit higher stakes.

The mechanics from the inside are we have a list of players that are not in the group but that are trying to sit the lobbies. All group members are obliged to sit these players whenever they get a lobby. Anyone shirking their responsibilities and trying to freeroll the rest of the group by not battling vs the sit list players gets kicked. The difference between the 1ks vs Coleman and most of the other groups is that you don't actually have to take a chunk of money from the group to get in, you just have to make it not worth our while to play you, so you have to beat the group over a decent sample for more than the rake. Players that are clearly stronger than some of the weaker group members get in much faster, but the reality of the poker economy is that these requirements will have to be tightened as the pool of recs slowly dries up.

The introduction of Spin n Gos on stars is the final nail in the coffin for HUSNGs imo especially regspeeds and turbos which have been in terminal decline since the introduction of heads up hypers. I actually quit heads up sngs to concentrate on learning PLO a couple of months ago.

Never knew any of this but it is absolutely fascinating.

why?

There are many reasons why someone might want to be staked to play cash games. Here is just one.

If you've got the skills to beat, say, 200NL but only have the roll to play 50NL or 100NL it makes perfect sense to be staked to play 200NL. Relative rake at 50NL and 100NL is much higher than at 200NL. In fact from what I understand 50PLO is not even beatable due to the rake. So if you're a good PLO player with a short roll you should definitely want to be staked rather than trying to grind up a roll in an unbeatable game.

Then sell % is what pleno is saying i think?

Not sure about cash staking but you should literally never need staking to play heads up stts.  If you do then you just ain't good enough to play them at the level you are.  If you have a decent enough edge to make them pay long term there should be very little variance at all.

sorry i was 99% sure id included it but i meant professionally.

Wouldn't you love to get in a time machine back to the 70s and explain what poker has become to Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim?

I also found it interesting, all very logical but slightly depressing that things have evolved to ensure that the fish get eaten as quickly and efficiently as possible. Much like a food chain where a predator that is just too successful will end up decimating it's own prey and end up starving to death.

Thanks for the input Dan, seems I was not the only one who was stunned by all this. Most of us here on blonde have been in poker a very long time, & yet most of us knew nothing of this "inner world".

Can you explain this to me, please?

The 100's recently kicked a well known coach as his students were killing the members.

They would not allow him in the cartel because he was training others to become better players?

What do 'Stars think of all this? Not fussed?

What would happen if 'Stars banned "Sharkystrator" & similar sites?

If I owned an online poker site, I'm not sure I'd be keen to allow these players to exert that amount of control over my Clients in general.

Iexcluding MTT players from that makes no sense, if you're saying that if you're a pro player that can beat certain games then you should have the ability to manage your bankroll and lofestyle costs appropriately then why different for MTT players? Yes I get MTT variance is crazy high but then if you're managing a bankroll properly that shouldn't matter, if your bankroll drops below $200k then don't play the Super Tuesday, or sell 50% or whatever it is, don't play the 100r play the big 11 instead till the br increases again, it's exactly the same.

There is no difference between a player with the track record and proven ability to beat high stakes mtts but only the br to play mid stakes getting staked for high stakes than a player with a proven track record at 5/10 online but only the br to play 2/4 getting staked (although I do accept the path from 2/4 to 5/10 is a lot smoother than mid stakes to high stakes mtts)

I think that's a comment you'd never have made a year ago.

I do think 7/10 staking deals are bad deals but plenty of perfectly viable staking deals going on.

Amazed by this

Dan

do you think many recreational players in games where these lobby cartels exist know of their existence?

what do you think they would think about them?

do you think being excluded from a "secret club" would encourage recreational players to even want to sit in these games, if they knew about it?

aren't you all contributing further to "poker eating itself" and yet more software to iron out the recreationals quicker can only negativiely affect the longevity of the games for most, rather than the few in the cartel?

I was just thinking pretty much this whilst reading the thread.

Do recreational players actually want to know about this stuff (much like the HUD's discussion), or will they still play for fun as and when they want ?

All this stuff just puts me off wanting to play any online poker where you don't have the tools to play the regs on a level playing field (actual poker skill aside).

Doesn't leave many options does it ?


This made me chuckle.  They'll have to tighten their requirements to adjust for the continual reduction of the pool of recs that they earn their money from.

Don't worry chaps, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it :)

If you were able to explain it logically its actually not really bad for rec players, except ofc they are only ever going to play pros, but they'll get there games much quicker

What levels do these cartels start at?  I assume certain levels are a free for all?

I've read this whole thing with my jaw in drop mode, but gotta say, that did make me laugh. I wonder at what stage the penny will drop?

Recreational players being able to play a mix of players (good, and not so good) is probably pretty significant to whether they continue playing.
My gut instinct, is that it's largely bad for the poker economy, long term.

All of this was detailed in Dans blog when he used to update it

Instead of stealing money from players Amaya should be concentrating on important stuff, like banning sharkystrator.

So which games is it actually safe for us fish to play without having scheming pros taking every advantage they can?

Every pro fucking hates Spin & Go, so that.

Ok lol  :)up

V interesting Dan. A couple of questions if you have the time.

You say you were in charge of the $100 cartel? Did you want to move up to $200s but found yourself blocked by the $200 cartel?

So in order to move up you had to play the very best $200 regs (you'd be on their radar / list of ppl trying to move up)? As in, they made it impossible for you to play even one sng with anyone but one of the cartel?

So did you settle at 100s because you were one of the best regs at that level but not as good as the 200 regs?

how long has this been going on dan and over how many sites?  Was it going on back in 2010 when i was playing heads up stts with you for rake races?

Just to clear up some misconceptions, I started the $100 turbos & regspeeds group, I have nothing to do with hypers which is where the idea started.


The formation of these groups isn't to send the fish skint quicker, the fish go skint at the same speed. Without the groups they still always play a reg, its just whether that reg is strong enough against other regs or not. The recs are losing to both groups of regs. It makes sure that the players that have worked the hardest on their game get to make the most money, rather than having letting the bumhunters sneak in via this registration program and get the chance to play games against weaker players that the good, established regs have fought their way up through the stakes to get access to.

