I love internet poker - for all the wrong reasons

This was supposed to happen on the three day weekend for Labor Day. But I got caught up in Absolute Poker and was having too much fun watching the strange and silly ways they were trying to make the free money tables look for real, when it was obviously populated by AI.

They got a vacation from me this morning. I spent four hours on a brand new for me site. And it was all at the same Omaha high low table. And I saw all of the things I've come to expect from internet poker. And, please make sure to skip to the end for the bold print before you stop reading.

Good poker players are going to go right for the money tables and never play a hand on the free tables. Or maybe play for half an hour on the free tables, or one sit and go to check out what's going on. It's a heck of a lot easier for the admins to make one sit and go look for real. But they really struggle with an open table game where anyone can pop in and play a few hands. I always choose less popular games when I sit in on these tables. On Absolute, I didn't have any choice. There are no Hold'em free tables.

I saw a TV commercial, I think on ESPN. Phil Hellmuth for ultimatebet.net. If it's good enough for Phil, it's bad enough for me. I doubt Phil has ever played a single hand of Omaha High Low on Ultimate's free money tables. Maybe never played a hand at all there - took the sponsorship check to the bank and went to a brick and mortar casino and used the money to play for real. If he played on the Omaha high low table I played on for four hours, he would be laughing his ass off like I did.

Just like Absolute Poker, everyone is very casual about their chips. The rasing was non stop. It's an insult to your manhood to click on the "Check" box. Why is this so? Because I signed up and logged in at 4:00 am EST for my very first session. The people that run the site aren't staffed to police the free money tables at odd hours, so they police the free money tables with bad AI. Bad AI needs to be in the game so tables fill and games get moving instead of people waiting around for half an hour and giving up.

Bad AI needs an edge to stay in the game, so the cards are rigged. And there are postions constantly raising into the rigged good cards that you have to fold, even on good hands, to survive. I have the patience to fold. A lot. I took y $2,000 inital play money stake (in two $1,000 increments) and built it up $12,000 in my four hours. If real people played as badly as these "people" did I'd be at $40,000. (Limit table...no limit I'd be at a million.)

Very amusing....at one time I was playing against "Dreemymimi" and "Rebellinellen." In the weeks to come I expect to see the same kind of bogus player names that I saw on Pokerstars. Pokerstars populated their database with "JennySue", "BobbieJo", "AmyLynn", etc.... I'm sure I'll be playing against "ThrillLil", "ScaryMary", "AbleMable", etc...

From 4:30 till 7:30 the chat was non-existent. Except that within the first twenty hands I played someone caught a Royal flush. (What are the odds of that, especially since I folded a great hand while other "people" were raising into it???) Then there were a couple "nh's". Then silence for hours. But at 7:30 am, including a position that was at the table all along while I was folding like crazy it wook up into a nonstop chat fest that was impossible to follow.

Here's the real kicker. And I've been wanting to do this for a loooonnnnnggg time:

I've signed up for lots of net games. If I sign up as "BILL" for my username I get rejected because that name is already in use. I can understand that someone named BILL is already a member. What they expect is that you throw some number in there. BILL1 might work. My first try was Colts18 - Peyton Manning.

Rejected as expected, just like Ellen is Rebellin' (But is she gellin'?)

Purposefully, my next try included no numbers.

Vanadium. My personal favorite on the periodic table.

"Select another name. This one is already in use." (Or similar message.)

Yeah, right.

As soon as I saw that my bs detector was set on extremely high. It's not like it's "Carbon" or "Oxygen" or "Hydrogen" or "Arsenic" or another commonly known element. It's VANADIUM! And of the thousands of people that visit your database, someone already took it.

Absolute Poker may miss me since this site looks to need a strong dose of crap busting. I'll be busy for a while.

That was completely NUTS!!!!

Look at the chat in the lower left hand corner. What you will see is one player posting a question to a new player to the table, and then answering their response, before their response was posted!

As always for me, the cards aren't that important. Occasionally I get the itch to want to just sit back and play without admin bs. After half an hour of admin bs I turn to thinking about what I can do to mess with their lives.

