Dear Poker Pros

This is so simple. This is so obvious it is not real people populating the site.

After a five year vacation I'm back on PokerStars. I'm doing my typical and weird investigative things instead of worrying about the chips. Play an hour on a Hi-Lo no limit Omaha table and I promise you that you'll see some weird shit.

Take a break from your busy cashing the sponsorship paychecks and sit in on the free money tables, or at least watch them. They often call it "Fun Money". Fun if you like calling all in bets every single hand.

I have several survival rules for my beloved Omaha Hi-Lo. And I've developed these because this is always the game that develops the most stupid and obvious garbage play on the net.

Rule#1 - don't play seriously until you've gotten at least one ace.
Rule#2 - don't play seriously until you've folded a hand that otherwise would have won.
Rule#3 -don't raise, there's ALWAYS someone(COUGH COUGH) out there to do that for you when you finally get a decent hand.
Rule#4 - after winning a hand, immediately fold the next regardless of your cards.
Rule#5 - long pauses, whether an idiot or disconnect equate to "Danger! Rigged!"

Proper play of Omaha Hi-Lo does not mean go all in or make a big bet every time you have an ace. A modest raise would suffice. But, on 10 different sites the book has changed. Everyone goes all-in based on the fact that they have inhaled oxygen within the last 5 seconds.

Specifically, my time on PokerStars the past three nights has been so to typical of what I've seen the past seven years.

Night 1 - played a crappy 10/20 fixed limit table that I'm way too good to be sitting at, and they pretty much hated me and wouldn't let me win my statiscally normal share of hands.

Night 2 - sat in on a table I desrved to be at, and other than a couple of folds following my rules early on, they refused to let me win a single hand out of 50 or so, and I dropped more than half my stack.

Night 3 - following the rules I survive instead of losing it all, and I fix most of the damage from night 2, but it's pulling teeth for 1 1/2 hours while watching marginal hands go all in, poor hands raising and in general looking more like a program than a real person.

And, in these past three nights on PokerStars. Aw, hell, let's say it again, PokerFrauds, something like 10 characters of chat. I have no reason to believe that these are real people after 6+ hours at the site.

Dammit (Oops), now I have to stop my potty mouth

And the Dance of Death Ensues

Apparently unhappy with my meteoric rise to 15k chips in one weekend, PokerFrauds has given every indication that they would like to see me extinct.

Let me'splain something to ya. I'm more than willing to sit in on a table that I'm way better to be at. Ity's because I'm looking for clues (like I need anymore) instead of being worried about the chips too much.

So, when I sit in on a 10/20 fixed limit 5 card draw table, I'd like to see some indication that I'm playing against real human beings. Which is never the case. It's the same old story. Almost every hand had players pressing the pot, and the two guys in the lower right were both supposedly from Santiago, completely incompetent, and Alex even rebought after blowing his wad with his constant raising.

Now, seven years ago playing on PokerFrauds, I recognized that the bad beats came from the player that was raising me. Moving on to other sites, I noticed the program was tweaked so that the raiser (feeder) was pushing the pot for the eventual winner other than themselves. Apparently PokerFrauds didn't get my memo that this was only slightly more subtle, and they're still locked in to this mode.

I purposefully satyed at the table for more than an hour. Three letters of chat the whole night - Alex posted "ako" whatever the hell that means. Considering a succession of new table sitters I find it just a tad bit strange that nobody deemed it worthy to say much of anything. The jacks full of aces, no "nh." My three kings beating three 7s, no "nh" (which I don't need to validate my life, just a strange I'm supposedly a real human clicking on the raise button kind of thing by these other jackwipes.)

Warning -it's December 29th. I have 5 weeks of personal and vacation time in 2009. And weekends and holidays. And since you couldn't make a simple and stupid 5 card draw game look for real, you've kinda ticked me off, and I won't say "came up" on my radar screen, but you've advanced to number one target for 2009.

Expect me.

Linda Hayes (probably not her real name)

I can't begin to express how much in awe I am of your skill. (Cough cough...sarcasm)

You are so talented, that you play Absolute Poker race tables at all hours of the day. And at one time, I was shouted at to sit out because people were "helping you", which meant they were transferring chips to you.

