Why oh why can't it be like this all the time?

The weekend on Absolute was hilariously ridiculous. Strangely, Freckledmom seems to have retired. The first thing I do after logging in, including many weird and strange hours is search for her. Where she used to be ever present and annoying, she's now just gone. Bummer, because I could always count on a completely irrational game with her on board.

What caused much bemusement this weekend was that regardless of what table I sat at there was always at least one idiot that decided the way to play the game of Omaha Hi-Lo was to bet pre-flop. And not just a couple hundred, but thousands of chips. In general they didn't do to well. And after three days of Freckled being an unstoppable poker machine with that betting strategy she had changed to the one that constantly raised, lost, re-buyed, repeat. Since I had recently topped 2 million chips I sat at one table and called all the bingo all-ins on stupid pre-flop raises and lost 300k in less than an hour. Just to prove to myself again that it's a losing proposition.

Tonight was disturbingly real. I actually got the sense I was playing against real people. Maybe I was for the first time in ages. The pre-flop raises were nominal, as they should be. Early on the two biggest were very explainable. Two aces and a two - good hand. By the way, this one lost. The second was someone that lost to a bad beat and went all full tilty, ended up losing their chips and leaving.

Perhaps my program of timing out on every irrational pre-flop raise over 6 hours on three tables had made them come to understand that I can still annoy them without buying into the losing system presented to me. And I have gained back 250k of the 300k I lost. I'll be back over 2 million in a couple days.

I'm willing to give a little leeway on this

But not too much.

I promised myself I was going to take a vacation from Absolute. But things have been so laughably bad I logged in again tonight.

Zippy101 is now the Freckledmom of the past few weeks. The guy just doesn't lose. I log in to a table and after an hour of "Cards set to real human player loses" Zippy comes in. Not only did Zippy win, he was able to chat. Observer chat is shaded out in gray. Real, live active I'm at the table chat is in blue. Just like Zippy who is not at the table.

OK, weird software bug and I'm observing Zippy chat from a different table I'm not sitting at. Sorry ass site with weird software problems that shouldn't exist. Or maybe considering the play I had was more all-in bingo crap it's just more proof of how bogus this site is.

Freckled Zippy

Again, Zippy plays at a table where he's played against certain other players before and the chat looks like he never met them before. Addd Mazmushy to the list of bogus positions. Again Freck didn't do to well. Again, Zippy was the king.

The theory is that an admin has a stable of bogus user positions to choose from. Since they must sleep and don't communicate every day that the stable doesn't interact with each other every day and some massive inconsistencies arise.

Strangely (not) my appearance at a table has been affecting the betting patterns there.

"Real human table 307...warning Will Robinson, Danger, Danger!"

Freckledmom and Zippy and ohmigod! Fackinchiken!

The reason that I'm successful at this is because I behave counter-intuitive to the ordinary person. And I have skill.

An ordinary person with skill is never going to visit the free money Omaha Hi-Lo tables on Absolute and see the Absolute nonsense on this Absolutely bad site.

Hey - guys, I've visited those tables and watched for HOURS. That's counter-intuitive. Not playing, just watching what other "people" are doing and watching you dig your own grave some more.

Freckled is Absolutely 100% AI. Freck wins a lot. Freck raises a lot. That's a dangerous combo. But Freck hasn't been doing too well lately. Probably for my benefit since I search for her and purposefully observe and/or play at the same table with "her." Freck got creamed tonight. The constant raising and rebuys didn't work out. I was smart enough to realize that Freck's familiar, Zippy101 was the targeted winner for the night. Zip had a great night and banked something like 500k.

The problem with the Zippy AI is that it's on again, off again whether there's a relationship between him and Freck. And Zip turned into the player that couldn't lose tonight.