Tonight's fun started off with a hold'em sit and go. I don't play too many of those, but I was bored and just wanted to play some cards. Brain kicked in and said, "Remember!" Your last ten sit and go games followed the same pattern. Call on decent hands, lose on the river, become short stacked, struggle back to take second place. So this time I just folded regardless of my hole cards. I was forced into a couple of winners where I was big blind. Other than that I watched a stastically unreasonable pocket pairs get in play. Don't matter to me - AI beting against AI while I'm folded. Folding is the number one weapon of the poker investigator. I eventually came back to win first. I folded hands with an ace and a pocket pair 6 consecutive times at one point. I was getting great hole cards. And I was expected to call and raise a lot more - and lose.

Positive cash flow - about $10,000 chips. Pretty short game despite my finishing off #2 player head to head took a long time. I sat in on a 7 stud high low table - the one in the picture. I farted around for several hands watching bigger than reasonable bets being placed, and finally Irishdolls showed up. I played against Irish a couple of days ago and she was an extremeley chatty, competent, but very lucky catch on the river type of gal. Not being tired of rying to cheat me out of my chips (back to 1,350,000 after the meltdown while investigating reasonablness the past weekend) PAPA7 shows up.

And the chat goes from nonexistent to insane in about thirty seconds.

OK, timeout - let me think about this. I play for half an hour on a quiet table with a proven chatty Cathy. No chat. Someone shows up with a huge chip stack they are friends with. They're very loose with their chips, and the whole table becomes alive with chat. It's obvious to me it's not for real. So I prove it. After folding some bad hole cards I search for PAPA7SQK. "PAPA7SQK" is not in the cardroom.

I'm wired to think about what I can do when I want to play for real and I'm obviously set up against impossible odds. As the night progressed I saw a ton of players entering the table and losing. Every one that won met with a nice post from me on what a great hand it was. And Auntie loves me, she wanted to know my name and where I was from. I shouldn't have, but I told her the truth.

For my readers that love to think I'm just paranoid -

What if I'm playing against the guy(s) and or gal(s) who run the site? I'm not supposed to have 1.3 million chips, especially after all the bs. And doing what I do just drives you NUTS!!!!

I think so.

Sometimes I wonder if they think I'm a bot

I'm very quiet, in general. Let the cards speak. I play very mathematically. No need to chase an inside straight or flush on the river in 7 stud when two pair or trips is showing on the board. And they continue to have "people" raising constantly. All right, bring it on. I know how to fold. After losing a couple of big hands in 7 stud high low with good cards it's time to switch to detective mode. Was I just bad beat by opponents with better hands? Or are they playing to make me lose instead of worrying about winning?

Definitely the second one. And Absolute Poker really hasn't been giving me any signs lately that they know who they are dealing with, yet. I suspected they did know, but my infinite patience again proves them wrong.

First off - new trick - I enter several tables on games I never play. Omaha not high low, 7 stud not high low, Razz (lowball). I sit at the table and the screen comes up where I have to consider what chips I'm going to play with. I pause. I cancel. And in 4 of 6 instances players that were sitting out wake up and start playing. OK, let me think about this. On two thirds of not terribly popular games I show up and within seconds players sitting out become alive. Definitely weird if not obviously "players" meant to make my life uncomfortable.

Time to go to 7 stud high low and try and figure out if real humans want to play for real. No way. " I was met with, raise, raise, raise, raise....for two hours. And more, actually. In the first two hours I butted heads with CROWNVIKING and CASPER172. CV came in with a huge chipstack, and pretty much couldn't buy a winner if he wanted to. Casper kept rebuying in with 4000 chips, kept raising and losing along with CV. CV left the table with like 480,000 chips. Casper left wit 0.

And the lame chat between the two of them tried to explain it away. Casper is supposedly the boyfriend of "Becca" and she's going to be pissed about him losing the chips. CV is unconcerned about his chips since he has 500,000...less than what he lost by raising like an idiot. Very convinient. I play for four hours against what looks to be obviously AI. And you're AI is playing against other bad AI from hours ago and is till alive.

Like I said before, CROWN, buddy....you came on to the table with max chips of $500,000 - raised virtually every hand and statsically lost what you should have and ended the night with $487,000. Are you just an idiot with an infinite chip stack? Bored and want to raise every time? Or do you merely exist to raise the pot? Definitely a pot raising feeding whore.

Also noteworthy in the lame chat is how CV busted the table for, probably Casper, posting how people should "shut up and play 0like you said." I'm not supposed to have chips at this point to see how no such post was made.

