Tag Archive for Texas Hold’em
Goodbye Online Poker
Online poker in the US is slowly dying. And no… It’s not because of the new legislation. As I have told you many many times before, online poker is rigged. It seems that the online gambling legislation has resulted in millions of players migrating to the few poker sites that are still “US Friendly”. However, those sites are seemingly cheating the lo limit players more and more and more and more. Almost blatantly without trying to even hide it. Why? Because you WILL redeposit. YOU HAVE NO OTHER OPTIONS!
More and more of my poker playing friends are saying the same thing “I’ve stopped playing online.” Or… “I really haven’t played online in awhile.” Why is this? It’s not as a result of the legislation, because it is still just as easy to deposit to PokerStars, Ultimate Bet and Full Tilt. They are stopping because they too are noticing the merciless series of bad beats, uncanny suckouts, and just fragrant action flops. Eventually, these sites will crumble and there will be a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
What is the result? Poker will slowly walk off into the sunset and those of us who picked up the game 4 years ago when Moneymaker won the WSOP will slowly retreat to the occassional house game. The magazines will fold, the endless poker shows will stop, and the poker craze will be over. The WSOP will NEVER have as many players as it did in 2006. I WILL BET ANYONE WHO WILL TAKE MY ACTION that the 2007 WSOP will be at minimum 1000 players short of the 2006 series. It will contine to go down from there each year until it settles back down to pre-2004 numbers.
The pros that have become multi-millionaires will slowly dissappear from the public eye. Their contracts will stop, their endorsements will end, and they will end up grinding it out just like they did before 2004.
It’s sad.
Somebody, ANYBODY, create a site that is honest. If you do, you will persevere.
The Bible of Rigged Online Poker
Online poker is rigged. For those of you who play online poker at levels less than $1/$2, this blog should be the method in which you play. I have played for many hours at many different levels and the one conclusion that I have made is that online poker is rigged at the lower levels…. ON EVERY SITE.
I am not really wanting this to spark a debate here, and for a bunch of people to come on here proving to me that it’s not rigged. But I will say this… To those of you who’s argument is “WHY would they want to rig it?” My response is this…… Poker is still a form of gambling. Unlike other forms of gambling, your actions and decisions can decide the outcome of any given hand…. But, it’s still gambling. At the root of gambling is greed. And where there’s greed, there is cheating. So my only response to the question “why would they have to rig it? ” is WHY WOULDN’T THEY? Have you ever heard of a business saying “We are making too much money, let’s slow it down”? . So, if online poker room operators could make exponentially more money by rigging the programming in the lower levels, what is stopping them? NOTHING! It seemingly cannot be proved. So, we as open-minded and hopefully reasonably intelligent people need to decide whether certain patterns are simply coincidence or the product of a few hundred lines of programming code.
If you enjoy playing poker and have no other outlet I have come up with a list of things you can do to “dodge” the traps that the rigged poker rooms have set for the lower limit players. (I do not see these same instances happen at higher levels and my philosophy is that they don’t cheat the higher level rooms because those players would call “bullshit” in a heartbeat and it would expose the engineered cheating.)
- Never take your entire bankroll into a room. Here’s an example: if you deposit $50 do not take that entire $50 into a room. If you do, it will be gone in a short period of time and you will have to rebuy. (if you deposit $50 , try taking $20 into a .25/.50 room, once you triple it get out and do it again in another room). Here are some of the ways they will get your stack if you take your entire bankroll into a room:
- you will get dealt a very high pocket pair like 10 10, JJ, or QQ, the flop will come rag, rag, rag and you will be up against KK or AA by the guy with more money than you. You will very likely go all in and end up broke. Thus, causing you to deposit again.
- you will be dealt a hand like KQ in good position, the flop will come 2,5, Q. You might bet into it and you will be facing a hand like KK or AA. You will go broke and you will deposit again.
- The one exception to this rule is if you are a new player to a site. The cool thing about this rigged online shit is that if you are a first time depositor to a particular site, you tend to win big at first. This, in my opinion, is like a drug dealer giving a freebie to a new customer. Once you get a taste of the goods, there’s no going back. It’s like Heroin. However, after a certain point, they flip the switch and you will lose it all. So, just like the following rules, you must withdraw 100% of your winnings immediately. Once you start noticing that you’re losing on great hands consecutively it is time to take the money and run. See the rules below.