But, I have to go back to one of my all time favorite posts on this blog. I was playing a lot of fixed limit Omaha that was obviously rigged and folded something like 35 hands in a row, when at first a chat post was madce about how awful a player I was. Then, in less than a minute two players arrive at the table with the names "Chickenlittle" and "Fackinchiken". Sorry I didn't buy into your go all in versus me and lose philosophy you silly little loser. On tonight's 33 hand foldfest I folded ONE hand that would have won some chips. On the third hand of the string. You're problem is that with the constant all-in bets I always get to see the showdown and see who is betting and raising with what.

Stalking Freckled some more

Which led me into watching her table that included "Bigbadbrad22". Kind of think of brad as Freckled on steroids. I just watched for an hour and 15 minutes before playing for 15. This table including the following unusual features. As with the screen shot - brad had a high point of 2.3 million chips. Needless to say, this is ridiculuos. Pushing the bets to put everyone else all in many times, Brad's ass was constantly kissed by great table cards on top of great hole cards. Sweeping the pot with three fours and other such irrational nonsense. (By the way Absolute, three fours is a terrible high hand to be banking on. Even a straight is a marginal high.)

Some other key features include:

Insane chat. Which did include a couple mentions of cheating.....but you stayed at the table! For crying out loud, if you know you're being cheated, which you were, why do you keep rebuying in and sufferring more?

There was a waitlist. People couldn't just stand the thought of not getting onto this obviously bogus table.

Brad had over a million chips when I first started watching. At one point before an hour had gone buy two new buy ins at 20 k combined with Brad had over 3 million chips. Shortly thereafter there were 2 players with a combined 2.4 million chips. You do the math and try to figure the reasonableness of this on a 20k buy in table, not playing for days. It doesn't work. So many "people" so willing to lose.

Freckled never chats, even though lots of comments were pointed directly at her.

Rick123 never chats, "because its disabled." Yeah, right. How about, bogus AI never chats because it can't?

Brad at one point claimed thast his stack was all the free money chips he had. Couldn't spare any to lose/give to others. Ergo, he started the night with 20k or less, got up to 2.3 million. Which is more than my 1.8 million I've had to freaking pull teeth to struggle to get over months.

But I did enjoy the 15 minutes I played. Because I've identified the current wekness in the program. Somewhere in the first three hands I can call all in with a decent hand and actually win. My guess can only be that this is to lull you into a false sense of security and you start losing, rebuying and losing some more. Naturally I won my 40k on the first hand I played and started folding like crazy. Not surprisingly it was the only hand I would have won. Not surprisingly the betting calmed down some after I joined the table. "Warning Will Robinson - danger, danger - real human player sitting at the table."

At one point, at about 1.7 million chips Brad said he was leaving. "He" lingered on for dozens more hands.

Stalking Freckledmom

Rule#1 against playing versus me -

Do not make things intolerable. That only makes the fur on my backside stand up and decide to mess with your life even more.

Now that I'm revisiting Absolute after a long vacation, I've latched on to playing no limit 20k buy in games. Purposefully searching out Freckled because it's so unreasonable.

900k+ chips when I first sat down.

And I think I'm starting to figure out more of the way the algorithm is set. Freckled does lose, but within a few hands Freckled catches a killer...and is made healthy again because lots of peeps call. On my three killers....noone tried on the last two, but I rode the first into a massive fold session to watch how the rest of the table would play. And I still had positive point flow of 50k.

How is it that I played for 1 hour and 20 minutes and the only chat was one character "-"? And this was when I had a good hand pre-flop and folded the big raise, and I would have lost? Kinda seems like someone thought I was going to call. Freckled sat out several hands. And after waking up instead of the normal aggressive betting checked and eventually folded to my 4ks. Sure seems like someone knows what cards I have.

Again, their are several positions that are so willing to buy in to Freckled, and what I'll call Freckled Jr. positions when they go all in. Not only do they Re-buy into the losing proposition, the rebuy is instantaneous. Just like they knew they were going to lose the hand. Or, um, maybe that's the way the program was written.