The vast majority of HUSNG regs would very happily see the software banned, myself included because its impossible to get a lobby without it and it costs $400/yr.

That was from the hypers group, I don't really follow the husng forum on 2p2 any more so I don't know anything about that situation.

What I must stress though is that it is very much in the interest of the groups to be open and transparent. If it all gets political and people that deserve to be in aren't getting in for whatever reason, they have a legitimate complaint and stars will have to listen which could eventually lead to a battlenet system (blind lobbies where everyone in the player pool gets matched randomly, kinda like zoom) which hurts everyone but the very best regs, so secrecy and politics was a big no-no for me. It all went on the numbers and it was as simple as that.

This is a very interesting read. I assume Cartels only exist for HU games as there would be on need for them in games like 6-max? Is $100 the smallest stakes that the cartels exist in currently as I would have thought any lower would not be worthwhile?

Why would the fish go skint at the same speed versus better players?

Surely that's not correct.

Alpha Reg will win at a higher rate against Joe Bloggs than Beta Reg. That's what makes him the Alpha. He wins against the other regs at a higher rate, it should follow that he wins against Joe Bloggs at a higher rate than them.

I guess it's possible that all regs share the same skillset and use the same tactics to beat Joe so might have the same winrates. But the regs separate themselves when they play each other, is that what you're saying?

They have to win quicker under this system and the lower churn hurts stars profits long term as the pros withdraw a bigger % of the deposits quicker from the system.  I am amazing Stars knowingly allow this to go on if it's software driven and they can block the software.

Yeah its pretty incredible really that stars are happy to allow their lobbies to be completely controlled by a third party program.

The most insidious thing about it is that the guy who created the program (Marko) has actually banned a couple of people from using the program because they posted negative things about it on 2p2, so these guys have pretty much been denied access to the games even though they were good, established regs in the games. This has created a culture of people just not really speaking out about it because if Marko decides that he doesn't want to sell them a licence they can only ever get games against regs, and still stars does nothing because the loss of rake from these players switching to lower raked games (SNGs are big rake generators as you know) is offset by the massive increase in rake generated through the fight between the groups their sit lists.

Yeah thats not really the case at all and I guess its a reflection on the state of the games in general but how regs play vs other regs is the determinant of how good you are at heads up SNGs. If you want to find out how good someone is you're not going to sit and rail a bunch of their games vs recs and see how well they do, you're going to play them yourself.

For a long time I had better results against weaker regs than I did against fish because I had the solid fundamentals but I wasn't very good at finding/making the super exploitative plays that the guys that crush fish were making.

Actually I can think of a few guys that had crushing results (10+% ROIs over huge samples) from being able to exclusively bumhunt because they had impressive sharkscope graphs, but they didn't know any other way than to play super exploitably so when these guys were forced to move down by the guys that were good at playing regs, the fish actually lost slower.

Hyper nlo8 6 seaters.  None of this goes on there.  Look at your cards shove chips in middle.  Easy game. 

Did you see my questions about the cartel above yours dan, did you try and break into that one?

Do the recs know about it? Anyone that looks at 2p2 does, if you look at the heads up SNG board on 2p2 there are a ton of threads about it on the fist page. Contrary to popular opinion, most of the people that read and post on 2p2 are not winning players, so there are a plenty of people that know about it. There are no secrets, the lists of who is in what group and who is on their sit list are in public google docs. Short of putting a public information notice in chat at the start of every game I'm not sure what else they can do to be transparent.

As per a few posts ago, the recs don't actually lose faster because they've always been playing 100% of their games against people that are exploiting them. Its been this way for years and that isn't going to change as much as people want to gripe about it.

You'll find a heads up poker game against a non-reg in the same place you'll find the casino without a zero on their roulette wheel

$60 for turbos and regspeeds. For hypers the $30 group started last week.

It's collusion IMO.

It denies recreational players the chance to play each other.

Stars should stop this practice ASAP. In fact I can't believe they allowed it in the first place.

And you wonder why Dan Colman is having teenage angst about his life choices...

Of course the fish go skint quicker. They are never going to play a game against someone of similar ability.

They literally CANNOT win.

Think you might be right there Mr Camel. I must say though, there is part of me that likes the idea that in order to establish yourself at a level, you have to beat the tough regs over a large sample, but yeah, way too much control over the lobby.

I doubt the 'recs' know about this at all. Most of the people on this forum, myself included, didn't know about it, and while most of us ain't pros, we are poker enthusiasts and not 'recs' in the new player sense.

Yeh there's no way a guy who just fancies playing some HU sngs is gonna look on 2p2 to find the hyper turbo HU sng boards or threads to find out about any of this.

If a bunch of regular posters / pros / enthusiasts on here had no idea then they sure as hell won't. Imagine they won't be happy if they knew that there were external programs in place to ensure that if ever they did want to play, it would be against the very best regulars and never against even a weaker reg, let alone another recreational player.

I've played about 40,000 hu SNGs and I knew virtually nothing about it

The only vague thing I knew was a couple of people accused me of "stealing the lobby" when I sat v them recently.

They're basically dead anyway after the launch of spin and gos.

http://www.flushdraw.net/news/pokerstars-heads-sit-go-lobbies-held-hostage-one-man/

Nothing we haven't heard in this thread in this article, but interesting how much it seems that this one guy has such a stranglehold on the HUSNG community. Normally not the paranoid type, but given his attitude to his customers, makes me wonder if he doesn't take bungs from his customers to jump ahead in the queue.

What a strange situation. If some punter fancies a spin-up in a 1k HUSNG he will snap get matched up with Daniel Colman. It's a bit like if I started a sunday league time and instantly got a match booked with Real Madrid.

Going to forward this thread and that article to Pokerstars.

Almost unbelieveable they are allowing this to happen.

Blind registration the only solution.

I'm mates with Rob, the author, he is a top bloke, I'll invite him here I bet he has plenty to add

Hey Guys,

I'm Rob, said author of the Flushdraw article. I'm happy to try and answer any questions about the situation, but I've not really looked at it much since I wrote that article a few months ago.