- NEVER just withdraw some of your money. If you are going to withdraw you MUST withdraw 100% of it. If you have $300 in your online account and you take out $250, your remaining $50 will be gone within a few hands. This I promise.
- NEVER redeposit money within 2 weeks to 1 month of withdrawing from your online poker account. If you do, that money will be gone in a few hands. This I promise.
- NEVER reverse your withdrawal. Sometimes after you win a big tourney or get your online bankroll up pretty high, you decide it’s time to withdraw all of your money. Then, you get the itch and want to play again before that withdrawal has fully been processed. If you reverse the withdrawal process, you will lose ALL of that money in a very short amount of time. This I promise.
- When the luck runs out get out! Do not say to yourself “let me just get back up to $300 and I will leave”. Just leave immediately after you notice you are on a losing streak. I have experienced several sessions where I will deposit like $50 and turn that into $1000 – $1500 overnight. Usually when this happens, it just seems like the cards are falling my way. I don’t give myself enough credit to believe that I have just been outplaying EVERYONE for the last 4 hours. I just think it’s “my turn” in the rigged scheme of things. I don’t know how they determine who’s going to go on a run and who’s gonna get the shit kicked out of them but when it’s your turn you just know. You catch and catch and catch. If you find yourself in one of these sessions you must cash out once you start going on a downward spiral. If you’ve built $50 into $1500 in 5 hours and then all of the sudden you lose a good amount ($150-$200) not only must you stand up but you must also cash out completely. People will argue this point and say that you are only losing because you’ve become fatigued. Yes, that may have something to do with it but I also have had several sessions where I have NEVER recovered and started winning again. If I didn’t take 100% out once I started losing, I lost it all.
- Cycle through the remaining US friendly online poker sites. This is related in part to number 3. After a withdrawal from a site, you should have a few other sites lined up so that you can cycle through them. If you are playing on Full Tilt and win $500 take all of it out and don’t go back to Full Tilt for 3 or 4 weeks. In the meantime, deposit at Ultimate Bet. After you win and withdraw 100% of your money there go to PokerStars. … and so on and so forth. After about 3 or 4 weeks come back to Full Tilt and do it again. As a matter of fact, one pattern I have noticed is that after I am gone from a particular site for a month or more I usually win or place high in the money in multi-player tourneys. If you look through the archives of my blog you will see where I have won first place in tourneys after being gone for a long time or when first signing up on Paradise Poker, Ultimate Bet, Titan and PokerTime. However, if you win a big tourney or place high in the money you must withdraw 100% immediately (unless you are playing cash games at $2/$4 or higher where none of these “traps” take place).
I will add to the list if I come across anymore patterns. Good luck.
*****UPDATE******* If you still do not believe that online poker is rigged… I challenge you to go to ANY online poker site, go into a .50 / $1 ring game and find a player that has $1000… are we to believe that a player that goes on a good run just leaves the room while he has a MASSIVE chip advantage? That would be illogical right? So why can’t you find a player in a room that a monster chip advantage in a ring game?
Las Vegas: Day 2
I woke up around 1:30pm today. We left the room at the Plaza around 2:30 or 3:00. Josh bragged about how good Fatburger is so we decided to stop in.
Now, I take burgers very seriously. Last year someone told me that In-n-Out burger was the shiznet so I tried one while in Vegas at that time, and it was no better than a Walmart burger. To this date, in my opinion Dan’s Hamburgers in Austin is still the best burger I’ve ever had.
HOWEVER. After enjoyint the half pound “King Burger” at Fatburger, I have to claim that there is a new champion. Yes, it was the shit.
3 days after making the original reservations for this trip, I recieved a mailer fromthe Luxor notifying me that I was comped for a 3 nights stay. So… we actually have 2 rooms for this trip.
Josh and I are going to trade nights at each hotel. Tonight and Tuesday I will have the Luxor and he’ll have it on Monday. We will both return to the Plaza on Wednesday night.
So far, the I’m pretty impressed with the Luxor. We’re settling in now and Ill update you on tonight’s poker later.
