Online Poker (1 Viewer)

Hi guys,

I play a lot of poker online, very addicted

Any body else here play poker online?

For those of you who dont play yet, there is a good deal at www.freepokerinfo.com/incentive.jsp that I found.

They pay for you to open 2 real money accounts !

So basically you can play with $100 for FREE

Anyway, just thought it was pretty cool

Nevermind.

I used to play at ultimatebet.com and I am now looking into pokerroom.com

I had never played online poker before last week. A friend turned me on to www.pokerroom.com.

Nice site, but it took an act of congress to get my billing information completed.

Paul

I play at party poker, you get a lot of people who dont know what they are doing, and I win a decent amount of money

I also second partypoker. Its the largest online poker site on the web by far. Therefore it has alot of new players and money to be made for those with experience.

However for you out there learning, I recommend Pokerstars.com. They are the second largest poker site, and have tons of smaller limit tables in which you can get some real money practice.

is pokerstars owned by party poker, I know they own a few

No but Empire Poker, Intertops Poker, and Mult-poker are all basically skins of Party Poker (players from each can play each other).

Won $200 last night

I like the interface for ParadisePoker.com...

Make that $375 for the whole weekend

Has anyone that has played real money NL Hold 'Em tournaments on Party Poker ever read about the accuasations/rumors of there being an rigged element?

I've read some grumblings about how there seems to be an inordinate amount of bad beats and coincidental deals that help knock out players quickly. Why get players out quickly? So they get into another tournament and donate another entry fee to Party Poker.

For instance, someone dealt KK with another dealt AA at the same time. I've seen this about five times in about thirty tournaments I've played.

Or unusual large percentage of river thrashings. Just today I got rivered holding KK and my opponent had AJ. Now I understand poker and I understand this happens but it seems to happen at a much larger percentage rate. It also seems like the short stack suffers greatly. A short stack goes all in with AK and an opponent calls with a far less hand only to flop trips or a straight to completely obliterate the short stack.

Maybe I'm dreaming

No. My brother and I have noticed it too. We stopped playing online because of it. Little bro has a couple of college friends that make a few thousand a semester and they will tell you the same thing.

I used to think this as well. But you'll slowly come to the realization thats just poker. It happens in live poker, it happens online. You notice it alot more because online you are dealt almost 3 hands in the time it takes 1 in live play.

KK being beat by AJ is not crazy. In fact KK will win that match up only around 70% of the time (not incredible odds). Same with AK getting busted by small pocket pairs. AK is a slight underdog to even a pocket 22.

I have no proof for either side, but it makes no difference to me, im still makin tons of money.

Noah, as I pointed out, I agree it's not crazy.

But I also think there is something to it. This happens on all-ins, not on just standard play. I started keeping tabs of what happens in all-ins. I do know what the odds are when cards are up against each other and the short stack loses a significant amount of time more than the larger stack even with the stronger all-in hand.

I've played many home tournaments and I never see the amount of straights pulled on the river to one card during an all-in situation. Likewise with flushes. River bad beats that should occur 7% of the time, I have around 40%.

Mark, do you have a recommendation of another poker site that doesn't exhibit this behavior?

Not really. I'd have to ask my little bro's friends. But I think they'll tell you that the sheer amount of suckers on the most popular site (PartyPoker) makes up for it. They're mostly CS and EE majors who sit there with multiple windows going and even playing like that they can still take a lot of money off of people. Took em a while to get like that (one guy was down several hundred before he 'learned'). My little bro quit when he was up enough to finance his new computer. I've thought about playing for serious money, but dicking around on the free tables was enough to scare me off (way too many bad beats. 89 unsuited beats AA 70% of the time with a straight...)

I play PartyPoker for play money and am finding it hard to build up my stake. There is little incentive to fold so it is not unusual to see $5/10 games with raises to $20 before the flop and 8-10 players in. That is when you get really p*ssed when your AK two pairs get beat by some guy/gal who plays there 4-5 off suit and beats you at the river. What I see more often is that I have something like A-8, get two pairs and loose to A-9 two pairs. It will be awhile before I lay down real cache.

Yea that's why I don't play anything but no limit tournaments, though as I mentioned, it's becoming increasingly annoying to be dealt KK and lose a majority of the time.

It happened to me yesterday in the $20 buy-in. Unfortunately, I had just been moved to a new table and had zero information on the players there. Someone in front of me went all-in with a small stack (~225 in chips). I doubled that bet to chase away any random callers and got raised to 2000. Thinking my kings must be good at that point, I pushed all-in and got immediately called by the pocket aces. The board didn't help either hand. I still had 390 left after that, but I had no opportunity to recover.

About bad beats in general at partypoker. I'm down $350 after a few days. That sounds like I suck, right? I've flopped top two pair, sets, straights, and Ace high flushes only to have them all beaten on the river by guys who were calling with bottom or no pair to runner-runner draws. It's insane how bad these guys play. I just seem to be abnormally blessed with bad luck to repeatedly be the one who gets drawn out on. None of these bad players can be making any money because they donate it all right back to someone else. That's why I can't walk away, because if their 9 to 1 or 23 to 1 underdog prayers don't come true then I'm watching my stack climb easily.

Listen to me whine. It's just a bad streak. It's just a bad streak. It's just a bad streak...

Brad

Bad beats are a good thing. It means some idiot is following you with little chance to win. Statistically he will lose in the long run (thats why its called a bad beat) and you will win his money. There are thousands of these players on partypoker making playing there very profitable.

I had many of the same worries you guys did when i first started. But then I realized its due to the fact that you are dealt 3x as many hands online, combined with the fact you are more likely to remember the time your AA got cracked as opposed to when you won the pot without making it to showdown.

Losing your first $100 to badbeats isn't unheard of, its normal variance (especially in ring games). All worries of a fixed system will disappear when you make your first big cashout (assuming you actually are a good knowledgeable player who has been playing for a long time).