I can tell you that PokerStars are aware of the situation, and actually have Sharky on a list of approved programs. To actually ban sharky, they would apparently need to ban pretty much all scripts, making any action against sharky difficult to target.

If there are any credible suggestions on how to make the games more sustainable for everyone, we're all ears.

All the preaching is getting pretty tiresome, as if people think that professional players just have this insatiable appetite for money and don't care about the long term health of the game, as if a utopian solution is so easy to come up with, thats its right there in front of our faces but we can't or won't see it for greed?

The truth is that very little has been put forward in the way of credible solutions. There are loads of ideas that would work in a world where we can all sit in a circle and hold hands while we divide the money up so that the recs don't lose too fast and we can all make a nice living from poker forever and nobody gets stung losing too much. I'm not going to debate possible solutions in this thread but I think that the sites are moving in the right direction (zoom games to counter seating scripts, targeting promotions more at recs in the form of all in shootouts and deposit bonuses rather than at regs in the form of rake races, introduction of more rec-friendly games like spin n gos) and the players are slowly moving in the right direction with high profile players like Galfond calling out unprofessional practices.

Obvious troll is obvious, I'm answering them in order

Starting to see why Colman describes the poker world as he does. Although it sounds like he has had a huge part in creating the monster he despises?

As a rec/fish thanks to tikay for sharing and others for expanding on the subject. I would occasionally play a $30 husng on stars...not anymore. It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out as more and more people like me get wind of the current setup.

Anyway,got to get back to my randomly seated low stakes mtts without a HUD.....ignorance is bliss!

If a rec is playing a few HU hypers I doubt he gives a shit anyway. U think when a rich businessman sits down in a big live cash game he doesn't realise he's a dog? some people just wanna spin or play for fun

But George, do you think the rich businessman would be happy that as he arrives in the car park a team gathers with a plan to usher him to a table with pre selected opposition with far greater skills than him? rather than just an honest up front game with no secret background plan? would it be wrong to perhaps think that from time to time he might actually play against someone where he wouldn't always be the dog?

There isn't any sort of organised group for $200 turbos/regspeeds, all of the stuff about groups being closed is specific to hypers and no I don't agree that these groups should be 'closed' under any circumstances. I'm disappointed that stars didn't step in right at the start and ban this program, even more so that they still won't step in once their games stop being a meritocracy. When players that are good enough to play higher aren't being allowed because of an arbitary decisions from other players, that flies in the face of stars' strategy of marketing poker as a skill game.

Whether the groups exist or not you still have to play the best regs when you're trying to move up. Its heads up and there is one lobby per stake, its always going to be that way and thats how it should be imo. I was a 200s reg too but whether it was actually worth it or not I'm not sure. Games were a lot tougher and there was much less volume, I spent the same amount of time sat in 200s lobbies as I did in 100s lobbies this year and 200s only accounted for 22% of my games.

$300s were the tipping point for me, once you get to that level there just aren't enough fish sitting to make it worth all the action that you get from $500s+ players that are tired of twiddling their thumbs waiting hours between games. There are definitely players in the 100s group that could make money at 200s but their ROI would be much smaller than it would be at 200s and they don't want the variance.

Two points on this

1. Most recs/fish aren't the mythical "rich businessman" who dominates these discussions. They are, IMO ofc, normal people often playing with money they can't really afford to lose and either a) wan't some entertainment value for their money or b) actually think they have a chance of winning

2. Playing against a silent and/or abusive p*** taking reg is not fun. At all.

There is this ludicrous idea, not that I am saying you think this, that all 'recs' are drooling morons who don't know what they are doing and don't care about money. Neither of those things are true for 99% of recs I would bet.

I'm going to ahead and assume that when you were crushing the $1ks it didn't cross your mind to give up your lobby just in case the next rec that came along wanted to play against another rec rather than against you.

Of course they can win, and do win about 48% of the time. Its still poker, we haven't created some black hole that swallows everyones money.

Spot on alunb

Tbh I don't actually think this is a particularly bad thing. As you say the alternative is worse. But it sounds horrendous and would 100% put any fish off playing. It makes it sound like they are being treated like livestock and corralled into games where they can be slaughtered in the most efficient way possible.

But I was happy to take on anyone who chose to sit v me.

I wouldn't sit v people whose game I respected, but if they sat v me c'est le vie.

Might be worth an article, your stuff is widly read online. 

I find this whole think to in bad taste, I no longer play on Stars at all as I felt I was just giving money away no matter what game I was playing. 

Spot on Alun.

Its the same within the groups, there is no rule about members not being able to play other members. In fact the hypers groups have a rule that if someone from the sit list joins your games, you have to give them action for 30 mins minimum.

The aim of the groups isn't to try to leverage the games so that everyone in the group plays 100% of their games against recs. We're taking the game to the regs that we consider weaker. There is way more reg warring now than there ever was before, therefore increased rake generation, therefore stars doesn't give a toss.

It wasn't a troll at all I didn't see that you were answering questions in order, I genuinely thought maybe you'd missed my post in the melee.
 

kinda off topic but a point I really wanna make;


Will Hill, Ladbrokes, Paddypower. 3 Companies with a combined networth of over £1billion.

Where has this money come from, gambling losses, people lose money at gambling, and they will always lose money at gambling. I am net lifetime 6figure£ loser at those three companies combined and within the last 18months they've all decided that they no longer welcome my business, thanks for all the cash you've lost to us taking the worst of it over the last 5 years David, but we've got half an inkling you might not be a total fucking moron so no chance to get your money back now.

In essence it's a hit and run, no subtlety, no "I'm busy right now lets play next week" just a straight nope you can have £3.74 on this 6/4 shot if you like to gamble with us. If a pro poker player did this in a live cash game would be banned from playing again.

