Bobostonepony

Online poker in the US is slowly dying.  And no… It’s not because of the new legislation.  As I have told you many many times before, online poker is rigged.  It seems that the online gambling legislation has resulted in millions of players migrating to the few poker sites that are still “US Friendly”.  However, those sites are seemingly cheating the lo limit players more and more and more and more.  Almost blatantly without trying to even hide it.  Why?  Because you WILL redeposit.  YOU HAVE NO OTHER OPTIONS!

More and more of my poker playing friends are saying the same thing “I’ve stopped playing online.”  Or… “I really haven’t played online in awhile.”  Why is this?  It’s not as a result of the legislation, because it is still just as easy to deposit to PokerStars, Ultimate Bet and Full Tilt.  They are stopping because they too are noticing the merciless series of bad beats, uncanny suckouts, and just fragrant action flops.  Eventually, these sites will crumble and there will be a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

What is the result?  Poker will slowly walk off into the sunset and those of us who picked up the game 4 years ago when Moneymaker won the WSOP will slowly retreat to the occassional house game.  The magazines will fold, the endless poker shows will stop, and the poker craze will be over.  The WSOP will NEVER have as many players as it did in 2006.  I WILL BET ANYONE WHO WILL TAKE MY ACTION that the 2007 WSOP will be at minimum 1000 players short of the 2006 series.  It will contine to go down from there each year until it settles back down to pre-2004 numbers.

The pros that have become multi-millionaires will slowly dissappear from the public eye.  Their contracts will stop, their endorsements will end, and they will end up grinding it out just like they did before 2004.

It’s sad.

Somebody, ANYBODY, create a site that is honest.  If you do, you will persevere.

Online poker is rigged. For those of you who play online poker at levels less than $1/$2, this blog should be the method in which you play. I have played for many hours at many different levels and the one conclusion that I have made is that online poker is rigged at the lower levels…. ON EVERY SITE.

I am not really wanting this to spark a debate here, and for a bunch of people to come on here proving to me that it’s not rigged. But I will say this… To those of you who’s argument is “WHY would they want to rig it?” My response is this…… Poker is still a form of gambling. Unlike other forms of gambling, your actions and decisions can decide the outcome of any given hand…. But, it’s still gambling. At the root of gambling is greed. And where there’s greed, there is cheating. So my only response to the question “why would they have to rig it? ” is WHY WOULDN’T THEY? Have you ever heard of a business saying “We are making too much money, let’s slow it down”? . So, if online poker room operators could make exponentially more money by rigging the programming in the lower levels, what is stopping them? NOTHING! It seemingly cannot be proved. So, we as open-minded and hopefully reasonably intelligent people need to decide whether certain patterns are simply coincidence or the product of a few hundred lines of programming code.

If you enjoy playing poker and have no other outlet I have come up with a list of things you can do to “dodge” the traps that the rigged poker rooms have set for the lower limit players. (I do not see these same instances happen at higher levels and my philosophy is that they don’t cheat the higher level rooms because those players would call “bullshit” in a heartbeat and it would expose the engineered cheating.)

