09-16-04, LearnTexasHoldem:

Poker Stars pokerstars.com

I am not going to play at pokerstars.com limit ring games anymore. I've given their site a fair shot now and they have proven to me that something is a miss with their system. If you don't believe what I have to say that is fine, you can try it out yourself but I felt it my duty to speak up in case new players got a bad idea of what real poker is like by playing there. I understand that many people will dismiss what I have to say regardless of how much I write about what happened so I'm going to keep this short; and yes I also am well aware of the swings poker can have. If you don't play middle and upper limit poker then the first point is that most pots you are in are heads up or three way. Because of this the best hand has a huge advantage and usually holds up (this is just math and the only way there is a strategy for beating poker). The first day I played $30/60 at pokerstars.com I had JJ three times and flopped a Jack three times -- I had full houses twice and quads once. That day I also had AA three times, every one of them I flopped a set and it held up. I mention this because that day also was odd (a "good odd"). Besides that day though, every other day has been really strange where you are up against one opponent who has a weaker hand and they catch you so many times that it makes it impossible to come out on top. Here are a few examples (multiply this by 100 and it gets a little old and suspicious):

Top 3 Beginner Rooms

AK vs A6 -- AK loses

QQ vs 66 -- QQ loses

AQ vs 96 -- AQ loses

AA vs 74 -- AA loses

AA vs 96 -- AA loses -- just as a side note here to show how ridiculous it can get, let me tell the full hand on this one. I raise with AA, get 3 bet by a player with 96off. The flop is 445. I just call. The turn is a 2. He bets I raise. The river is a 3 and I lose to the 6 high straight.

TT vs -- T9 -- flop set lose to straight

AK vs J4 -- flop top two and still lose

AA vs QT -- he flops no pair, catches gutshot on turn, catches straight on

river

AA vs KT -- I have to catch my own A to lose and I do.

 

99 vs A9 -- person raises flop with nothing and catches A to win

 

KT vs KK (no raise preflop) -- flop is KTT

AK vs 42

 

plus a ton of outflops with dominated hands (AT vs A3, KQ vs KT, AJ vs JT, etc)

* note that a lot of this is common at games where 4 or more people see the flop but in $30/60, it's always heads up so this stuff is insane.

The hilarious part is that many of the players are total calling stations. You can raise them on the flop and have them pinned down to 3 outs but they will call till the river religously and catch the outs so often that it seems like any 2 cards are even money with you. Then, after losing 10 better hands in a row they switch it up on you and give you AQ when the loose raiser has KK and you flop a Q.

Poker Stars has produced two WSOP winners from their online satellites so I assumed that their regular live games would be similar to regular poker -- not so by my account. I'm definitely not going to play at their site again.

Take what I have to say or leave it. Just a warning...

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