Finally, for giggles - CV posted a message, "About F+++ing time". I repotrted him. Offensive langugae. Even if disguised. Nope not offended. Or thinking anything will come to be of the report. Why would they sanction AI?

I lost $200,000!

Geez I'm bad at this game. I went from $1.5 million down to $1.3 million this morning. Money well spent since I greatly enjoyed the way they refused to play for real. Today's tricks (1:15 to 5:30 am) were both things I've seen before. Statiscal unreasonableness, trying to disguise the bad beat and I even found something new and weird.

Lately, a favorite trick on this site is to lure me into calling with Omaha high low hands that look good on paper, but because it's Omaha are really pretty bad. They invariably pop up after playing "chicken" and folding dozens of hands in a row. Just like my four aces a bit back. Here's another example. It would be a straight flush, except it's Omaha.

Trick #2 - disguising the bad beats. Or trying to. One insane player with an infinite chip stack does the raising for the player that can't lose. At first I didn't buy into it. Then after two hours of the same pattern I decided to cut loose and test the statiscal reasonableness of calling all in on Omaha high low every hand. Thats how I lost $200,000, Because unlike the crazy raiser with the infinite chip stack, I am not the player that can't lose. I won chips in something like ten hands. In more than an hour - on a game with split pots. And since the speed of play is so fast I played a TON of hands. Especially since I was playing on two tables at the same time!

And I was playing against the same opponent on two tables for a bit. And this is weird. On one table they have an avatar, on the other one - no image. All right - even if you have the option to block showing your own avatar, what is the reason to do it? And, you also happen to be the crazy raiser that is feeding the plot to the player that can't lose.

After a period of about six days of almost real poker it's nice to see things are back to normal.

Yeah, right

NLOP - I've been banished. And I've done nothing wrong (lately.) The only thing I did wrong was fold like crazy since it was obvious that the cards were rigged and I couldn't win. No vulgarity like on my Pokerfrauds.com days. Just sitting back, watch the AI and game admins play. My last gesture of defiance was to qualify for the impossible to win weekly tourney, register for it and not play.

Absolute - I danced with the devil this morning. After something like six days of almost real poker, things got ridiculous again. Playing Omaha High Low I was again caught in the constant raising wheel. And I played for four hours on it. Carefully and conservatively. There are "people" that just don't care about winning and throw all their chips in. All right. I have $1,2500,000 chips. It's not like you can wipe out all of them with your bs. Let me play on two tables - double the fun.

One table, including the lame chat was obviously the player that can't lose. Probably the piece of garbage in charge of the database. I called more often than I should have and watched his chips go sky high. The other table was neglected. And now I have 1.5 million chips.

I slept some. Took the damn dog for a lomg walk which he loved. Did my laundry. Cut the grass. Time to play poker!!!!!

No way. Every signal I get is that the site isn't for real. For the second time I observe a low limit Hold'em game and see that "nobody" acknowledges the existence of their co-players for more than an hour. No, "Hi, Bob -How you doin' tonight?" No "nh" and "ty" which takes like 5 seconds to do. For over an hour.

I have some lovely real estae in Florida I can sell you.

Kudos to Absolute

Four days in a row. Real cards. Real gambling, even if only four free money chips. I even just finished a titanic hold'em tourney where at one time 6 players had relatively even chip stacks and the blinds were becoming insane. When the cards were shown it made the bets that were made look reasonable. And that is the 4th hold'em tournament in a row that looked very reasonable. Played a little Omaha high low and 7 stud high low and the betting was very reasonable. The chip stack is approaching $1,350,000 and slowly climbing, which is very reasonable. I'm a solid player, a little too conservative - it's better to fold a winner than to call a loser.

I have nothing to complain about for four days, which, yes, just absolutely kills me.

Or do I?

You betcha.

I've kind off been left alone and allowed to play. Which on free money tables has not been the case for months. I'm not hurting anyone. Just looking to play a couple hands of cards each night, drink some beers, pet the dog, fall asleep, go to work and get home and play some more cards.

For months, why would you go to such titanic efforts to make me lose free money chips? And now you want play for real? Or at least almost real. The jury is still out on that, and let's review the facts:

Three stud high low and Omaha high low are not very popular. Most of my research on this site was geared towards playing those games. Now I have switched to the wildly popular Hold'em sit and go tourneys , and if I'm right the admins give these tables a lot more attention.

I still fold a little more than I would like to - I still think that my cards are worse than average. But not ridiculous like on other sites.