Pro poker players in general get a severely hard time over their ethical conduct for, I believe, 2 reasons - firstly it's a more personal game, person vs person not single person vs a faceless organisation (where if you wanna take angst up with someone you have to speak to someone in a call centre) so much easier to direct the anger at an individual, and secondly, and I think most importantly, because a few particularly irritating guys who've stuck there neck out and behaved so terribly (calling people out as fish, posting on forums treating people who lose at poker like idiots who can't count to ten) their ego and lack of social intelligence and tact has, and is costing pro poker players over and over.

It comes from a mixture of social naivety, ignorance and ego.

Now people seem to think of every pro poker player as a "snake" and "vulture" just preying on the weak rec players who innocently want to gamble their money on a level playing field.

In most cases this is really a very unfair image - I've never forced anyone to gamble with me, no-one puts a gun to anyones head and says "right, you've got £2,000 in the bank, time to play at LEAST £1,000 of that at HU SNG's" a man, through his own free will has elected to play a HU SNG and as it is with stars he will 100% play a pro, but there is 1 lobby per stake on stars, the only chance he ever had of not playing a pro before was if he happened to stroll along when every reg player was in bed. It's not misleading, it's not cheating, you can't see his cards, no-one is saying "hey come play thi sHU SNG you got a great chance of winning", he isn't playing on a "no-pros" site, if someone has a real issue playing against pro poker players then they certainly can't play on pokerstars and will have to set up a homegame with their pals.

The other thing people always forget in this discussions is exactly the point Dan made, it's still poker, it's still gambling and it doesn't matter how bad you are at poker you have plenty chance to win, especially in a HEADS UP TURBO sit and go. If it was as easy as "find a punter and play him" and you snap get all his money then I'd be sat on my yacht in barbados and not typing this.

In my career my biggest single losses have often come from short(ish) very high variance games against gambley rec players and biggest wins often from long periods vs weaker pro's. It isn't a 100% skirmish for rec money like people think it is out there in pro gambling. I think the guys who leave money to lay stuff at 1000 on BF that has already finished to trick a few clueless punters into trying to sting them are worse, and it's not like any of those guys are looking to take Tony Bloom on each saturday on the PL markets.

So in answer to this question;


it's no games, and you also can't bet at any high street bookie, or play betfair - but I hear you can play connect4 over skype :P

I'm looking into it, this is the most interesting thing I've heard of in years with poker. I still haven't entirely made my mind up, but I'm certainly leaning towards this being bad for the game. I do like and have a romanticsed image of all the regs having to prove themselves to play a certain level, but I don't like the image this will have to rec players, and mostly the idea of one man having such control over a poker economy sits very badly with me (Though I will certainly be putting him in my Bluff Power 20 ballot).

I'll warn, however, that I anticipate I'll run into some resistance. The fact that this has been kept so quiet and is vastly underreported in the poker media suggests to me that great lengths have been gone to keep this quiet (In fact I'd wager Teeks & Tighty get some PMs advising them to take this thread down). I'm not basing this on any inside knowledge, I'm just being proactively paranoid.

I know he is not your fave person, but IMO the best way to get people to take notice of this is to tweet it en masse to the people's champion Daniel Negreanu. He had a lot of anti-pro things to say about Spin & Go, be interesting to see if he took a stand against this.

Who would make these PMs?

No idea, don't take my paranoia too literally, it's just unusual to me that I have never seen this reported, which suggests to me either some irate HU regs or the owner of the software might have been quite persuasive at keeping it quiet.

Question for Tikay, would you be prepared to take this down given what Barry says? 

No.

No reason to.

Following my article, certain elements in the poker world were less than happy to read it. Few are vocal about changing the status quo because they have the very real fear of losing their livelihood if they do.

Your excellent piece was heavily and belatedly edited.

Did someone from, say, Croatia, suggest you may wish to edit out any errors?.

While that is certainly a possible result, I'm going to keep my mouth shut in public on that particular topic.

You're all welcome to come and play zoom with me :p

I don't really understand why people think this is such a massive secret. Its all over the heads up SNG forum on 2p2 and Pokerstars have been reading every page of every thread about it. Here are the responses from Pokerstars reps on the issue:

'From PokerStars point of view, we don't see this is a problem as long as players are not blocked from playing a tournament when they want to. If players are forced to move down in stakes because they are not able to hold their own against the other regulars, that is not something we are going to concern ourselves with.' - 1st March 2014

'As long as everyone plays according to our TOS, we are not going to interfere in how players choose who to play or not to play. There doesn't seem to be anyone who is prevented from registering in a HU SNG tournament, but rather that it is difficult to get a seat against weaker players.

Disregarding that, I have a hard time seeing how we can or should effectively do something that will change the situation without implementing a matchmaking system where you have no control over who your next opponent will be. We did look at such a proposal about a year ago, but that was met with general disapproval in this forum. I'd like to hear it if the opinion has changed on such an alternative way of organizing the HU SNG lobbies.' - 8th May 2014

Matchmaking sounds like an excellent system, rec friendly too

Asking 2p2 guys to agree that the change might be useful would be like asking a turkey to jump into the basting tray at christmas

Surely PS would canvass more widely than this?

I really don't understand why you don't understand why others have a problem with this.  

Basically there is software that lets the better players pick on the weaker players therefore decreasing the chances of them coming up against another rec who they have a fighting chance against.  

Based on what I was told by several HU regs, a blind matchmaking system would force a lot of regs to step down in buy in levels. There appear to be several skill levels at each buy in level, and not every reg can beat every level. They use sharky to avoid the regs they know can't beat them, while concentrating on the players they can beat. It's effectively organised bumhunting, but it's how HU poker seems to work.
The edges are so small in HU SnGs that player grab what they can to make a profit. It was the same pre Sharky, but the program has just automated the process, and removed the option for players without the software to game select in any meaningful way. They only way that no-one is going to be inconvenienced (in my opinion) is for Stars to implement the Sharky functionality into the client, allowing all players to work from the same point. Stars would also make the process a lot more transparent, which compared to the current situation can only be a good thing.

I'm sure that Dan agrees with you completely about the software and would be delighted if it did not exist, or if Stars decided to prevent its use by banning it and/or changing their coding so that things like seating scripts can't work. In fact, he says so himself:


However seeing as the software does exist, and since Stars are not interested in doing anything about it, it appears this cartel system (which I had never heard about either) is simply a way for the better regs to force the worse regs to play them rather than simply bum-hunting the recreational players.

