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Stars began raking the 212 hypers. Rake % too high
I think we need to write Stars and ask for lower rake on the higher buy-in hypers. Currently, the rake is the same whether it is a $22 or $420 hyper, which makes no sense at all. Every other poker game (SNGs, MTTs, Cash/Ring), at every single site has a concept of graduated rake... the higher you go, the less the rake percentage. It encourages people to move up with skill, encourages higher volume, and still allows the poker site to make a good profit since the stakes are higher. Why Stars introduced the same standard rake percentage on the 212s is beyond me. Please help me write them and ask ...
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Jan 10th, 2010
Re:PokerStars Step 6: Cash Exit... Make it happen!!!
I like the idea of integration with their MTT satellites. A $2100 sunday MTT Sat to PCA that accepts Step 6 tickets is a good idea. I think I saw one tonight (Mon.), but it was cancelled after barely missing the min players needed. I do wonder if a 700 sat and 2100 sat on the same day would compete too much for players though. One step further... why not itegrate it with hyper-turbos also'! There is really no reason Steps regs, MTT regs and hyperSNG regs shouldn't be able to pick and choose their path as they progress. Let me play a 215 hyper to win a 700 Step5 to win a 2100 MTT sat seat ...
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Dec 14th, 2009
How does PT (PokerTracker) define "Att to Steal Blinds"?
I'm looking at tourney stats in PT. I'm wondering how they define "Attempted to Steal Blinds %". Hovering over to get the explaination doesnt say much. In particular, I'm wondering what are the exact positions or situations included in this stat' If I'm 6-handed and open shove from the cutoff is that included' How about from one before the cutoff' Does it matter what the blind levels are' etc. If anyone could point me to the definition or formula, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Dec 10th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
...and on and on it contiues. nearly 8,000 hyper turbos now... this is not varience. My latest hyper: I put my money in 4 times... my hands: AA, AA, QQ, A9 (vs dominated A6). I lose. Every single hyper I've gotten in vs a dominated Ace and lost. Here are tonights run:
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Dec 3rd, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
A month later, nothing has changed. After playing a MTT and getting in with an Ace six times, having my oppenent dominated all 6 times, and losing all 6 times, 4 of which were to runner runner double gutshot straights, I had a bad feeling. Moving over to the SNGs, here are the results... again, pay attention to my remarks of how the knockout / crippling hand occurred. I lost won just 5 of 44 played today, losing almost entirely to bad beats. There was a stretch of about 15 times in a row where I got in with an A vs. a dominated A, and the dominated A hit the 3 outer or miracle runner runner ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Nov 30th, 2009
Re:Hyper-turbos: Propose a graduated rake structure!
Stars. Go to the Sit&Go tab. Then go to the Satellite sub-tab. (if you dont see them, make sure your view filters are opened.)[
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Nov 21st, 2009
Hyper-turbos: Propose a graduated rake structure!
I've proposed to Stars having a graduated rake structure for the hyper-turbo SNGs, just like is done for any other type of poker (SNGs, cash/ring, MTT). There are many reasons its done for those games that benefit both the site and the players, and they all apply to the hypers. So please join me in asking stars to change hyper rake. See below for specifics. New Suggested Rake (Buy-in: rake): 420: $4.00 212: $2.12 (or 2.00) 86: $1.25 54: $1.00 44: $0.80 Below 44: ~2% of buy-in (ex. 22: $0.44) Some reasons include: - Even numbers for buy-in amounts ($87.72 is a wierd amount). - Currently, ...