Vegas Trip: Day 1
Friday I woke up at 10am because I had a 12:30 test to take. The test was at 12:30 and lasted an hour and a half. I immediately went into work at 3 and was there until around 1am. Because I had been studying all week I did have a chance to prepare for my trip. Therefore, from around 2am to 4am I packed. At 4:05am I laid down, at 5:05am I got out of bed and showered. At 6am Josh came to pick me up and we went to the airport.
Rule number 1: Fat guys should never fly Southwest Airlines.
After 3 hours of the most uncomfortable ride I’ve ever experienced we arrived in Vegas. Because it was only 9am here, we couldn’t check in yet and decided to make a stop at Harrah’s to play in the 11am tourny. After getting our luggage and picking up our rental car we had just enough time to make it to the 11am tourny.
We arrived around 10:30 and bought in for $50. With about 30 minutes to kill we decided to get some grub. The closest restaurant was the Toby Keith’s I Love this Bar and Grill inside Harrah’s. I gotta tell ya, the marketing genius that decided that a Toby Keith themed bar and grill would be a good idea in a Vegas casino, should be promoted. Then, beaten and fired. That place eats ass.
Anyway, poker didn’t go well. I busted out of the tournament relatively early on a bad beat. Was eligable to rebuy as an alternate, and then busted out AGAIN on a bad beat. My buddy Josh did place and made a little over $100 profit.
Because I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours at this point I was starting to feel a little crazy. I needed water and sleep fast. We checked into the Plaza downtown on Fremont and I was able to take a 4 hour nap.
After getting some winks we decided to grub at the Plaza’s buffet. Not bad for $6.99.
Still being tired from not getting a lot of sleep, Josh and I bullshitted in the hotel room until around 1am. Binion’s had a 2am tourny so I decided to walk downstairs and across the street. The tourny was $70 plus an optional $40 rebuy. I got knocked out in the first round. Yet another bad beat.
Day 1: Loss of $500
Turning $40 into $2,360 in 12 hours
Ok Ok Ok. I know. I ranted about how online poker is rigged. Well, I still think it is. After not depositing any money into Titan for about a month I decided to put $40 in on Saturday because I was extremely bored. The soccer games were over, my girlfriend was at work, and my regular live poker buddies were all out of town.
To make a very long story short, I turned $40 into over $2300 in about 12 hours. After building the bankroll to a little over $200 I upped the stakes from .10/.20 blinds to .50/1.00. I hovered at around $300 for an hour or so. After a few hours I built up to a little under $500 and went to $1/$2.
At some point I decided to try $2/$4 which is where I stayed the majority of the night. When I reached about $600 I took a HUGE beat and fell all the way to $90. It took me little more than 2 hours to turn that $90 into $750.
THE BIGGEST HAND OF MY LIFE
At $750 I stepped away from the table for a few minutes. At the time, it was a full 6 man table. The players pretty much would come and go except for me and 1 other player who were the big stacks for hours. I pretty much tried to avoid him since he was the only one that could break me. After returning to the table I found that I took to long and was booted. Therefore, I logged back in to see only that 1 player and another player that had around $120. I took that players $120 in the very first hand. Then it happened. Heads up. Me and the other big stack. I raised him the first 3 hands in a row. On the forth: 
After this hand I went on to bring the total up to over $2300. My biggest payday so far.
The Demise of the Poker Boom: The End of an Era
By Bobostonepony
The end of the road is near. It was a good run. I, like millions of others, got hooked on this great game. 3 years ago TV catapulted poker into the mainstream. Shows like ESPN’s World Series of Poker coverage, The World Poker Tour and Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown relentlessly pulverized poker into our living rooms. The frenzy began with a gentleman named Moneymaker. When ESPN televised Chris Moneymaker winning the 2003 World Series of Poker every has-been jock, every math geek, every local chess champ, every college sophomore living in a dorm, and every married man looking for an excuse to get out of the house one night a week all bought a poker book and decided to learn the game. Why? Because if an average schmuck could win it so could we!
What did we do? We bought poker books, we watched the reruns of the WPT and the WSOP, we spent thousands of dollars playing on internet poker sites, we organized weekly poker games and poker leagues, we bought our own poker chips, we bought table tops, we spent hours communicating with other wannabe poker players via chat sites, poker blogs, and newsgroups, and we took an occasional trip to Las Vegas to justify our investments.