It sucks that a recreational player will basically never get to sit with another recreational player. But that is caused by the existence of the seating scripts, not the cartel systems. I agree though that the whole cartel thing does sound horrible and very off-putting. I would certainly not ever jump into a HU SNG to have a bit of fun (I'd obviously be a losing player at HU SNGs) now that I know that this stuff is going on.

The solution would be for Stars (in fact all poker sites) to ban these seating scripts. And they should ban HUDs whilst they are at it - I imagine a lot of pros would be delighted if they did. I certainly would.

Don't blame the pros for the existence of things like seating scripts, HUDs etc. They didn't invent these programs, and many of them would prefer they did not exist. But since they do exist, and others are using them, then what choice do players have but to also use them?

Ban seating scripts, ban HUDs, ban any other program like this IMO.

Totally agree with the above.  I hardly  play online these days as I think there are too many tools used.

I suppose had I learned to use them myself a few years back I may feel differently but I prefer being able to try and put the information together myself.  Previously if bored I had never bothered about opening up Stars and firing up a few HUSNG's haven't done so in a while but definitely wouldnt now having read this thread. 

they will be playing each other very soon.  No one else will be left.  Just let them kill the games themselves.  They are doing a great job of doing so themselves.  This news breaking just makes it even more likely it happens sooner rather than later.  It's not about what actually happens and whether it's automated compared to manual.  It's about the perception is gives to the casuals when they find out what's going on.

This is absolutely untrue

Before sharky, the pure bumhunters knew that they couldn't open sit higher because they would instantly be sat by a reg at the higher stake. With the sharky blind queue system anyone can buy the software and it'll let them grab a lobby at the higher stake when they get to the front of the queue.

Word gets out that they can do this, get lobbies unchallenged. Now imagine the heads up hypers lobbies where it takes just seconds to be sat by a rec, to the point where it is impossible for an establsihed reg to police the lobbies on his own. You get a situation where there is a queue 50 players long for a lobby, filled with players that could never hold their own at that stake if challenged by the regs. So there are now 35 players in this queue that are getting maybe 5 or 6 games per hour (because they have nobody marked to sit, they only ever go for open lobbies) and taking that EV out of the pockets of the established regs that fought their way up the stakes in the 'traditional' way before the creation of sharky.

These 35 players that are pure bumhunting would never have had a shot at getting that EV before sharky, so it isn't just an automation of the process, it creates a problem that never existed pre-sharky. Hence the solution (forming groups to fight off the tide of bumhunters) is something that would never have been necessary pre-sharky when the bumhunters knew that they never had a shot to get good action in games in which they couldn't hold their own against the regs, and so the regs could just act independently and the games would regulate themselves.

Dan, I don't fully understand how it all works - I only heard of the seating script and cartel system today! So can I ask you a question?

Is it the case that the cartel system actually might make things slightly better for a recreational player? Because it keeps a lot of the weaker bum-hunting regs (who would beat up the recs) out of the games, and so there is a better reg/rec balance. Which means there is at least a TINY chance that a rec may occasionally get to sit with another rec. Or have I misunderstood?

One thing I am pretty sure I have understood correctly is that it is the seating scripts that are causing the problem, not the cartel system. Seating scripts, HUDs and other such things are very bad for the long-term health of poker. It would be better if they had never been created, and it would be better if they were banned. But Stars are not going to do that are they?

Maybe stars should set up 2 divisions, the winning players and the losing players, and one cannot play the other  ;whistle;

Surely it would be very difficult to ban HUDS, since someone would be able to figure out a way in which one could operate through the bans? Like I'm fairly sure it would be possible to get a HUD to work on sky poker, and I'm sure if a site as big as stars came along and banned them someone would work out a way around it.

One way of stopping HUDs would be to stop HHs being stored locally, basically give players no access to their hand histories. That way, PT/HEM would have no data on which to create its stats.

I am sure this is not the only way though.

I do realise that if HUDs/seating scripts etc are going to be banned then it must be possible to police the ban effectively - either to actually prevent use through technical means, or to make sure there is a reasonable chance that someone using it can be caught. Or both preferably. Because if something is banned but people who break the ban are very unlikely to get caught then all that you are doing is giving a massive edge to the minority of unethical cheats at the expense of the ethical majority who follow the rules.

I guess one issue with policing a ban on HUDs and seating scripts is that this likely requires Stars to spy on peoples' computers - have software that tells Stars what other programs are running on a users' computer whilst they are playing on the site. I imagine that most people would find this an invasion of privacy.

Why not have a poker site with no hand histories full stop?  Why do you need them?  You don't get recorded hand histories when you play live.  No casual player ever looks at HH's just the winners. You would make more money getting rid of HH's in rake as the pro's edge would be smaller and the rake would churn more plus you could sell it to the casual's better saying they had a better chance of winning.

I think this would be a great idea.

Someone did.  It was stopped within a day.

Correct.

It did not require any invasive software either, and the system cannot be circumvented.

It does come with some drawbacks, but it works perfectly, and those drawbacks would not bother any recreationals.

The sad fact is that we are all drawn to the huge prizepools that stars offer.  It has to be stars to change.  There are a couple of small sites that don't allow any third party software and work to make sure that is stays that way.  Hopefully this way of thinking catches on within the industry IMO.

Hand Histories have some good - all the major collusion problems that have been solved have been because we have hh's to analyze. Shitty trade off I know...

On Sky Poker I suspect the traffic volume and user base of Skyscraper wouldn't make it worth keeping up the effort to rewrite the hand history capturing method, whatever it was, as and when Sky Poker blocked it.

Now if PokerStars or Full Tilt were to ban the use of tracking software / locally stores hand histories I'm absolutely certain someone would just write a screen scraping program to create them on the fly.  

I'm sure some enterprising programmer in Croatia would be on the case.   ;)

the company could keep these for collusion reasons but not make them available to all.

No. The sites would still be able to access them.

