Maybe some of you have seen the movie, "A Day Without Mexicans", where all the Mexican immigrant workers, both legal and otherwise, didn't show up for work, to make the anglos see how much the economy depended on them. So I am going to borrow that concept for this post about shortstacking ratholers, with however, the observation that the main difference is that poker games aren't helped by and don't depend on, those dumb ratholing mother [censored].
This topic has come up a few times in the past months, especially in the first thread noted below:
suspicious pokerstars shortstackers data
Shortstackers update
Shortstack ratholing PLO
Now the shortstackers I am talking about here aren't your randoms that come and go, but the multi-tabling regulars. I can only generally speak to the ones that played the 3/6 blind and up PLO games on stars like eva, joel, coco, oskar, etc., but have seen here mentioned by players from lower levels others who frequent those levels. And the ones whose niks I give above as mentioned in pete's thread above (the 1st link), also played a wide range from the mid-levels to the highest ones.
But now, lo and behold, they are ALL gone the past week, at least on 3/6+, and from a cursory inspection of the mid-stakes lists, the 1/2 and 2/4 stars PLO games as well (maybe some posters who play .5/1 to 2/4 can speak to this better). The question is, what happened to them? Personally I wouldn't be sad to learn that they all were at a short stack convention and the place burned down with them in it. And maybe the answer is just that they're all college students on spring break, though it's late for that now. But even in a case like that, we are talking about both american and euro players all gone at the exact same time. Have they found greener pastures to short stack? Or is there another explanation?
In the second link above, the question is asked how they were adapting to the 6-max games once stars put them in place. beset noted that he had an email convo with stars which, as they have in the past on this matter, refused to make the reasonable change to upping the min buyin in big bet games from 20bb to 40bb+ (I say reasonable because even at 40-50bb they are STILL being catered to at the expense of those of us who wish to play full stack poker, but just not as much as before). From my observations, those short stack guys didn't like 6-max but soon decided they had no choice and jumped in (and no doubt they all shared Rolf's disdain for same as shown in his book where he characterizes 6-max as a "virus").
But now, as I note above, they have vanished. Is it only temporary or is there a deeper reason? I suspect that there *might* be. And that suspicion is that they were all using bot software to play a buttload of tables at once, and that stars finally figured out same. I realize that it's hard to prove botting when the botter is actually behind the computer to answer popups, and that AHK quick reload scripts used by legit players can give the appearance when it isn't warranted. But the disappearance of all of them at once is kind of odd to say the least.
I would be interested on hearing from mid-stakes players about shortstackers there other than the ones I mentioned above who played both mid-stakes and higher stakes levels, and whether they have noticed the same there, assuming they had their own mid-stakes short stack regulars which I'm sure is true from both what I have read here, and also seen when perusing lists of levels I don't actualy play. Maybe even joelmick, that legend-in-his-own-shortstacking-mind who posted in pete's thread, will deign to comment here.
Are they all just on spring break? Did they all just realize at the same time that the extra blind and rake costs of 6-max harmed their EV too much? Or were they all indeed botting scum? Inquiring minds (well this one at least) want to know.
P.S. I haven't been following the forums as much the past month, so if this has actually been discussed elsewhere and I missed it, hence making this long-winded post unecessary, then someone please point out same.