Millions of dollars have been generated. Casinos, not only in Vegas, but in other states as well have rearranged entire floorplans in order accommodate the game. 5 years ago, you were lucky to find a poker room in a casino….. and even then, you were damn lucky to find a hold’em game.
The poker boom has made a handful of people millionaires and some of those have rock star fame as well. The rest of us hold on tight and try our damndest to reach the very next level. However, we are dangerously close to being oversaturated. There are now new poker television shows popping up weekly. Every household in American has purchased a 500 piece chipset. There are thousands of online poker rooms and we see advertisements for them everywhere we look.
The downfall is near. Now, in no way do I feel like people are just gonna stop playing poker all together. However, I think people are going to stop buying poker supplies, drastically reduce their online play, tune in less to the 20 poker shows that are now televised, and visit casinos to play poker less. Why? Here’s why:
I know the last two reasons seem minimal but here’s my point. We were used to seeing Shana Hiatt on the WPT and now we have a new face. It is the same phenomena as when a sit-com replaces one of the actors with a new face but we are supposed to act like we didn’t notice (ex: when Darlene got replaced on Rosanne). The new face happens to not be as attractive, as witty, and appears to not have any personality.
Bravo’s Celebrity Poker Showdown now has Phil Helmuth as it’s co-host. This is quite possibly the worst selection Bravo could have made. They may have been better off choosing an amateur unknown player. Helmuth is quite possibly the least likeable person in the game. Why would you have him as your co-host? Look, the show wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. I know that. However, it did have a role in the poker explosion. The truth is, those celebrities are like MOST of us. They are terrible and they are acting like they know the game. This show is highly responsible for bringing NEW players to the game. The show is very entertaining, we like to see famous people playing the same game we play. We like criticizing them for their horrible play. But now, with such a terrible choice as a co-host, many of us will stop watching this show. More importantly, potential new poker players will start watching that show and quickly lose interest.
However, in my opinion, the biggest factor that will be responsible for the demise of the poker boom:
ONLINE POKER IS RIGGED. You may critisize me until your fingers are sore, however I am as convinced about this as I am that there is no Santa Clause.
What the future holds?
- Less poker on TV
- Many many online poker sites are going to fold
- Eventually, the government is going to outlaw online gambling
- Manufacturers of poker tables will make a lot of money when people migrate from online to home games. Not because they want to, but because that will be their only venue.
- Many casinos will reclaim floor space from the newly built poker rooms and replace them with table games and slot machines
- Many of the poker celebrities will disappear from the limelight and will have to go back to grinding it out night after night.
- The WSOP will peak and we will see the attendance go from 8 thousand players this next year to less and less until it finally settles down at around 1000 in 4 or 5 years.
I, for one, hate to see it go. I still have dreams of being one of the great ones. I have already began construction of my own 10 person poker table. I have made an executive decision to not spend another dime online until either there is a regulatory commitee that can officially protect us from being cheated or I have undeniable evidence that there is a site out there that has a TRULY random card generator. You may ask “why would they cheat us?”. To that, I respond “WHY WOULDN’T THEY?” Even casinos have an eye in the sky. Online, we are expected to simply have faith and trust. Unfortunately, I am not a religious man. Therefore, that is not enough for me.
Poker Blogger Questionnaire
I’ve seen this questionnaire on 2 poker blogs so far so I figured I’d post it on mine as well. Feel free to copy and post on your poker blog.
1. What is the biggest mistake people make at a NL table?
People over value top pair.
2. What is the biggest mistake people make at a Limit table?
They aren’t playing no-limit.
3. Why do you play poker?
It is a great way for an Al Bundy ex has-been to compete. After I FINALLY realized that I would never get to play football again there wasn’t anything out there that I felt I could really compete at. Not that I think I’m a great competitor in poker, but at least there is potential.
4. If you weren’t playing poker, what would you be doing?
Eating, masturbating, pharting, and then dropping the kids off at the pool.
5. What is your favorite poker book and why?
Poker Nation by Andy Bellin and Phil Gordon’s Little Green Book. Why? Because they are the only 2 that kept my attention. And….. to be honest, the only 2 I’ve completed. Phil Gordon’s book is the least boring of all the poker books. You can read my review of Poker Nation by clicking HERE.
