Ultimatebet and Absolute Poker - why are they still around?

[lots0]

At the lower stakes, the bot issue is over-sensationalised. The absolute VAST majority of bots are breakeven or slight losers from what I'm told (and I'm told by people who *know* these things).

LOL... the people your talking too must not be the brightest bulbs...
More than one group of people are getting rich off these colluding software programs.

But as someone who's played over 2,000,000 poker hands, seriously, collusion is not your main concern.

At this time, collusion is my main concern.

I never counted every hand I ever played, so I have no clue how many hands I've played, but I been playing poker regular (home games-tournaments-road-Vegas-Reno-Tahoe) for forty years... Not to mention I was among the first people to actually promote online poker. So please don't talk down to me about poker.

[JHV]

LOL... the people your talking too must not be the brightest bulbs...
More than one group of people are getting rich off these colluding software programs.


At this time, collusion is my main concern.

I never counted every hand I ever played, so I have no clue how many hands I've played, but I been playing poker regular (home games-tournaments-road-Vegas-Reno-Tahoe) for forty years... Not to mention I was among the first people to actually promote online poker. So please don't talk down to me about poker.

Sorry buddy - was just trying to help. Didn't it mean it come across that way. GL with your future projects.

[Pinababy69]

Just a couple of quick points...

One, I understand why Rob referenced Virtual in a thread relating to AP/UB. Rogue is rogue. Bad behaviour is bad behaviour. Cheating is cheating. Why do so many affiliates continue to promote Virtual Casinos? MONEY!! Why do affiliates continue to promote AP/UB? MONEY!! And as someone so astutely stated, the cheating that went on at the poker rooms didn't affect them directly...so hey, no problems. Same as Virtual. As long as the affiliates get paid, no problem. Very few affiliates or webmasters (besides Bryan), ever said a word about Grand Prive and the underage player issue (the same player they accepted deposits from, and paid out small wins..until they won big..20K or more). But when GP cancelled their affy contracts....then we have the wagons circled.

Two, I read threads on here every single day re: rigging of software. I've been playing online casinos going on nine years, and never felt cheated. But the flops, turns, rivers and assinine calls I've seen playing online poker just baffle my mind. I won't say rigged, cause I have no proof. But I don't put a whole lot of money into poker. I'm with Lots0...some of the stuff (and hands) I've seen, defy belief. Too funky for me. I'll stick to my Saturday night face to face poker games with friends. And the odd tourney here and there for fun.

[lots0]

Sorry buddy - was just trying to help. Didn't it mean it come across that way. GL with your future projects.

Not a problem.

[JHV]

But the flops, turns, rivers and assinine calls I've seen playing online poker just baffle my mind. I won't say rigged, cause I have no proof. But I don't put a whole lot of money into poker. I'm with Lots0...some of the stuff (and hands) I've seen, defy belief. Too funky for me. I'll stick to my Saturday night face to face poker games with friends. And the odd tourney here and there for fun.

Aiya, I hate that I'm 'defending' online poker here - I'm not really - I'm defending / explaining variance. In some ways, the nature of poker variance is such that it's a negative thing should cheating exist. It makes it almost, no it makes it TOTALLY impossible to 'prove' unless the cheaters are moronic.

First, here is a graph of 130,000 hands I played in 2007 over 4 months on 5/10nl mostly:



I mean, that's pretty sick obv. You can look at it one way and say "hey, at least you're making 15/20k a month, pretty hard to complain" and that's valid - but I worked pretty hard for many, many years to get to that level of skill - neutral luck over that sample (this is purely All-in luck, and merely a fraction of the big picture) - I should have won $130,000 during those 4 months. But here's the kicker: my friend, playing same stakes, and about same volume, ran 60k ABOVE expectation for those 4 months - with almost identical all-in expectation. So we both should have gotten $130k - I got 60k, he got 195k - and 130k hands is a tiny sample. But please don't think I was sitting there thinking "oh this is cool" whistling to myself - I was certain insanity was going on, and that graph is representing sickness that 99.9% of players will never experience.

It's about to get a whole lot sicker though.

When I was a far better player, and doing a lot more volume the next year (i.e. last year), I had a graph which makes that graph look meh. I didn't mind the 2nd horrid downswing as I'd upswung incredibly hard prior so I felt it was only 'fair' - but if you're a player who just walks straight into one of those two downswings, you'd be a fool NOT to suspect the games of being rigg.

And hell, they may totally be rigged - I just don't know. All I know is variance.

And now for the sickness - I pulled / stole this graphs off a forum where they were stolen / pulled from 2+2 (apologies to the creator that I can't credit them to him - they're amazing - check this out):

Here are graphs showing expected ranges of results for 5/10PLO for players where ALL players are 6bb/100 winners (very big winners, if lower the lines would be even more insanely scattered) with a standard deviation of 140 (which was the average of the respondents participating in the study:

After 100,000 hands (note: most live players, playing every day, for decades, won't play 100,000 hands - 20-25 hands/hr, etc maths are easy to work out there):



Insane. 100,000 hands doesn't even allow for a readable graph, the expected lines are so skewed (each coloured line represents an individual player)

After 500,000 hands:



Equally skilled players, playing identical styles, just PURE LUCK - one guy will win 700k, the other wins 0. Over half a million hands. Sick.

After 1,000,000 hands:



Finally! After a million hands, we start to see some 'convergence'. Still about $1,000,000 difference in earnings between the LUCKIEST player and the UNLUCKIEST player. Nauseating.

After 5,000,000 hands (I don't know any online players who've played 5 million hands in their life):



Some nice convergence here. Even after FIVE MILLION hands, the difference between LUCKY and UNLUCKY is $2,000,000 or so. *shiver*

---------

Well, so ends the very crude lesson in poker variance. The only point I'm trying to make is that if you're in ANY part of the "unlucky" half of that side, you're gonna feel like the games aren't straight up. If you're in the bottom 1/4, you'd swear the rigg is in. Bottom 10%, I wonder why you'd keep playing....

Poker is a sick, sick game. imo.

(Clear hijack - but I got the feeling this thread had run it's course re UB/AP? If not, sincere apologies, and slap me....!)