I'm almost certain that the way that Sky has stopped HHs being accessed couldn't be cracked and it would be instantly detected if it was.  Its a pretty simple system actually (well from how I understand it)

Correct.

FYP

RIP Winamax

Agree there :(  How easy is it to get a french bank account :(

I agree, but the sites dont exactly have the best record at spotting collusion - afaik most of the big ones (Chinese stud being the best known one but most bot issues are spotted by players, not pros) because the players analyze the games using HM/PT. The sites dont do this.

Just ban poker

Some site don't allow or facilitate HM/PT.

On a smaller site such as Sky I'm not worried that much about collusion - big rings are less likely to target it as less money to be made, and I have confidence that the site will spot most collusion problems when a player reports them as its easier to investigate due to less hands to observe (I dont believe there are very many 24-tablers on Sky, for example).

On a site like Stars, with millions of hand histories per day, I believe that it's less likely that the site will spot the collusion as they will get so many reports that not everything can be investigated properly (eg a bot group all 24 tabling is a lot of tables). Hence why the players of that game will do it themselves by looking at their hand histories.

This is what I mean by hh accessibility being good in a way.

I'm not sure conflating HuDs and Sharky/Cartels is going to help anyone.

They are two very different issues in my mind, and I don;t think trying t cover everything off in 1 thread is going to work.

Agreed, they are separate matters, but in true blonde style, some range merging arose. .

We've come a long way from the 'Sunday Lunch', and 'Actionjack's Who's the Daddy?'

:D

But who is the daddy?

I was twice I think, so that just goes to how fked it all was back then  :D

Weren't you multi accounting back then mickey  ;whistle;

Who wasn't :D

Best thing was you were allowed to play other people's accounts on there...

I lost count of the number of accounts I had with will hills, betfair etc  :D

People just need to understand 2 things.

If you wanna play HU poker on the Internet, you're playing a pro, no questions. Stop acting like that means you'll snap do your money, it just means your prolly a dog as a rec player. Still very good chance of winning and individual session. This is the same for me, if I wanna wait for 8 hours I can get Rec action, if I decide i want to play some HU today then without all the patience in the world I'm playing vs pros. I don't care either!

HUDs are not built to crush amateur players, they are reg vs reg tools - thinking that you, as a recreational player, are at a disadvantage because "all the pros have HUDs" and you don't is just wasting your own time, until you have 10,000 hands stored on people it's not worth thinking about.

Just relax and enjoy playing, it's not the case that every pro is sat at home inventing software to make sure you only have a 3% chance of winning every time you play.

You miss the point there though Dave, even though you may well be correct. Recreational players think, & are utterly convinced, that they may not be playing on a level playing field.

That is their perception. Fine words from you & me won't ever change that.

I don't want us to go off-topic here, but, by volume, 95% or so of poker players are recreational. I don't know what the exact numbers are, but I'd bet very good money that, collectively, they spend far more in rake than the Pros. I'm not into Pro-bashing, not at all, but the game is more about recreationals. (I'm utterly astonished that 'Stars listened to advice on 2+2).

Recreationals neither need nor want third party software. Slowly, more & more sites are reailsing this & are starting to gain market share by banning them. Many here may not like that, but it's a fact, & one which is meaning those sites are attracting more players, who are staying longer.

I suspect that very few people who have read this thread would object if all third-party software were banned. If they don't think so after reading this thread, they never will!  

Well over 100 types of third party software are permissable on PokerStars. Another 100 or more have been banned.  

I guess it's all about what 'Stars decide.

You're absolutely right Tikay.

I just wish a) the software would be banned (would certainly benefit the best pros if you banned any type of software) or (more realistically) b) people stopped talking about it.

It sounds so much worse than it is, sky do a very good job catering to the aide of rec players IMO.

It just send such the wrong impression this type of stuff.

They are the work of the devil, imo.

By chance, a thread about Seating Scripts started on 2+2 two days ago, & is trundling along merrily.....


http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/pokerstars-showing-no-effort-banning-regulating-seating-scripts-terrible-management-1483834/

Incidentally, it took exactly one post for this to appear....


SScripters should be beaten to death with baseballs bats and then set on fire...

A tad extreme, methinks.

Yes.

I feel sort of embarrassed to be part of the poker world at times when I see all this stuff. Fortunately, it does not affect me personally, as I play small-ball, within my means, & with my own money, not stakers money. 

Cartels, organised groups, seating scripts, surely poker was not designed to go down that road?   

Off topic again, but seating scripts really are the absolute low of the low.

Basically allows people to burgle a living off poker without the required skills.

Do 'Stars knowingly allow them?

Tikay, I think stars listen to 2p2 about hu sngs because a large majority of the player pool are pros who post on 2p2. That's not the case in other forms of the game as you say, quite the opposite. But in this form of the game (at least at the $30+ level) it's mainly pros all fighting over a few recs.

Aah yes, that makes sense Alex.

It just sort of made me think that the average 2+2 Poster is not exactly your average recreational player, & if 'Stars were listening to those guys, they would not be getting a balanced view.

For the record, I think 'Stars are, generally, awesome, & nothing that has arisen lately, inccluding the Deposit thing, has made me change that view. I do think, though, that if they had their time again, & could wind the clock back, they may have taken a different line with 3rd party software, especially stuff like Seating Scripts.

Honestly, if these Seating Scripts stories were real, I'd never play on 'Stars again, for all that I admire the site immensely.

Tikay, I kinda think from a recreational point of view it still is a level playing feel. Part of the definition of a rec is that they don't play loads, and certainly on zoom its basically impossible to have enough of a sample on the majority of recs to make proper HUD reads. You can make some basic ones, but these are exactly the same "reads" that I would have after half an hour of playing with them live. Vs the regs however, with 10k + hands on them and a HUD set up which you actually know how to use, you can make ridiculously profitable decisions based on reads you would just not have live.