My favorite of the night was how a all-in loser came back and overwrote a position sitting out.

I have no reason to think that I played against anything except artificial intelligence this past 1hr+.

Freckled Mom

Normally when I play I do a little investigative work and figure out who is catching the great cards and is just having an unbelievable run of luck. Fold every bet they make, even if I have a2 suited in Omaha hi-lo. Every once in a while I get to latch on to some ridiculous user like "FRECKLEDMOM".

Thje first problem Absolute has dealing with me is that I've pretty much left them alone for months. 18 player two table games on Full Tilt were so bad that my energy was focused there.

But Absolute may have forgotten a few key qualities about my personailty these past few months.

First of all, I don't really care about the chips too much. Recently I went from the newbie buy in to over 100k on Full Tilt in less than two weeks. Folding a lot is not a problem. Because:

Second: My patience is pretty much infinite. Which goes against human nature and I'm sure they rely on it. So this last weekend I purposefully searched for Freck and sat and folded and watched...for hours at a time. As Freck continued to win. And since the cards were shown on the showdown so much I saw that Freck had an ace almost every time. In a hundred hands Freck shares the pot in nearly 50%, or maybe more....And builds up 600k chips on a 20k buy in table.

The problem isn't so much that a player can get to 600k on a 20k buy-in table. The problem is that so many chumps are so willing to call the bets and lose to the fairly obvious rigged hands. Ridiculous. Except that it's also fairly obvious your AI playing with essentially an infinite chip stack, and the only reason you exist is that maybe your hand will defeat the real human player, making their life more miserable.

I'm also happy to report that I have seen 6 hands folded...when a check would have beenj allowed. Kinda like you knew what the outcome was, huh?

Oh, and it gets better....I've seen Freckled playing on three tables at the same time.

I guess they still don't realize what I'm doing yet.

This started a couple of weeks ago after being suspicious. There was a break when I got some decent cards. For maybe three or four tourneys in a row. Which was good for me since chips are a necessary evil to be allowed to play.

The 18 player two table games on Full Tilt - why is it that all my good hole cards are (almost always) backloaded, that is, after 15 or so hands have already been played? The trusty pad of paper and pen have been very busy counting cards lately. When you don't get any pocket pairs in one 26 hand game, you can shake it off and just go, oh well, bad luck. The number 26 was purposefully chosen since statistically you should have had two.

Since I'm more than willing to fold I get to stay alive very deep into the tourneys. Lots of raising with lots of decent hands backing them up. I'm folding precious few hands that would have won, until I get to the point where there's only four people left at the table, and suddenly the poker Gods decide to try and even out the mistakes.

So, like I said about having one bad game - how about if it happens time after time? Over a period of several weeks? That's a little bit strange. So, the trusty pad of paper and pen have this to report over the last five tourneys -

Hands played until first pocket pair caught (and mind you this isn't even neccessarily a high pair)

46,17,68(!!), 59(!!), and 38. Atotal 0f 228 hands with 5 pocket pairs when I should have had 17. I'll grant some leniency on the 38 hand game since I had pocket queens on the first hand, folded them immediately, and not surprisingly they would have lost to Aces. OK, 6 pairs instead of 17.

The idea is, that the first time you get the most marginal of hands - like calling with a T9 suited, you flop a T and end up wasting most or all of your chips, and you never get to see that your cards are rigged to be so stitiscally crappy.

Folding is the number one weapon of the forensic poker investigator.

Fascinating

Time to take a break from the bigger money games and play a 250 buy in table on Full Tilt.

As expected, things were quite unreasonable.

18 player two table game. Final table seated after 10 hands. My average card was something like 6.5 over the next hands. And there was some chump that was one of those simply can't lose a hand types.

And after 39 hands when I finally finished in the money in fourth - no chat. Zip, zero naught nada none. I guess rigged AI doesn't feel the need to chat against itself.