suspicious pokerstars shortstackers data

[joelmick]

As Richard Nixon said, “I am not a crook!”

But seriously, have you guys looked back to see that I won the PLO event in the PS WCOOP in 2005?

The following facts explain almost everything you have been discussing here much better than your hypothesis that I am a bot:
(1) I am a very good human PLO player
(2) I play roughly 10 hours per day most days, which is the upper limit for how much time I can spend playing poker without burning out or getting my wife really mad at me
(3) I chat occasionally, but almost always play 5 to 7 tables in the minimum window size with chat turned off, so that I can concentrate on my play
(4) I prefer to play with a short stack for a variety of strategic and money management reasons. I do not care to discuss these reasons because they are proprietary, but you can get some idea by reading Rolf’s book
(5) The idea of playing PLO with a short stack has been around for several years (see Rolf’s book). Online poker, with the ability to rapidly switch tables and to re-sit at the same table with a minimum buy-in 30 minutes after leaving, is especially conducive to this strategy. It is therefore not the least bit surprising (especially after Rolf’s book) that there would be a number of players playing a similar strategy and style to the one I play.
(6) A number of the regular players are annoyed by my playing short-stacked, because I am a good and therefore winning player and because the strategy is effective. If I played poorly or picked a stupid strategy, none of you would care.

Now personally, I also enjoy playing full stack. However, in terms of money management and concentration, it just works better for me to play short stacked almost all the time.

I completely understand that if a player wants to play deep stack PLO, it is very frustrating for him to have to choose between many tables, each of which has 3 or 4 short-stacked players sitting at it. He would much prefer to have all the deep stacks at some tables and all the short stacks at other tables, and to sit down at tables with the other deep stacks. And if someone wants to put together a petition to PS to request deep stack tables, I would be happy to sign it. But right now, all I am doing is playing by the buy-in rules that PS has established, trying to do the best I can.

Lastly, I have no evidence that any of the other players mentioned in this thread are bots. On the other hand, I also have no evidence that they are not bots since I do not tend to pay much attention to that kind of thing when I am playing so many tables. But I will say that I do play against some of them a lot, and regardless of whether or not they are bots, my win rate against them and against the table as a whole is just fine. So, it seems to me that the main issue here is not bots so much as it is that a number of you just do not like playing against short stacked opponents.

[joelmick]

Also, I have a suggestion for getting more evidence on the other players listed here if anyone wants to pursue it. Perhaps someone could investigate how they play against each other when they are in the pot together. Is there any evidence of collusion? And not just the obvious stuff of betting each other’s hand. If one of the players limps preflop, do any of the others ever then raise the pot? If so, does the limper ever fold? What about if two of the players listed are heads-up preflop—does one of them always fold so that there is no rake? Or on the flop, if there has not already been maximum rake taken, do they check down obvious betting hands to save the rake?

I am not sure how to check for this, nor would I waste my time doing it since I feel that I do fine in games in which they are playing, and they create more tables for me to play at. But if you do care, maybe this will help you.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
(1) I am a very good human PLO player
(6) A number of the regular players are annoyed by my playing short-stacked, because I am a good and therefore winning player and because the strategy is effective.

[/ QUOTE ]


HAHAHAHAHAHA


"good human player" and "good and winning player". hahahahaha

When the limp reraise and allin push is your only move there is NO playing the player or being a "good" player.

You are only a weak player (and tourney donking successfully doesn't argue otherwise) who takes advantage of a structural flaw due to sites not realizing they are only catering to [censored] like you and not fish who would lose too much taking shots. You NEED that structure and don't have a win in the game otherwise. Get a grip and get over yourself.

[wazz]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
(1) I am a very good human PLO player
(6) A number of the regular players are annoyed by my playing short-stacked, because I am a good and therefore winning player and because the strategy is effective.

[/ QUOTE ]


HAHAHAHAHAHA


"good human player" and "good and winning player". hahahahaha

When the limp reraise and allin push is your only move there is NO playing the player or being a "good" player.