I guess what I'm saying is you should all play zoom :D

Pros also need to understand two things

1) People who play for fun don't want to play only against pros, or even mostly against pros. Some people don't want to play against them at all. I would personally be much happier (as a rec) to know I was never playing a pro when I donk off my hard earned online. Saying this is the reality is fine, but it's a reality that will undoubtedly put off a lot of people from playing once they come to understand it. As a rec I don't want to play in a game where I definitely positively won't win in the long term. I might as well just play roulette.

2) It's hard enough persuading most people the RNG isn't rigged so good luck telling them about the subtleties of tracking software. And even if it's just a tiny non-meaningful advantage you gain by using it against a rec it's still a small advantage. It's not a level playing field. It's not a huge advantage, but it can't be a hindrance. Whatever, either way they aren't good for the image of the game. But they won't get banned because volume would drop off a cliff.

I think your earlier point was very well made though. Some of the anti pro sentiment stems from jealousy without doubt.

I am and out and out Rec and will always be classed as such, but I won't be mugged off if the game isn't fair I will l stop playing/look else where.

Isn't one of the big name the one who wouldn't give interviews after the one drop, I assumed he had some scruples.

I imagine these have always existed.

Poker has reached its present state through evolution rather than design.

I think if recreational players want to play a game where they "definitely won't win in the long term" then they should realise by now that online poker (at least at any decent stakes) isn't for them. If you want to have a game of online poker for half decent money once a week, then you will almost certainly be a losing player in the game. It's 2014, gone are the days where everyone just plays poker for fun. There are no free lunches anymore. Even live, every game is 10x tougher than it was even 5 years ago. Watch that "Million Dollar Deal" Documentary (thread in the rail) and see the state of the game 20 years ago, it was a joke, nobody had a clue what they were doing or why. You'll find tougher 0.50/1 cash games in gala nottingham than in that WSOP main event.

Now, it's just not a game you can play recreationally and still have a positive expectation. (online poker, half decent stakes, that is). The people that win are the people that work the hardest, put the most hours in and are the best. Why would a recreational player be able to stroll into a game and be a winner?

I couldn't just fire up a few HU sngs and be a winning player. I played thousands of them 5/6 years ago and was a half decent winner. But since haven't played them at all and will have fallen massively behind the curve and would certainly be a loser whether I played the best reg or a weaker reg. I could work hard, put the hours in and maybe become a winner one day, as could a recreational player. But why should I be a winner if I'm not willing to do that?

I don't see why recreational players think that they deserve (for want of a better word, not trying to be nasty) to be able to have this magical situation where they can not think about poker all week, get on with their jobs, spend time with their families and then play a couple of $100 sngs and be +EV. It just doesn't happen anymore.

People keep going on about level playing fields. You're right, it's not a level playing field. You're playing with people that put the hours in, work at their game, put in huge volume, spend money on tracking software, time learning how to use it etc and all of that makes them a better player than someone who doesn't. So what?

If you want a friendly game of poker where you can still have a positive expectation, go down to your local casino and play the nightly comp there, or play the £0.50/1 cash game. Or fire up some $2 spin n gos. Because in 2014 if there's decent money on the line, then there's hoards of professionals willing to put in the work to trying to earn it.

No no Alex.

Most recreational players KNOW they will lose, & are, up to a point, quite happy to invest £25 or £50 per week to have a little poker fun. They are.

What they do NOT want is to be mugged. Thats a very different thing. If they knew that a bunch of guys were fighting to have the right to play them - & could pick of the best seat too - they'd be less than happy.   

They KNOW they will lose long-term, & don't mind. They just don't want to be mugged.

What tikay said. When I said positively definitely will lose I meant you aren't even allowing recs to pretend to themselves for a bit or sometimes play against players of a similar standard or, amazingly, worse than them. Believe it or not there are worse poker players than me online. But apparently in HUSNGs or heads up cash I will never ever get to play them. That IS being mugged off.

I was retorting to this comment Tikay.

Your $100 probably does have a similar expectation on roulette to playing a SNG as a recreational player to be frank. As would mine I might add!

Read that back to yourself. Is that really what you want to tell the tens of millions of potential recs out there? Is it? Really?

Oh and see above to previous point. I take your point, but that wasn't really what I meant.

FWIW Alex I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Pros are obviously not the enemy here. That's not what I meant at all. Just there is no denying, especially at pokerstars, historically they have had WAY too much influence on the online poker world.

Yes. I don't mind people knowing that.

Fair enough. It's poker as a sport. Where the only ones who win are those who put a lot of time and effort in.

It's an image of the game that every poker room subscribed to for a while. But then they realised it alienated the vast majority of potential players and did an abrupt about face. That's kind of where we are now.

I am incredulous at this

eventually the pool of players dries up, and you have no game

surely part of the Pro's role in the poker ecology system is to be at least in part outwardly altruistic to ensure the longevity of your chosen career?

Nobody is fighting to play the people that want to spend £50 p/w to have a little poker fun ?

And tons and tons of people who aren't winning players win, obv.

Maybe Alex didn't word it perfectly, but you only need to be a winning player to win money if you plan to play a huge amount of poker, otherwise just run good and win then go do something fun will all them $s you just binked, simples.

The only recs that need to care about this are those playing mid-high stakes heads up games, how many of those people are posting itt ?

Threads blown way out of proportion imo.

I think the thread is full more of people unwilling or unable to see things from the opposing viewpoint (including me no doubt).

So just like every forum thread in history then...

I think this is a good point, but it's worth bearing in mind that's not really what people are talking about here IMO.

It's more the clinical approach of a certain sub set of pros and the absolutely horrendous and damaging IMAGE that presents to recs.

None of what you said is untrue, but what we are talking about is a situation where you are going to face a pro 100% of the time and 100% of the time are going to lose in the long term (or to be honest short to mid-term). That absolutely SUCKS. Would any losing player willingly enter into that?

Sure it only exists in mid to high stakes HU games for NOW. But it's logical to assume it will become more widespread. I mean how many recs will I find playing $100NL six max these days on stars at an average table? Especially once they've seen my stats :)

Tighty the less recs playing online sngs, cash etc the better for me. Remember I play primarily live cash games, live tournaments for a living, so have no interest in promoting those games. The opposite if anything.