So today, I sat in on the same table as you and got extremely crappy cards. That's OK, I have earned 11,000 in the few hours I've spent at the site.

Oh my, let me explain that.

Linda is a fixture on Absolute. Loves to play those awesome race tables. And, if she's so in love with Absolute race tables, why does she just happen to show up on PokerFrauds?

Yes, that's the same baby. Different angle, but I've seen that baby dozens of times. And this time I saw you at 4am on PokerFrauds instead of on Absolute.

This doesn't just say bizarre, this screamsd out, "BOGUS!!!"

Because like me, Linda Hayes has no real life except logging in to internet poker and playing badly. Play some fucking Hearts for Christ's sake. Or create a bake sale. Or go out and weed the garden. Or take my dog for a walk since he hates how I spend so much time on the computer.

Oh, no.

I do have a real life. I'm a real person getting cheated on internet poker. And Linda is just AI that an admin pops into every once in awhile.

Pokerstars.

Expect me.

I have over 12k chips. I don't just have to limit myself to the baby tables.

More race table nonsense

Again (and again and again) these idiots do their best to prove that this is not real people playing against each other. I deliberatley searched for tables that PUTANGSUE was playing on. I enjoyed the company of Rookie1965 on both of those tables. Not only does rookie actively play two tables, he has the time to chat on both tables. But it's not real chat. It's mindless and moronic "nh"s to every hand he congratulates the winners that he didn't win on. Which was all of them in my 20 minute stay. One would tend to think that it would be awfully boring to do nothing but lose every hand on two tables for twenty minutes and post "nh" in the chat.

Except that computers don't get bored. Which is why these bogus race tables exist.

During my race table investigation I've come across two other people that have sat in on them, that like me are told they are an unwelcome guest and they should leave. I'm skeptical, I still think it's a cover-up to explain why 2 year olds would play so stupidly. Fortunately, mathematically it doesn't work out. Because the race table is the excuse for someone ending up with millions of chips.

Review this blog and there is a screen shot of Underbos with over 4 million. And another racer with over 1 million. The two claims I've seen about the race table parameters have been the same. First player to 500k wins. The other 8 players pay a bounty of the 20k max buy in to the winner. Under optimum conditions - 9 seat with 499,99.99 going all in and one position sweeps and is the pot and is paid the bounty nets 4,659,999.90. Yet here is a table that has over 5 million chips among the top two. ???

OK, it wasn't a race table - well, that doesn't really work either. Because that's a net loss of the losers of over 250 max buy-ins and rebuys. And this only supports my feeder and vacuum AI theory that it's all AI. Despite your bogus chat made to make you look a little more real. Race table and race tablish type games that are not race table games have the same lingo. It's very limited.

"nh"

"ty"

And my personal favorite - "weeeeeeeeeeeeeee" (said upon winning a big hand.) Thank god noone said "hun" or my brain would have exploded.

Which leads to the third table. 100/200 fixed limit isn't a big stakes game, but I'd call it medium range. Trying to pick out something different to be annoying at, and trying to build Dexter's chip stack since I got screwed over on my first account (no password retrieval option available on UB) this seemed a good choice. And it was for the most part. If I quit at my maximum I would have gained 10%. Pandora was an obvious feeder. Raised most hands, won very few. Eventually, tired of my use of the single biggest weapon in my arsenal - folding like crazy - some chump sits next to me with the max 500k chips. Oooooooooohhhhh, I'm so scared. You have 500k on this site.

The game play over the next half dozen hands was exactly what I expected. This guy won 8k in one tenth the time I won 3k, not because of skill, but simply a matter of getting better cards and better flops. Since I'm used to this, it didn't totally annhilate me. The warning flags were waving.

For good measure, a second 500k position appeared at the table. So pointless. For fixed limit 100/200 something like 5k is all you need to bring in. This was(to the tune of Helen Reddy, I am Woman):

"I am Admin hear me roar,

I've too many chips to ignore,

And I'm gonna kill you with my skill.

I've got players feeding me,
They have them to infinity,
So they aren't worried about a spill"

Nope.

Play to win. Don't play to make me lose.

Taking a break

When I do my best work I'm either playing Omaha Hi_Lo on any site, or playing a multi-table sit and go on Full Tilt because those are the most unreasonable AI laden games out there. When I want a vacation from having to think too much I like a little low stakes Elimination Blackjack to while away the time.