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Nov 21st, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
... and it still continues. Lost 19 of 20 $87 hypers today vs soft competition. But let me break this down for today's hands by how the hands played out. (See the hand explanations in red below for each game). 212739917 15-Nov-09 02:28 NL Holdem (Sat) $865/6-$87.72 Me: 66 vs A6o and another A6s. The dominated A6s flops nut flush. (Dominated hand [2 outer to split pot] makes monster.)212740209 15-Nov-09 02:26 NL Holdem (Sat) $864/6-$87.72 Me: AKs vs KTo. The dominated KT makes hits a KTT board for a boat. (Dominated hand makes monster)212738516 15-Nov-09 02:17 NL Holdem (Sat) ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Nov 14th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
... and the graph... pretty sudden change point there. Notice it is not subtle, like levelling out, but very dramatic slope change. The sudden cliff drop was from losing 16 of 17 ($25K) of the $1860 hypers, most again to bad beats, including having KK cracked all 3 times. The latest cliff dip occurred upon starting this thread and contacting stars about it. Note that the slope of the losses would be hard for even a total donkey to replicate for hypers. Mathematcially I would not even have such a steep downslope even if I played with my cards covered up and followed a super simple situational ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Nov 7th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
Update: Below are my SNG results since posting this article (on 10/30) and contacting Stars: Before you see the results, please note that: - Around mid-year I was ranked second of all players on stars for 09 total profit ANY stakes for the turbo 5-6 seated SNGs on Sharkscope leaderboards. I had a player rating of 92. I understand how to play SNGs profitably. I have played over 11,000 SNGs. I have played $1840 hyper-turbo SNGS, $428 hypers regularly, etc. - This example is not an isolated incident. You will see a very clear point in my sharkscope graph where this began and has not stopped for ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Nov 7th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
Since reporting this to Stars, I have lost my last 36 of 37 (and 46 of 50) hyper-turbos, the majority of which were to bad beats such as my set running into runner-runner gutshot straights, dominated hands, etc. While I know that losing 46 out of 50 hyper-turbos is possible and 50 in an of itself is not a worthy sample, this anicdote supports the larger picture I'm presenting. Through the first half of this year I was on multiple shark scope leader boards for total profit at the SNGs. So I'm not without some level of profitable skill here! But there is a clear and dramatic point where ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Nov 6th, 2009
Playing for a living - Health insurance, etc.
Ive been playing for income for a little while, having left a corporate job. My question is about the "non-poker" aspects of doing this for a living. Mainly, if an anyone can share their experiences on things like where / how you get health insurance coverage' I'm sure others out there who have transitioned out of corporate jobs into poker have done some digging on this, and it would help me to hear what you've found. Any recommendations' Any sort of group plan available' Do professional players already have some kind of negotiated-rate group plan, available to members of ...
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Nov 4th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
I agree. As I look to the ad banners (for online poker rooms, including Absolute) at the top of the page and to the left, its no surprise that this type of discussion is marginalized. There is a LOT of money flowing around in the industry. All of the large forums also make most of their money by ads from poker sites. We know for a fact that rigging occurred on at least 2 large sites (UB and AP). For anyone to suggest it is not possible again is very naive. We also know that it was concerned and intelligent PLAYERS (not the sites) who discovered it by anaylzing their hands mathematically and ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Nov 1st, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
To show you how far off you are (and statistics sometime seem counter-intuitive), I'll take the exact example you give here which you said would not be alarming: a 10% deviation over this sample size. So here are the inputs: 1/82 expected rate. 236317 sample size 2881 (expected AKs) - 288 (10% of expected) = 2593 occurances, which is 10% off the mean. Plug this into the equation (or calculator on the link) and you'll see that this case would not "easily" occur. The probability is a miniscule 0.000003% that this would occur naturally... not exactly as common-place as you ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
obv this is not a "bad beat" issue. This is a discussion grounded in statistical analysis of a large sample. Try to be open minded here and look at the hard numbers and facts, and lets have an open discussion of these issues.
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
Its basic and a given that larger samples would be even better. But you are asserting that 1% deviation over 2M hands is not as bad as 3% deviation over 500K hands, and that is NOT the case. If I had 1 trillion hands and was deviating 0.5%, it would indicate a very highly unlikely case. As an example, try the calculator I linked to and enter the coin flip scenario: 0.5% expected successes (heads) 49900000 sucesses (heads) 100000000 trials so it is off by just 1/500 (0.2%), yet so highly unlikely that the caclulator considers it virtually impossible (90 decimal places). So yes the deviation ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
any PARTICULAR pair. Ex.) AA is dealt to you on average 1 in 220 hands.
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
See my response above. It is being quantified. So far I've looked at 3 separate events: dealt AA, dealt KK, and dealth AK. Assuming random/fair, 98% of players get more AA, 98% also get more KK. To top it off, 98% of players ALSO get AK more often. Any of these in isolation is "very unlucky". In combination, much more significant. The binomial distribution calculations take into account sample size and deviation you mention. For ex., if my sample size were half, but I had 5% off, that 98% would become a smaller number since the sample was smaller, thus expanding the likelyhood ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
I've quantified the significance of the deviation using the binomial distribution analysis I mentioned above. 5% off over a quarter mil hands is fairly significant... around 2 standard deviations is significant. In and of itself, it certainly still lies within the realm of "very unlucky, but not extreemly unlikely", but take it in combination with the fact that AA was also dealt 2 standard deviations from expectation, as well as KK. Then combine that with the fact/ pattern that this is only occurring for the premo hands (AA, KK, AK, etc), which to a probability equation hold no ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
I should note that the vast majority of these hands are from hyper SNGs. MTTs are included as well, but my SNG volume is much higher. If I had to ballpark it I would say maybe 90% of these hands are from the hyper SNGs. It would be interesting to extract out just the hyper SNG hands from the MTT hands, but tough to do. My intuition doesn't sense anything out of whack with the MTTs from a gut feel, but the hyper SNGs (source of most of this data) seem way out of whack, as I'm confirming.