Bad beats have never been a problem on Absolute. I've probably had more in my favor than I've lost. But, qualify that with so much folding that I don't get the chance to get bad beat as much as the average person.

So, good job guys. Keep the human aspect reasonable. Don't try to cheat me out of my chips. I'll just play a hundred hands a night, get bored and and leave. Make the bs obvious and live with the consequences.

A couple of small stretches of real poker does not make up for months of garbage.

Online poker etiquette as a busting tool - Absolute fails again

Just because I don't play for real money doesn't mean I can't investigate it. I've been planning this bit of detective work for awhile, and I saw EXACTLY what I expected. Tonight was the perfect night to start this - Friday night, lots of real players knowing they don't have to get up and work tomorrow. The staff is going to concentrate on making the big money games look for real and dealing with someone like me playing on the free money tables.

I logged in at 7:30 pm and didn't play a single hand until exiting at 8:43 pm. Since I normally investigate free money tables and have to fold like crazy I went to the real money tables and just watched. For my investigation I picked the ultra low money tables. Fixed limit Hold'em with 2 and 4 cent raises.

What they will defend themselves with is that these are supposedly "turbo tables" and you have to make your decision quicker than normal. I've seen the time clock is faster, but you still get plenty of time. And they will probably defend themselves that they have multiple tables going and that they can't spend too much time on 1 out of 3.

But the reality is that it's still not for real.

One hour and 13 minutes, and not a single person chatted anything. 20 different "personalities" on two different tables. Not a peep. Poker etiquette has estalished that occasionally you acknowledge defeat with a "nh." The winner acknowledges with a "ty." Even on a turbo table, nobody takes two seconds of their life to do that??????

They get away with filling up tables with AI because what sane person would log in and do nothing but observe real money fixed limit Hold'em for .02/,04 limits? No sane person would. I am not sane and I have the patience to watch and observe. Human nature is login, I need immediate gratification, let's get to a table and play.

The other thing that bothers me is the buy=ins of the new players. They are universally 40 cents. I clicked on open seats and found that the minimum buy in is 20 cents. There might not be a maximum. I'll never know.

The gameplay is much slower than play money games. The crazy raises and rerarises arem't there. Even if you have one bet you call and there are no reraises for the four rounds of bettingit is .02+.02+.04+.04=.12. You can call four four hands without anyone raising. It's a heckuva lot more likely that AI is set to buy in at a new table with 40 cents than to think that rational human players constantly choose this, or that the site has a 20 cent minimum and a 40 cent maximum.

I am going to dance with the devil now and play some free money stud or Hold'em. I paid my dues by watching what I did and need some cards.

Now if you are going to get on a site and play for real money, are you going to jump into it or take a page from my book and look at what you are getting into? I'm kind of surprised that Absolute hasn't blocked me like NLOP has.

Absolute Poker statsical reasonableness

I posted that on a seven stud high low table with a 10/20 limit table with 2000 max buy in that a player with 200,000 chips was pretty much obviously a fraud. Now I see that 7 stud high low limit tables are bringing in 50,000 max.

If you sit at the table with 50,000 chips you can virtually play all night without reagrd to your stack. Regardless of the 2000 versus 50000 i did a litlle math. With fixed limits the bets are 80 and 160 with max raises.

First two rounds of bets - 40 * 7 *2 =$560
Next two - 80* 7 *2= 1,120

Under optimal conditions you can win $1,680 a hand. 7 players calling all in to your bets. No splits on a high low game. If you had You won +90 hands vs losing hands to do this.

Or you just recognized I caught you and you have some lame damage contro going on.

Getting a little worried - until the shift change

The key is patience. Don't call on a good hand when bets are made. Irrational and stupid bets. I've come to understand that I'm not playing to win, but playing against those that would make me lose.

The average internet poker player probably has the patience of a two year old. So many hands so fast. I must call or even raise as soon as I get a decent hand. Including not folding a good hand when another player raises and presents they might have a better hand.

The main problem now with Absolute Poker is that everyone, or every AI as I should say, has standards on betting and raising before a hand is made. They bet and hope to catch. And they bet big time.

I took my 1,000,000 plus chips to a 7 stud high low tonight, and put 9,000 of them on the table. First 7,000 I played normal poker and lost. Added 2,000 more and went into "Forget that this is real poker, let's see what is going on" mode. I was very disappointed. The cards seemed stastically real. I won some and lost some and the chips are still about the same.