Live games are still fun, winnable for anyone and more of "level playing field" that's for sure. People can win for months, even years beyond their expectation playing live (look at previous winners of multible DTD majors, GUKPTs etc), and can also be legit +EV in many live cash games and tournaments.

Dan can explain points in regards to that better than me, and I think he maybe already has no ?

I don't think that any recs really expect to have a positive expectation but they would like to have the chance to play against someone that is their equal or worse and this completely takes that away from them.  If you never feel like you are the best player in the game then you are basically just going to stop playing.  Under the old system the recs probably got beat 90% of the time by better players but occasionally they might get a weaker player that they get a poorly thought through bluff against or who bluffs too much and they pick up on it etc etc.  Those little moments are what makes poker playable and fun for the recs and it just seems as though this system takes it away from them completely which seems counter productive to me.

I could be wrong about this but I'm pretty sure that before this software was invented it was still very very unlikely for a rec to find himself playing vs another rec, almost certainly so at the higher end of mid-high stakes, but it wass just harder work for the regs in doing so.

No. He hasn't. He made some very good points as to why it exists and will likely continue to. But it sort of sits to the side of what I'm saying. See above from redarmi. That's pretty much exactly my point.

Didn't he make a detailed post about how it doesn't really effect the recs much and is much more of an effect on the weaker regs ?

Its 100% an image thing and I agree that it does LOOK terrible, possibly it was a mistake for me even talk about it, but people are blowing this way out of proportion in terms of who can or can't win


I mean come on, we're talking about playing $100 heads up SNG regs here not Phil Ivey. You think I never made a bad bluff or a play that looked silly and had a rec creasing up in chat having a great time telling me all about how terrible I am?

The image of midstakes regs studying every hand and solving for GTO so that a rec can never win a dollar from them is so so far off. I'd wager that most mid stakes regs in any format haven't review hands on a consistent basis for a good while. Thats why they are midstakes regs and not high stakes regs. Joe Bloggs still has a great chance to win sitting down with a glass of wine to play a few heads up sngs and that is an indisputable fact. As I said earlier, its still poker.

The overwhelming majority of people that I speak to if it poker comes up, their reaction isn't 'I'm never playing poker against you!' its 'we should play!'

All this torch and pitchforks against pro players and the bluster about how the games are now IMPOSSIBLE to beat for recreational players is pure scaremongering, and the vast majority of it comes from people who having been around the gambling world for a long time, should know better IMO.

It is pure coincidence that I decided to post about this stuff a couple of months after I quit HUSNGs. A lot of the same questions I answered on my short lived blog at the start of the year on blonde when I was a reg in these games.

Edit:


Yes, to be able to log on to stars and sit the player in a mid stakes heads up SNG lobby and have the other player be a rec you're probably looking at about 2008 maybe 2007.

Yes. And it was very well made. It's also true that he and others made a good point that it has long been the case that you were 100% playing against pros in these games.

But that doesn't really change what I am saying. Maybe I'm just not making my point very well, or maybe nobody cares. Probably a bit of both.

Excellent post IMO.

And this particular point almost certainly has been blown out of proportion. But probably only because it represents a very small part of a much wider issue. And it's a really interesting story.

I don't think anyone is saying the games are impossible to beat for a rec. I'm certainly not. That's not really the point.

yeh, very good point. and here lies another problem, stuff that would look shady to the recreational player, but that really isn't - or at least it's really not shady, it's pro's conspiring to out-do/think other pro's not to cheat the recreational player, the best way to handle this would be to keep it very quiet, but then when you attempt to hide something then that, ofc is going to look very shady...

When people say "a level playing field" they dont mean they're not playing against players who are better than them, they mean they are playing on a level set of resrouces, like a live poker game, 8 guys sit round a table, everyone has chips, every hand they get dealt cards and off we go, if John happens to be much better at poker than Chris, will hopefully for Chris he catches some cards, no reason why he can't.

would certainly be a slight on there intelligence to think they only wanna play vs people weaker than them.

In line with my earlier point, I think, understandably as well imo, due to the attitudes of a minority of pro players a lot of recreational players are a little overly sensitive about how pro's view them. Like i say I've lost a lot of money in high variance spots vs weaker players, and when that has happened I've tapped the table, said Nice hand, Well Done and go along with my life, and the vast majority of pro's are the same - and that's what we all want right? At the end of the day I'm gambling my money too and yeh I might have the best of it but I'm still playing the game.

If recs want to play a game where they definitely can't win long term then i would suggest online poker is the perfect game for them to ensure they always lose.  Online poker seems exactly the game they are looking for.  I assume you haven't worded your opening statement correctly.

ps i agree with everything else you say which is why i don't play poker anymore online.

Without blowing smoke up your arse Dave, as you know I'm a fan, if everyone in poker thought like you and approached the game in the manner you do then we would be a much better place. Sadly they don't so we're in a place that kinda sucks.

@arrboy, yes wrong way round obv

Frankly, it's hard to be a worse player than Chris, but he is living proof that catching cards is more important.

W
A
L
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Worth a read http://www.thempn.eu/blog/scripts/

Good read, always enjoy Alex's stuff.

I get his point about anonymous tables, but my fear with them is that they actually open pandoras box or recreational players. They see a table is anonymous, so they ask why, and they discover that online pros have sophisticated methods for finding weaker players as soon as they sit down. Sure they will realise they are safe at the anonymous table, but it overall paints poker in a bad way.

Thought about one good thing about this cartel lark. If you are a rec and ever fancy a punt on a $100 HUSNG, you can play it and if you win it, you can type your favourite movie quote in the chatbox, stuff like:

"Tell your crew there is a new sheriff in town"

"This is my yard now"

"Take me to your leader"

"yeah bitch, go run to your boss and tell him I'm waiting for him"

And so forth.

Die, bad robots! Die!

(http://deadhomersociety.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/itchyandscratchyland4.png)

Good stuff, & I'm pleased o see the matter is still exercising your mind.

Might we see an article from you about the whole matter soon? If so, don't worry about Mr Croatia, he don't bother me none. Well a bit, like.