1. Never take your entire bankroll into a room. Here’s an example: if you deposit $50 do not take that entire $50 into a room. If you do, it will be gone in a short period of time and you will have to rebuy. (if you deposit $50 , try taking $20 into a .25/.50 room, once you triple it get out and do it again in another room). Here are some of the ways they will get your stack if you take your entire bankroll into a room:
   1. you will get dealt a very high pocket pair like 10 10, JJ, or QQ, the flop will come rag, rag, rag and you will be up against KK or AA by the guy with more money than you. You will very likely go all in and end up broke. Thus, causing you to deposit again.
   2. you will be dealt a hand like KQ in good position, the flop will come 2,5, Q. You might bet into it and you will be facing a hand like KK or AA. You will go broke and you will deposit again.
   3. The one exception to this rule is if you are a new player to a site. The cool thing about this rigged online shit is that if you are a first time depositor to a particular site, you tend to win big at first. This, in my opinion, is like a drug dealer giving a freebie to a new customer. Once you get a taste of the goods, there’s no going back. It’s like Heroin. However, after a certain point, they flip the switch and you will lose it all. So, just like the following rules, you must withdraw 100% of your winnings immediately. Once you start noticing that you’re losing on great hands consecutively it is time to take the money and run. See the rules below.
2. NEVER just withdraw some of your money. If you are going to withdraw you MUST withdraw 100% of it. If you have $300 in your online account and you take out $250, your remaining $50 will be gone within a few hands. This I promise.
3. NEVER redeposit money within 2 weeks to 1 month of withdrawing from your online poker account. If you do, that money will be gone in a few hands. This I promise.
4. NEVER reverse your withdrawal. Sometimes after you win a big tourney or get your online bankroll up pretty high, you decide it’s time to withdraw all of your money. Then, you get the itch and want to play again before that withdrawal has fully been processed. If you reverse the withdrawal process, you will lose ALL of that money in a very short amount of time. This I promise.
5. When the luck runs out get out! Do not say to yourself “let me just get back up to $300 and I will leave”. Just leave immediately after you notice you are on a losing streak. I have experienced several sessions where I will deposit like $50 and turn that into $1000 - $1500 overnight. Usually when this happens, it just seems like the cards are falling my way. I don’t give myself enough credit to believe that I have just been outplaying EVERYONE for the last 4 hours. I just think it’s “my turn” in the rigged scheme of things. I don’t know how they determine who’s going to go on a run and who’s gonna get the shit kicked out of them but when it’s your turn you just know. You catch and catch and catch. If you find yourself in one of these sessions you must cash out once you start going on a downward spiral. If you’ve built $50 into $1500 in 5 hours and then all of the sudden you lose a good amount ($150-$200) not only must you stand up but you must also cash out completely. People will argue this point and say that you are only losing because you’ve become fatigued. Yes, that may have something to do with it but I also have had several sessions where I have NEVER recovered and started winning again. If I didn’t take 100% out once I started losing, I lost it all.
6. Cycle through the remaining US friendly online poker sites. This is related in part to number 3. After a withdrawal from a site, you should have a few other sites lined up so that you can cycle through them. If you are playing on Full Tilt and win $500 take all of it out and don’t go back to Full Tilt for 3 or 4 weeks. In the meantime, deposit at Ultimate Bet. After you win and withdraw 100% of your money there go to PokerStars. … and so on and so forth. After about 3 or 4 weeks come back to Full Tilt and do it again. As a matter of fact, one pattern I have noticed is that after I am gone from a particular site for a month or more I usually win or place high in the money in multi-player tourneys. If you look through the archives of my blog you will see where I have won first place in tourneys after being gone for a long time or when first signing up on Paradise Poker, Ultimate Bet, Titan and PokerTime. However, if you win a big tourney or place high in the money you must withdraw 100% immediately (unless you are playing cash games at $2/$4 or higher where none of these “traps” take place).

I will add to the list if I come across anymore patterns. Good luck.

I’d like to say thanks to all those who were playing at Full Tilt from about 5am to 6:30am on Saturday morning and contributed to my Christmas gift fund. It was nice to put in $50 and take out almost $400 in little more than 90 minutes. Also, in addition to the $120 I took off Ultimate Bet on Wednesday it will make for a nice Christmas.

Ya ya, i know, it’s not a lot but considering I haven’t won anything online in a couple months it felt kinda good.

Merry Christmas.

Every year, people ask me “so what do you want for Christmas?”. What’s the standard answer?

“oh, you don’t have to get me anything.”

Well, here’s a solution. Go to Amazon.com and create your own wish list. Then, suggest that your family do the same. That way, no one is dissappointed. You may not be really suprised but at least you know you won’t get a tie or the same ole same ole socks and undewear.

I’m not posting this so people will buy me gifts (my family will do that) … I’m just including the link so you can see what it looks like….