After the 2,000 chip stack refresh I had still been logged in for 1 hour and 45 minutes. And then the shift change came in.

Previous to the shift change I couldn't buy a hand if I walked up to those that ran the game and handed them a check. After the shift change I had about one deal around the table where as is epected on this site players raising like like crazy.

And the chat - !:45 of virtually no chat. Shift change comes on and suddenly everyone is a Chatty Cathy. I watched this bad movie and basically broke even. Up next, almost instant a comfession on my bad (or myabe not.)

Hey Absolute Poker and NLOP, have you been reading this?

I've been locked out of NLOP for pretty much a week. On the non-paranoid side it's just that they have had an ad or something that doesn't jive with my browser and it crashes. On the paranoid side - playing one tourney a night for a couple of weeks and no chance to make it to the impossible to win weekly tournament I still logged in enough hours to establish that I'm getting statiscally unreasonable cards. Forget about winning anything in the first deal around the table except for a few second deals.

I made my statement. Qualify for the big weekly tourney and don't play in it. Just like with Pokerstars 5,000 "player" games it became very obvious that my table was moving so slowly that after we "played" three or four hands that I might have won one and gone up from the 1,500 chip initial stack to 3,000-4,000 the leaders were already at 12,000+. Myth busted, Adam, Jamie, Tory and Grant agree. The only way to stop me is to be bogus. (Did you get the Mythbusters reference?)

Does it bother me I can't play there? No way. You've tipped your hand. I'm so much of an annoyance losing my rigged one tourney a night I need to be put down like one of Michael Vick's pit bulls. And I've rarely ever said a peep on their site about how obviously and statiscally unreasonable the cards were. They just figured it out on their own and gave up on me buying in to the constant crap.

On Absolute, I now have over a million chips of free money. Which I would never had if I didn't adjust to their constantly changing standards of play. But mostly the standards are now play to make me lose instead of playing to win.

Given - there is artificial intelligence here. No doubt about that. As in previous posts I've mentioned that everyone at the table pretty much plays the same way. The normal trick is that they play like complete idiots. So last night after another 7 stud hi low constant raise -raise - raise game I took a big chunk of my 1 million chips and played the same. Over 45 minutes to an hour I think I pretty much proved that this doesn't work. And it's not really that much fun, which is something I haven't mentioned before. On my winning hands, did I get any sense of joy on beating someone with my skill being better than there's? No way.

Now, to Absolutes credit the past two nights before my 7 stud personal all in meltdown have been pretty reasonable. For a change of pace I played a Hold'em tourney including a pair of pocket aces that got cracked and struggled to eventually take second. I played 7 stud hi low tonight where people checked, called and folded like real people. I switched to Omaha high low and the all ins were limited to low chip count players trying to graduate.

Two nights of real poker!

Does that make up for months of unreal poker? No way.

When busting online poker like I do there are two main categories to focus. Are the cards you are getting normal cards? Even extremely good cards? Or are they kind of screwed up? On Absolute the cards are pretty much normal. Category #2 - the human aspect. What would a rational and reasonable human do in a given situation? Would you bet all in when I call, or check? And the same "person" only calls or even folds when I'm not in the hand? I have tens of thousands of hands of experience on this site alone that prove their playing to make me lose

There's no doubt in my mind that like Microsoft Hearts I'm playing against AI trying to make me lose instead of winning for themselves. And this could simply be tied to my login info. I have 1,000,000 chips. AI is set to make things more difficult for real human players with big chip stacks. Maybe other logins don't have to witness the BS. Tons of computer games get more difficult as you progress.

BUT THIS IS REAL PEOPLE PLAYING AGAINST REAL PEOPLE! Supposedly. AND THERE'S REAL MONEY ON THE LINE!

Why settle for a rake when you can cheat and take it all?

Absolute Poker goes wild

You have to be kidding. I'm not stupid. And this came early in a two hour session on Omaha hi lo. 4 aces is a terrible Omaha hi low hand. And of course over two hours I saw all of things that make me question the validatiy of a site.

Statiscal reasonableness. No way.
People betting like they are playing to win instead of making me lose. No way. LOL I folded like crazy and two "people" showed up named Fackingchicken and Chicken Lil within two hands. I think I might have caught them on a new bust I'll explain below. Must investigate before pronouncing.