To UB/AP's credit, the program has been cleaned up a bit and it's not quite as bad as it was a year ago. But, I have a long memory and how things weird happen like - 3 out of 3 times a player took a hit on a hard 19 and drew a 2. The splitting of tens is not automatic like it used to be. It still happens far more often than it should if your playing blackjack by the book. In general the play by the rest of the table is "Ohmigod, I have a pair, I'm allowed to split, so dang it, I'm gonna do it!"

So Alendar, already playing somewhat suspiciously AIish, scores a pair of fours on a dealer upcard of a king takes a long think before his move, I've already thought - oh geez, he's going to split them, and it's going to pay off. You betcha. Takes a hit on the first, scores a 6, and then having amazing skills of precognition does not take the 9 that I got and busted on.

After this, things actually weren't too bad and Al didn't advance and I did grab a few chippies with a fourth place finish. Yet, it still irks me that for 8 years there seem to be people that just plain know what that river card is going to be. Actually, there's a lot of joking chat about scanners and stuff like this.

Puntangsue

Pribably the newest version of FreclkedMom.

I have seen this "person" way too many times in recent days. At 3:00 pm and 12:30 am today. Actually, not very skilled.

Pun is on with the program of the Omaha Hi-Lo "You just can't be successful in this game unless you are all-in" mental state that pervades these sites.

Ad she's not even sitting in the cardroom. She's not logged in.

This just screams out RIGGED AI, RIGGED AI, RIGGED AI.

Reminder about some ground rules

I have the skill to sit at pretty much whatever table I want on the free money games with a reasonable chance of success. So, Full Tilt, why did you decide my 2k buy-in single table Hold'Em game was worth rigging it? Now, this is a bit premature since it was only one bad night and I did finish in the money in third(through superhuman patience.) But, come on... One ace in 28 hands? Now that has just come up on my radar screen. Time to give Omaha Hi-Lo a bit of a rest and play more of these single table tourneys.

Since the two table games always followed the pattern of me getting riducuosly short stacked I'm sure I will see more of the same.

As for my brief check in on City Poker. None of the familar faces after the update. Finally after a hard weekend of making my life miserable regardless of what weird time I was playing, you took a nap.

Keep tweaking the program. I'm smarter than you. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Well that's interesting

Long ago before I knew the affiliation between UB and AP I saw how the Omaha play was weirdly similar. And long before I started spending significant time I noticed the (bad) play on CityPoker was a mtach.

Tonight I had to install an update an all three sites.

The jury is still out, but it's looking more and more like these sites are all operated from the same server, or at least they communicate with each other, share the bots programs and police the sites with significant amounts of AI.

Dear Racers on AP/UB

Thank you noticing me tonight. Again, I sat in (or mostly watched) your bogus race tables and how they continue to just be an all-in bingo-fest. I understand that perhaps you are just a group of friends that want to play like braying jackasses. But as the tables have constantly ( and reported and posted in this blog with hard evidence) had "players" acquire an impossible number of chips, you have come up on my radar screen.

Instead of taunting me and telling me to leave the table because apparentlly I'm not worthy to "race" with you, you'd be a lot better off at just shutting down the table. It's NOT a race table I'm unwelcome on. It's MY table.

I've forgotten more about Omaha Hi-Lo then you will ever learn. Which means since I know it's rigged I will fold an incredible number of hands, time out a lot and sit in on your bogus race tables every single chance I get.
Here's a ltittle help since you obviously need it - 7pm to 10pm EST is where I do a lot of my play (oh, but you know that, don't you?)

Weekends, you just never know when or where I'll pop up

Sipe is certainly worth keeping an eye on

Now that AP and UB have merged the evil of the race table is ever present on two different databases.

As a reminder for the uninitiated, a race table is an Omaha Hi-Lo game where you go all-in bingo on even the most marginal of hands, and the wait list is filled with feeders stupidly go all in on even less than marginal hands and lose, rebuy, and repeat until after losing several hundred thousand chips they obviously had no skill to acquire, finally give up the ghost and disappear. Then they are replaced by a further clueless donk that does the same.