You are only a weak player (and tourney donking successfully doesn't argue otherwise) who takes advantage of a structural flaw due to sites not realizing they are only catering to [censored] like you and not fish who would lose too much taking shots. You NEED that structure and don't have a win in the game otherwise. Get a grip and get over yourself.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uhhh, you're gonna have to stfu.

[BluffTHIS!]

Why should I when I'm right? Did you take umbrage at my analysis of him as a player or at my tourney donk comment? Both were correct. He has found a way to have win that is based on a specific structure and that is all. It's not the way to have the optimal earn that a good player with a bigger (but not necessarily huge) stack can have, and that's indisputable. And it is also correct to assert that due to his limited one trick pony skillset, that if the structure changes he doesn't have a win. Unless he actually learns how to become a good player which means knowing how to play a larger stack.

[pete fabrizio]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think these guys are bots I play with them all the time. They all play slightly different with the exception they are all pretty rocky. If they are bots then they are not very good ones I seldom see any of these guys turn a profit.

What I do see a lot of is them loosing their gay little stack and rebuying.

[/ QUOTE ]

Almost all of them are (slight) winning players. It's almost impossible for a well-executed short-stack strategy to be a loser so long as you are playing at a table with a number of deep stacks, which is why it would be so easy to make money by using a bot.

[pete fabrizio]

[ QUOTE ]
pete you are aware that pokerstars is very harsh against datamining, right?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes I'm aware the Pokerstars considers datamining to be against the "unfair advantage" clause in their t&c. I don't think I have gained any such advantage, particularly since I don't use a HUD, and the very limited datamining I've done has been for the purpose of protecting myself against collusion or other cheating. But regardless, my sn is private, so hopefully I won't have to fight with them about it.

[pete fabrizio]

[ QUOTE ]
Lastly, I have no evidence that any of the other players mentioned in this thread are bots. On the other hand, I also have no evidence that they are not bots since I do not tend to pay much attention to that kind of thing when I am playing so many tables. But I will say that I do play against some of them a lot, and regardless of whether or not they are bots, my win rate against them and against the table as a whole is just fine. So, it seems to me that the main issue here is not bots so much as it is that a number of you just do not like playing against short stacked opponents.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Joelmick. I'm glad you posted and I was hoping one or more of you might. In your "defense," I have played with you as far back as a few years ago -- although you didn't play a short-stack back then.

However, I do think there are separate issues. I know a lot of us have been annoyed by the short-stacks and their parasitic nature, but for me I was never worried to sit in a game with them until I saw the data I mentioned at the beginning of this thread -- and the similarities are even greater when you look at other statistics and such as aggression factors by street, etc.

[BluffTHIS!]

pete,

The real reason you should be worried about sitting in a game with them is you enable them and validate the stupid decision of stars to cater to them which long term ruins the mid levels and kills the games. Naturally if a table is excpetionally good you would play though. But otherwise, choosing along with others of us not to play otherwise and play NLHE instead, is the way to go along with complaining to stars continually about the situation and the need to up the min buyin and/or add 6-max tables.

[joelmick]

I do not know what win rate all of you get playing full stack. I do know that I used to do very well playing full stack for a while, but the games got tougher (as games tend to do) and my rate went down (not negative, just down). Along with that, I also experienced pretty large fluctuations (which tend to be masked when your win rate is also very high).

So I switched to a strategy that (1) inherently has lower fluctuations, and (2) allows me to play more tables at the same time at a level of skill close to my best, which further reduces my fluctations.

I cannot disagree with whoever posted that there is a structural problem with allowing short buyins. The solutions are to raise the minimum, to increase the length of time after which you are allowed to resit with the minimum, or to create a subset of tables with a higher minimum. But that is up to PS, not me, and I think it is in poor taste to flame me for trying to earn some money while playing within the rules that PS has established.

There are lots of people doing datamining and/or using HUDs, which is NOT within the rules PS has established. IMHO, your efforts would be better spent railing against those practices.