
The quote marks are for the obious artificial intelligence.
The rest of that sentence is aimed at the obvious admin rulebreakers who occassionally try, and fail, to make a game look for real. Until late last week I was stuck in a months long phase of not being able to win a hand, much less place in the money. And I had to start over with the minimum 1,000 freebies - again.
By now, PokerStars must know that the cheating is counterproductive as far as I'm concerned. It does not make you look competitive, if that's the reason. It does not want me to take my game to another bogus site. No, this one will do just fine. It does not make me want to commit diabetic suicide on Ben and Jerry's.
I'm now in the mid 30k range after less than a week of play, and I've placed in the money on every single table.
I'm not that good. Nobody is. Especially considering I play at least a dozen tables a week.
During this phase there is still a problem with the program that I have overcome which is why I've been successful. Every single game, regardless of 7 stud, 5 draw high, 5 draw low, Hold'em - they all play out the same.
First three hands - jackass raises big, at least one idiot calls. Multiple AI positions are set to sit out to avoid the temptation to call. Jackass wins and is now the "expert." Jackass raises almost every hand. Eventually one of the non-sitters makes a stand. Jackass loses. We now have what is normally the two money finishers established as these two spots continue to get irrationally great cards.
But there is a big Xenu fly in the ointment. I'm existentially sitting out by folding, but I am paying attention. After 20 hands of nonsense I finally start to get some decent cards. Now that I'm short stacked I have to gauge whether I should try and crawl back in slowly or go crazy on the first decent hand. The first decent hand is universally met with a bad beat. Playing for another hour proves that after twenty hands the cards finally become random. (Somewhat.) One of the top two from the first twenty hands continues to get great cards. Xenu accepts the bottom payoff. And as a gesture of goodwill in case the admin is active disconnects and lets him play with himself.
I hate reporting old news mentioned here before, but I will. For the casual and talented player, bumping into a game that plays out this way is an eyebrow raiser. When it happens 14 out of 15 in a week there's something seriously wrong.
So, I already have enough chips to comfortably log i to a 10k buy in game. Let's switch PokerStars AI to Folgers and see what they do. Betcha the quality of play is no better than the 500k buy-ins I did last week when I had to start at the minimum.