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
The 1 in 82 figures can be seen at: ALso, intuitively it makes sence, since we know there are several more cominations to make AK than a PP.
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
All from Stars
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
Update: it gets worse. I just looked at the other monster hand, AK (any suit). I had 2767 occurrances in 236,317 sample. It should occur on average 1 in 82 hands. Get this... my results show it is almost *exactly* as out of whack as AA and KK. 98.4% probability that a random sample would have more occurrances of AK. By itself, its a enough to perk up, but in combination with the AA and KK stats all being around 98.4% ALSO, its alarming. All three of the top 3 hands are way out of whack. By my calculations, the odds of this are 2.744 out of 1 million, though I would welcome others showing ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
no, what I'm saying is that I see fewer AA and KK than any other pocket pair at EVERY blind level, and all together, and that its is statistically significant. Over the quarter million hands I looked at, I saw fewer AA than any other PP. The PP I saw second fewest of was.... take a guess.... yep: KK. And the differences in the number seen vs the number expected for such a large sample is very unlikely. And that doesnt even account for the fact that AA is any better or worse than, say, 22. If you were to weigh the hands by value, with AA and KK being more valuable than other PPs, which ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Re:rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
Also, if anyone has writen any code that parses hand histories and does statistical analysis on the results that wouldnt be easy to see using pokerTracker, please post a link to the code. For example, looking at hand results for how much your pre-flop expectation when HU differs from actual results of the hands, etc, etc. For example, I'd like to be able to run HH through some code that analyzes expected EV vs actual results, or that analyzes the probability of the river hitting opponent vs actual results, etc, etc. I have been working on some Perl code to start doing some of this, but ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
rigging concern with hard numbers and huge sample.
Something has seemed out of whack for a while. I have played well over 1 million hands, but rather than complain about a "feeling", I wanted to look at hard numbers and data. There are many things I could look at to see if different probabilities are out of whack with expectation. The very first thing I decided to look at, using my db with 236,317 tournament hands (a significant sample size), was the distribution of how many times I got dealt pocket pairs, particularlly premium pocket pairs. A pretty simple thing to analyze. At first, I looked at the breakdown by blind-level and ...
Posted in: Bad Beats 		a2z1to3
Oct 30th, 2009
Seeking logo sponsors for WSOP
I had a post asking for advice on whether to sign PStar's Terms and Conditions to represent them at the WSOP after winning a seat via qualifier. General conclusion is that their standard offer is pretty weak. (No TV table bonuses this year, no bonus whatsoever for even final tabling unless you get first place, etc). I would have to wear their logos exclusively if I signed. They seem to offer a little more upfront (100,000 FPPs = $1500) this year, but took away the benefits of getting deep in any way, like the TV table bonuses and final table bonuses. I am entering with a play-to-win ...
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Apr 29th, 2009
Re:WSOP - PS Sponsorhip- Sign the Terms and Conditions??
By the way, they do not even offer the TV table bonuses this year! That would have been the major reason for me to sign. So basically, if you sign with pstars, you have to wear only their logos, get no compensation for the TV exposure, get no compensation for even making final table... but you are required to work for them for a year to promote them. If you finish 2nd place and give PS 10 hours of TV exposure without getting paid by any other sponsors, you get basically the same deal as joe blow freeroll qualifier who shoves his first hand blind for the thrill. If you have a play-to-win ...
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Apr 29th, 2009
Re:WSOP - PS Sponsorhip- Sign the Terms and Conditions??
I believe so. I know that there were FT bonuses for all at FT in prior years, but the Terms and Conditions only show a bonus for 1st place this year, as far as I can see.
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Apr 26th, 2009
WSOP - PS Sponsorhip- Sign the Terms and Conditions??
I won my 2009 Main Event seat via PStars. I have the option of being sponsored or not. I'm wondering if I should sign the Terms and Conditions contract to be sponsored by PStars. Anyone else qualify and considering NOT signing it... which would leave open the option for other sponsors or much better Terms if you go deep' For example, the only bonus money comes if you finish 1st, but with all the build-up to the Final Table and exposure, if you make it to the FT they will scramble to sponsor you with more than a goodie bag and free shuttle bus rides. Are other sponsors reps at the Main ...
Posted in: Poker Discussion 		a2z1to3
Apr 25th, 2009