And I folded maybe two hands that would have have won if I stayed in. And I increased my chip stack to over 850,000. Which would be zero except that I know to fold on the fairly obvious bullshit.

And, again, I did a player search on an active player on the same table that wasn't there.

Statiscal reasonableness - what are the odds of some one having four aces as their hole cards? What are the odds that you win something like 6 hands on Omaha hi lo over two hours? Including folding big bets by supposed real players that you would have ended up losing?

Statiscally nil on this site. But that is what I expect. After the Chicken players I think I again to say:

I win. It's not for real. You know know it's not for real. What are you going to do about it?

A litle more Bipolar disorder. And maybe I'll come up with something new. And I have a fresh unused pc with no registry values, way too much time on my hands. Get a plane ticket to the States and firebomb my house.

Annoying the game admins part 3 (and 2)

Yes, I know I haven't posted about part 2 - my bike is red. Okay let's get that quickly out of the way now.

English is not the first language of those that run poker sites. So when they try to make it look for real and the chat starts up it really doesn't make sense at time. When the chat gets insane and responses don't match the questions I post-- "My bike is red." Since it doesan't fit in with the conversation going on it should be met immedialety with, "What the hell are you talikng about?" But it doesn't. Then I continue with it's shiny handlebars and streamers. And watch people continue to raise and call while still chatting, and maybe after 10 minutes on my bike they acknowledge what an ass I am.

I've got a great tactic in my arsenal I like to call Bipolar disease.

I've already established myself on Absolute as someone more than willing to be annoying instead of falling for the constant raising and losing. I "played" about 20 hours of poker constantly folding and timing out. I established myself as someone that times out constantly. And never chats. Last night on 7 stud high low I was a completely and even extreme professional and sportsman. No timing out and tons of "nhs" messages. As always the player immediately to my right was raising and losing.

The real free money chips on Absolute is by playing Omaha high low with a 20,000 chip limit. If you can survive the AI constantly raising. Not one, not two, but at one time I was up against three "players" that you could search for while you are at the table with them and they can't be found. "Players" that don't really exist.

So after a long weekend of idiot poker I have played ultra-fast like the rest, folded like crazy and completely changed my pattern of timing out constantly. And I know this is getting annoying, but I'll say it again - the results where spectacular.

The player immediately to my right posted about how the table was so slow. After betting big. When finally called out on this with the standard "zzzzzzz" message he apologized.

No way guys, you had the AI set up to me look like the fool for not playing fast, I was a perfect gentleman. And I gained about 8000 chips folding like crazy including hands I should have gained a helluva lot more on.

Locked out of NLOP Im back to Absolute Poker

When I try to log into NLOP my browser crashes and I can't play. I was going to give the idiots on Absolute a well desrved vacation and play on NLOP, but I can't. So for my poker fix I continue to play on Absolute. The lockout may simply be a browser problem with an ad they have. No need to go ballistic on being cheated. As usual, the Absolute Poker play was ridiculous.

Online Poker - annoying the game admins

Yes, go ahead and call me paranoid. But I'm certain I have their attention now. I was supposed to start a fresh site this weekend, but the way that Absolute Poker has so desparately tried to make it look for real the past 18 hours of card play has intoxicated me. 18 hours of poker between Friday night and Sunday afternoon.

I know they want me to go away. I have over 700,000 free money chips, I obviously have some talent, and I've not shown a single sign of breaking out the checkbook and playing for real money. Another one of my theories that they would try to cheat you out of your free money chips is that new players they are courting might accidentally bump up against me and I ruin there day. Or maybe it's just their pride that I have insinuated myself on their database and I'm better than the controller. Or maybe just like strategy games it's supposed to get harder as your rank increases. But this is supposedly poker against real people, and I shouldn't have to fold 90 out of 100 hands to win. And I constantly keep track of how many of those I hands I was bluffed out of or simply destined to lose, and their are precious few winners in there. (And compound this with me constsantly playing high low games with split pots.)

Regardless, their is no doubt in my mind that extreme measures have been taken to make my life uncomfortable. Three times in the last 18 hours of poker I've watched these insane chat sessions where people were putting out big bets that pretty much showed they didn't care about their chips. The chat is supposed to distract me from the cards. I'm supposed to call and lose thinking I'll impress the hot, slutty chick if I win. But, by golly, I sure know how to fold. And frankly I'm surprised that I don't get called out on it. "Hey dude - I noticed you folded, why aren't you playing?" Because I'm throwing my money away. On statistically unreasonable bad cards. And when I finally do get a good hole hand there's always someone there to raise becaue they have a better hole hand.

