What went on here?

About 4am this morning I was passing some time before sleep @ Pokerstars when it seemed like my table was invaded by an incredibly...efficient team of bots, so I wanted to get a second opinion. I haven't been playing online long. Apologies if this report is some common occurrence people are sick of hearing about.

Game was 5/10 PL Holdem. I haven't played PL much. Besides myself, there were 2 or 3 other insomniacs there. All were right players, and each had ~600-1k chips since I'd just finished a nice streak. I had around 45k.

A few minutes later, a player I'll call Jackass joined with 2k chips and immediately started raising the max at every single opportunity, by the river he was invariably all in. Eventually, the other guys who were at the table before me went bust or just sat out. I, however, was sleep-deprived and had great hole cards, so I called most of these raises, with painful results.

The guy did this for about 10 hands. Starting at hand #2, with each hand, one or two people would join the table with a few thousand chips, then raise or call every single bet from Jackass. They'd go all-in, lose and leave the table, only to be replaced by more fresh meat in time for the next hand. After these 10 hands or so (when nobody at the table had above 1k chips, even me), Jackass became thoroughly passive: Checked everything, folded if raised. Highest raise from then on: 100 chips.

This all seemed really odd, but what really made me suspicious was something else entirely. Jackass had a Japanese name, and his location was a German city. Insignificant, I know. Then I noticed all 18 of the random visitors that were participated in this join/raise everything/all-in/bust/quit cycle also had various German cities.

I realize the mass-migration of 98% of my funds was entirely my fault. I'm afraid to guess how many poker sins I committed. Ah, let's add em up anyway.

-I played while trying to avoid falling asleep.
-I got overconfident from my 84% win streak over the last hour.
-I stayed in a game where I was getting creamed repeatedly.
-I allowed another player to lure me into playing by his rules.

And the mortal sin: I ignored my intuition telling me something wasn't kosher.

On the bright side this was just play money, and it was a nice learning experience...as far as those go.

So anyway, I'm just wondering what really went on here? Does this sound like bot activity, or was this just a cheap PL/NL-specific strategy that happened to coincide with string of 18 Germans stopping by to dump those pesky excess chips?

Kel

No opinions? Hmm..

lol sounds like play money chip dumping tbh.

I concur.

why would you just dump your play chips?????

some guy probably has a dozen accounts that he plays play monies with and dumps with them all to his main account because he wants to be the SUPREME EMPEROR OF PLAY MONIES.

some guy laliberte?

Well, chip dumping was my first guess, and of course is the most likely answer. I've seen that a few times, and it's pretty obvious. One factor I forgot to mention was the ridiculously inhuman speed with which this activity happened. It was much too fast for any one person to do; even with the help of a third arm and assorted narcotics. Even three humans on different boxes would have had trouble. I also really doubt they could chorepgraph as efficiently as was done here.

As far as hoarding play money, Dorkus was right. MANY people equate 10M chips = Holy-Immortal PlayMoney God. Pointless? Definitely! But to be fair, what poker player doesn't want to be the Chip God? :P Even though their 'wealth' is worthless, they still can have the honor, dubious or not.

I'm sure some also do it to later sell the chips online, but IMO most people probably do it just so they can play on the good tables which have a 2-4k minimum. On PS play money tables, Players start with 1k. If they drop below 100, they can only rebuy 1k three times each hour. That basically forces people to play unprofitable 5/10 fixed limit for hours to build the 2-4k minimum needed to play elsewhere. For a good player that just had a bad day, getting back into sane, intelligent hands means hours of 5/10 PL/NL or 10/20 FL with legions of squeaky-new players, still-clueless intermediates, and for some reason grandmas who are conservative even with play money.

I can definitely see people wishing to avoid that.

I don't know where you live but if you're on the east coast 4am here would be either 10 or 11 am in Germany. Did you ever think that it was just time for the German play money donkeys to wake up and start their play money donkdom day?

I guess that you haven't spent much time playing playmoney games. You will run into this all the time on the majority of the large websites. Just sit down for an hour at any FTP play chip room (especially the lower blind rooms) and watch all the rediculous play. I have noticed that a lot of people go into the lower limit games to try to get a larger stack fast (all-in on their first hand)so they can move up in the play money donkey world and go to larger rooms.

Well when me and some of my friends get tired of playing real money/go on tilt we all jump on a play money table and shove every hand.

It's very therapeutic to shove with 2,5o PF and end up winning 10K play monies.

Since I've tried to avoid play money to avoid learning bad habits, I'm definitely not a play money veteran :P, but I have played enough to know what you're referring to. You can't play 10 minutes there without witnessing that once or twice.

As far as a German donkey invasion, I did consider it. However the unusual patterns in naming, bet/raise/reraise and ridiculously fast speed involved are why I don't think that's it. When I say fast, I mean ridiculously fast as in: "fast tables are glacial by comparison" fast.

I wish I'd kept the HH's, because they'd be really useful in explaining it. Here's an example of a typical hand as best as I can remember it:

Previous hand ends. At table:

Me
Grandma
Grandpa
Grandpa'sMistress

In the second before the next hand starts, 3 players join:

Matsoko 2k chips. Location: Deidesheim
Ryuichi 2k chips. Location: Halberstadt
Takashi 2k chips. Location: Hamburg

The new guys post BB to get in. Takashi preflop raises PL. Everyone folds but Matsoko and Ryuichi, who also Reraise PL. Takashi calls.
Flop.
The Tak preflop raise and Mat/Ryu/Tak Reraise PL cycle repeats on turn and river. Mat and Ryu are quickly all in.
Takashi wins showdown with straight or better every time.
Mat/Ryu both have junk hands; e.g. 2-7 / 3 9 unsuited. Both bust and leave.

Next hand, exact same thing, except the instant Mat/Ryu leave, we get two new visitors before the next hand begins:

Yoshiko 2k chips. Location: Birkenfeld
Usagi 2k chips. Location: Trendelburg

Takashi preflop raises PL, Yosh/Usa Reraise PL and go all in. At SD Takashi has another godly hand while Yosh/Usa have utter crap. Both bust, leave and are instantly replaced by:

Kagami 2k chips. Location: Weiterstadt
Chizu 2k chips. Location: Eschweiler

Rinse, wash, repeat for at least the next 10 hands. After that, the pattern of Japanese twins simul-joining to donate chips stops, and Takashi suddenly turns into the model calling station for the next hour he stays there.

I didn't time them, but I'm pretty sure each hand lasted about 10 seconds. Ignoring all the other name/location/timing/hand oddities, the fastest I've ever seen on a fast table (which this wasn't) seems to be around 15-20 seconds for 4-6 players -and then only when everyone uses auto check/fold.

Anyway, it was beyond weird. I just wondered if it was something anyone had seen before. My guess is someone was testing a new toy before turning it loose. For someone making a bot, play tables would be the only logical testing ground.