Since I love to get the great shots of someone getting millionjs of chips, and since the basic program is really pretty bad, I like to watch these tables instead of playing myself. I don't need the chips, collectively I have something like 5 million now. It's more fun for me to go...."Hey, wait a second! That's weird."

The problem with Sipe is that he's ALWAYS located at the same position on the table. Upper left. OK, if these are real people playing their bogus race table, I can undersatnd that you have favorite seats and want to be there. I've caught Sipe in the same spot on the table something like seven times now in the last two weeks. Are you really that anal about your magical seat?

Or are you AI?

These two shots were taken two seeks apart.

Why I love Omaha Hi-Lo

Straight up, O Hi-Lo is a fun game. It flattens out those stretches where a two card Hold'em hand doesn't get you anything to work on.

But, since things aren't straight up you get to see a lot of weird and crazy crap. Which I love more than the poker. The math just simply does not work. I suspect that all the cheating is to give the AI an illusion of skill and to fill up the menu.

One table has over 3 million chips on it. The second is better because on a 2k max buy in there's someone who has 500.000. There's obviously a lot of farm feeding going on here.

I would prefer to kick a fellow human being's butt, but sadly I have to constantly play against bad AI.

And you get to see the Race Tables. A race table is just another excuse for "players" to go all in bingo, playing like braying jackasses instead of having an ounce of skill. And the jackasses are rewarded for playing like an idiot, because there are feeder bogus "players" that are so willing to lose all thir chips to the vacuums.

Sipe17

When I look at the Omaha Hi-Lo experts (cough cough) playing their bogus race tables, Sipe is always in the same seat

Home Court Advantage

Yeah, if I where an admin on the site, bored silly about the once in a blue moon real human plyer popping in, I'd cheat, too.

Buy in at 80k on a max buy in table of 20,000. On an obviously fradulent table.

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing...

Second consecutive night I looked through every single hi level no limit Omaha Hi-Lo table on Absolute without seeing any of the completely unreasonable all-in mentality idiots that I've played against and watched for weeks. Remember what I said about the update a couple of nights ago.

The Matrix math revealed

Yes, there is a benefit to playing this game versus playing a single table game. That is, if you're a competent player. I experienced my first 1st place finish on the overall matrix points for knockouts and survival on a 2,000 chip buy in.

My results to the left - overall first place 1,800+ one first place 1,800 + 1 second place 1,080 = 4,680 gain. Minus the 2000 buy in, the net is 2,680. Now, if I had played four single table tournaments with one first and second, results not uncommon for me, I would have +9,000 for a first, +5,400 for a second -8,000 for entry fees for a net of +6,400. More than the 4,680 for the matrix game, but what you save is something that is all precious to us. Time. The entire tournament tonight lasted a very reasonable 1 1/2 hours. Under optimum conditions you could play 4 matrix tourneys in the time it takes to play one single table game and multiply the $4,680 by four, with your net gain being about 10k better. Adjust this downward some since it must take longer to play a matrix game than a single player game.

So, as long as things are on the up and up, this is worthwhile. Tonight's cards where very random. I lost to a bad beat with a pair of kings. I won a bad beat on the river with a pair of kings. I had flops match hole cards every once in a while. The betting was a tad more aggressive than what seemed sane, but not obvious like an Absolute Omaha Hi-Lo game. I still get the sense that is just in a beta test, but for now I pronounce it safe.

Updates and who is playing and more Matrix on Full Tilt

Logging into AP tonight I was greeted with a friendly message I've seen many times before.

"There's a new version of our software, click here to install."

No, it's not a new version of the software. It's an update to the database.

I haven't played a whole lot of serious poker on AP lately. It's been far to much fun to watch "players" like Underboss, Am_I_Bluffin, Mouthy_One, etc... play bingo night after night. Add Freckledmom and Zippy from months ago to that list.

Now, suddenly they have grown tired of playing extreme bingo and posting "WEEEEEEEEEEE" in the chat and as I scan through all the free money Omaha High-Lo tables they aren't playing anymore. The only player I'm suspicious of that I've sat in with over the past few weeks out of dozens is PUNTANGSUE. (pause as I write that down for future reference.)