6. Who is your favorite poker player and why?
I Like Sammy Farha because he is a fantastic cash game player. I feel like I most closely identify with his style of play (during cash games, not tournaments) because I truly like to gamble. However, I also realize that aces, kings, or queens don’t always hit the flop so it makes sense to bet up your 6 8 offsuit every so often. To the fans Sam Farha is a genius, but when I play those hands I’m a donk and it pisses everyone off.
You know what? If you don’t like it…… RAISE! Bitches.
7. Which poker player do you dislike the most and why?
I don’t dislike anyone really. I sometimes am annoyed by the ego on Helmuth but I also think he’s a great tournament player and self promoter. I do however dislike players that berate and attempt to coach other players at the table when they themselves are no more than amateurs.
8. Do your coworkers know about your blog?
some of them do
9. What is the most you have won in a cash game or MTT (both live and online)?
I won $1279 on an online MTT at Titan. You can see the screenshot by clicking HERE.
I think the most I’ve ever won at a live cash game was around $250 and I’ve won around $1700 during a ring game on Titan.
The most I’ve won at a live MTT was $375 for 4th place at Binion’s during my last Vegas trip.
10. What is the most you have lost in a cash game or in one day total (both live and online)?
$1700 and we shall never speak of that day. However, my initial investment was only $50.
11. Who was your first poker blog read?
April’s This is not a poker blog.
12. What satisfies you more, your aces holding up for a big pot or a bluff working for a big pot?
Aces holding up satisfies me more, that tells me that the universe is truly in line at that particular moment in time and poker justice has prevailed. When I have a successful bluff, I’m more relieved than satisfied.
13. Why do you blog?
Because I can. Technology is fantastic. I’m a nerd and I use it to my advantage. One day, someone will walk up to me and say “hey, aren’t you that guy from bobostonepony.com? ” At that moment, I will say “yes” and then tell him to get lost because he is a loser and obviously beneath me.
14. Do you read blogs from an RSS reader like bloglines or do you visit each blog?
both because some blogs are blocked at my work.
15. Would you rather play poker for a living than do what you currently do for a living?
Yes. Without any question or doubt. Yes.
16. Do you wear a tin foil hat on occasion?
No
17. If you had to pin it down to one specific trait, what does a great poker player have (or do) that separates them from an average player?
Great poker players have fantastic instinct, acting ability, and self control. Great poker players are methodically aggressive and have the ability to create constant discomfort for their opponents.
18. What is your poker nickname?
I do not have one but sometimes people call me bobo because the title of my website is bobostonepony.com. I am not Bobo Stonepony. I heard that name way back in the day from one of my old football coaches. That coach’s son, Wade, would call me Bobo Stonepony from time to time because I thought the name was so funny. Wade passed away a few years back, and as a tribute I named the site Bobostonepony.com
19. What is your primary poker goal and are you close to accomplishing it?
My primary poker goal is to win a WPT or WSOP event. I am not close to accomplishing it.
20. What is your primary online site and why?
Unfortunately, my primary site is Titan because I seem to win an average of one MTT a month there. That is the only reason I play there.
21. What site do you dislike and why?
I dislike bodog. You can read why HERE.
I feel that there are very few, if any, poker sites that are legitimately 100% fair. I have played on many different sites and have noticed patterns that lead me to believe that the programming within the site’s random card generator is not random at all.
I won’t bore you with my conspiracy theory but I will predict that the online poker sites will be heavily responsible for the crash of the poker craze. I think everyone who plays online poker regularly knows what I’m talking about. And.. if it doesn’t end soon, it will destroy this new poker explosion. The poker magazine’s can’t expose the problem because the advertising from the poker sites are what pays the rent. They wouldn’t dare run a story that exposes the fraud that takes place within those sites. The pro poker players won’t say anything because they too make a high percentage of their salaries from poker endorsements.
It would take an outside source that is completely unconnected to investigate and expose this epidemic.
I may be the only person in the world who almost welcomes government regulation of the online sites because then at least someone would regulate the software. When there is no one to answer to, it’s real easy to cheat.
Ok, enough about that.