Recognizing the pattern of pre-flop insane raising the same as on Pokerstars I realized I had a couple of choices. Call and lose. No fun. Do what I did on Pokertsars - become very vocal and vulgar about what I thought about the reasonableness of their site. That backfired and things got more uncomfortable than they already where.

But, I have a new weapon to annoy the game admins. Perfectly within the rules and I don't have to say a thing. Every pre flop raise is met with a time out. The results have been spectacular. While involved with the games with the guy hitting up on the hot slutty chick I should have been targeted as being annoying. Not a peep. And bear in mind that this has gone on for OVER AN HOUR at times.

Mostly it is just that game admins are inserted on every table to liven things up by betting on nothing. Real poker can be awfully boring. With someone always betting every hand the action keeps flowing and the casual player doesn't realize that it's not for real. And I hate training them on what they are doing wrong, but far too often these pre flop raisers are the players that simply cannot lose. They get fantastic cards and fantastic flops.

I'm not wired that way. Omaha high low, I have AA23 and one of the A's is suited. Big bet from the player before me that I'm supposed to call and lose. I time out. You know, slow playing a good hand might actually work, especially if the cards are rigged that you can't lose. But everyone on Absolute bets like an idiot. There's no such thing as checking anything but the most awful of hands.

It's a fact. After four years of this there is no way that I've seen anything like a real poker game on a table full of real people. You raise pre flop, I time out, or at least wait a long time to fold. And this should annoy real people and it hasn't. But the admins in charge of my table probably hate matching up with me. I'm not losing fast enough for them.

Just once I'd like to see a site that advertises "Play against our free training software!" instead of trying to make it look for real, and failing miserably.

Mental note: Annoying the admins when the chat gets really bad - talk about My bike is red.

Absolute Poker fun fact #1

You can try to find a player that you are playing against and they aren't there.

No, really.

This is the same software as Pokerstars with different graphics. After the Reiko Hill incident on Pokerstars I added player search as one of my main weapons. Reiko was a player with a ton of personality. Just simply couldn't keep his mouth shut. That was for the first time I played him. Then I searched for him and watched him play in a 7 card stud tournament for something like half an hour. Not a peep. And not a very good player.

On Absolute I have a list of player names I've been seeing on the Omaha high low tables too frequently. In particular, ANTJE, supposedly from Europe, was spotted yesterday at 3:00 am, 6:00 am, 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, and 3:00 pm. Cool a person that has nothing better to do than play Omaha high low for free money like me!

As always being very suspicious about things like players that simply cannot lose, don't have to sleep, or show wild mood swings in the way they act during my marathon 11:00 am to 6pm yesterday (that did include some breaks for getting cheated at chess) I searched for ANTJE. If you type in a name wrong it tells you no such user exists. If you type in the correct name and they aren't logged in, the message is "XXXXXXX is not in the card room." At about 3:00 pm yesterday I did a search on my favorite three Omaha high low players including ANTJE, didn't find any of them. Went to an Omaha high low table played three hands switched tables and there was ANTJE.

Again. Dang. Just a couple of minutes after I searched. I'm always looking for new tricks to bust the site instead of worrying about the cards. (There's probably no one that has folded more hands of internet poker than I have since survival as long as possible to observe is the key.) Light bulb came on - player that doesn't sleep - searched for them and they weren't there - search for them while I'm playing against them!

I folded a hand, searched for ANTJE and "ANTJE is not in the card room" comes up. You can toggle between the search screen and the table, so it was easy to see that ANTJE was still there. I tried the search again a couple of times to validate the incident. Left the table and searched. Still no ANTJE. Went back to the same table with ANTJE.

Doing very little but folding poker hands for seven hours is something that precious few people can or will do. But I do it. And I sit back and watch players raise, raise. raise and lose, lose, lose and refresh their chips. And I'm thinking, how did you possibly get this many chips if you play so badly?

And don't get me wrong - I have over half a million chips. I can and for an hour did play like an idiot yesterday without concern for the stack.

Mental note: must post about annoying the game admins who control these fictitious positions. I did a lot of that yesterday.