So, the collective has moved on. They must have found a site more enjoyable to earn 4,000,000 free money chips in a day and bet all in against each other. Nah, you just updated the database with a new stable of names. Like I've said. Seen it before. Without fail every new version of the software load has been equivalent to change the AI stable of names.

Another Matrix tourney on Full Tilt tonight. For now it's still fun, because it's different. But, I've already thought about the math some, and it's not a game to play to try and seriously win some major chips. You'd just be better off playing a two table game. Each of the four tables has a 1st to 3rd payout. The point score for the four tables has the same 3 player payout. Iif you take first on every table and you win the points for the matrix that's 9,000 x 5 = 45,000 maximum on a 10k buy in, net 35k. The thought that someone gets such great cards and is so skillful that they can accomplish this is completely unreasonable. I have essentially broken even on my expeditions into this game. And that's what should be expected assuming players of equal skill. So, tired of playing hearts on your PC, go ahead and play this game. You'll either lose your 10k buy in or break even.

There's a new game in town - and it's fun!

Matrix poker on Full Tilt. Intense. It requires being able to process a lot of information in a hurry. For now, I'm still sure it will end up being rigged, but they were kind enough to me tonight to allow a 5th place finish that I won an astoung (gasp!) 800 chips on a 10k buy in. But since I took the chumps for 20k at Omaha, I'll let it slide.

The basic premise of Matrix poker is that you play the same 8 other players on 4 9 player tables. Points are awarded for knocking a player out (beating when they go all in) and surviving. If you aren't artificial intelligence, you have to be careful that you don't click the wrong box on the wrong table...like raising when you have 26 on the table that you were trying to raise on your pair of aces. Or folding your nut flush thinking it was your pocket pair getting a solid set.

As I said, the play is quick. Not just lightning quick. Lightning juiced up by Comcast high speed internet's metallic substance from their commercials with some hog slime and 5 gallons of caffeine put on top of it quick.

I relish the challenge. I can play four tables competentely at one time. This should be a break from the tedium of folding millions of hands at Omaha Hi Lo. And if I'm right, within a couple of months, just like catching UB in Beta test on blackjack, they will begin to make even me taking fifth almost impossible.

Bigbadbrad, take a seat chump, there's a new record for insanity on AP

This table has every indication of being continually more and more unreasonable, but I have plans to watch Monday Night Football and Dexter, so I need to finish this post before 9pm. And since tomorrow is trash day I have to do a little maintenance instead of just screwing around on bogus poker tables tonight.

If you search this blog back into the "Freckledmom" period you will find that I sat in on a 20k max buy in table where someone with a handle of something like "Bigbadbrad22" amassed 2.3 million chips within a couple of hours. And, to top it off there was another couple of million chips at the table.

The new trick works like a charm. To find an obviously bogus table on AP one simply needs to go to the no limit Omaha Hi-Lo games and search for the biggest waiting list. The betting is moronic. In these past seven years I've often seen just one or two players at a table bet like a madman and watching the other incompetent players continue to call on the stupidest crap. These newer ultra-aggressive tables have EVERYONE going all in on almost every single hand. If these are real people (yeah, right) they have been trained that if you stay at a table long enough and keep betting like a dork, eventually some shit will stick on the wall.

(Touchdown Houston! That's my pick!)

Uber has more chips than Brad amassed that magical night months ago. And, I saw him top 2.6 million at one point. (Screenshot has been taken.) And, along with Spiceyone at this same table and AM_I_BLUFFIN? from this weekend, these 'people' simply do not just sleep, and they have nothing better to do with their lives than go all-in on an Omaha Hi-Lo game all day long. No short pee breaks. Posting insane amounts of idle chit chat.

(Another side note - you use the phrase "Weeeeeeeeeeeee" way too much on a winning hand. And the phrase "hun" shows up regularly. Hint, "Hon" short for "Honey is more common than your use of "Hun" which makes it look like you are being affectionate with Attila.)

THE MATH DFOESN'T WORK. Change the program, or banish me.

Old news

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml

Well, it doesn't tell me anything I didn't already no. This is about the Incidents at Absolute Poker October 2007 and the UB scandal from this year. It's nice to see a high profile outfit like 60 minutes tackle this since other than me there's only like 3 or 4 people that visit. Thank you, Tammy for bringing this to my attention.