Where did all these retards come from?

Its always been like that! Thats why I make money!

Look at it this way: Would you rather be seated at a table full of skilled, knowledgeable, and logically thinking players or would you rather be seated at a table full of players who play purely on luck alone?

I'd take the latter because thats where the money is made. You exploit other players and force them to make mistakes. Sure, you might lose a few hands to them and they might get some crazy luck every now and then, but that'll happen. However, if you're playing smarter than they are, you'll have the bigger edge and win more in the long run.

Also, you're looking at the negative. Use this type of play to your advantage. By them playing like this means they're knocking each other out. You're moving up the tournament ranking without having to do a thing. I thinks its cool that I can beat about 20% of a tournament field and all I have to do is just fold. Then, you can exploit how they play by what you've observed. Get in with the best hand and get paid off (most of the time.) For the low stakes, these types of players are expected. Dont let it get to you and use it to your advantage.

It is like that on PokerStars, I can say that much. It hurts even worse when you get knocked out, even though you played a perfect game. Getting sucked out two or three times in a row, meaning your tourney life, puts a dark cloud over online play.

I wonder how long the long run will be for me though.

Ah, we've all been there.

i come from boston.

Had a few weeks of that crap -- getting sucked out on by absolute junk, over and over again. Gettin' in with the best, and then havin' them hit a runner runner, etc.
Many players don't understand this, but YAH,.. for the most part, I'd actually prefer to be playin' against decent players. I'd much rather match skill vs. skill then havin' some morons repeatedly sucking out against me. I'm not the type of player who enjoys sitting in on a $1 Mtt on PokerStars, watching 7 players limp into the pot, preflop every hand, and when if ya do raise up, the raise doesn't get respected, even if you haven't played a hand in 3 orbits (or more, lol).
Just tonight, I was in an 18plyr. sng, and because of the looseness and retardness of it, I only entered the pot on two hands out of 50!! (yah,.. out of 50). I was sitting in 3rd after that 2nd hand. I did end up going out prior to the bubble though, as my A-Ks 4xBB raise got called by the SB with A-6o. A & K come on flop, I bet out 2/3 pot, not wasting any time and wanting to take it down right then. Well,.. he comes over the top and spikes a 6 on turn and a 6 on river, LOL.... insanity, lol.
Yah, yah, yah,.. "but in the long run",.. in the long run I seem to keep coming across these idiots, lol.
Still managing to maintain a pos. ROI though,... it's a miracle, lol.

I would much rather play against someone that will fold K4os, when I raise, then reraise them. Then I continue bet, then give a heavy cbet after the turn. They wont fold, no matter what. Then of course they hit their backdoorflushstraightdrawrunnerrunnerwhateverquads ... LOL

Honestly I hear that in the long run thing and I think the same thing. If it is this magical variance that is causing me to lose, even though I am always in with the better hand when will it end? I seem to think that it is not the magical variance, but is instead the horrible play of the donkey. Now granted in the long run I will probably make it alot farther than any of them into tourneys (if we add them all up and divide final posisition). BUT there is always a few of them that have gotten lucky (or gotten variance) and make it deep into a tourney to knock me out with some insane 1 outter on the river...

This^^^^^ just happened to me tonight on PokerStars, to me it felt like I played the perfect game, I was in the top three from the time I won my first pot on the 6th hand of the tourney until just after the third break, when I took my first big hit which put me in 4th place. ( we were ITM by this time).
I got back up to second then the bad beats started, first one I had pocket Kings, I flopped a set then the retard with A5 suited catches runner runner hearts for the flush, second bad beat was AQ suited hit Q on the flop, A on the turn I put the retard all in, he turns over J4os he caught a 4 on the flop then you guessed it a 4 on the river for trips, taking me down to 38th with 22,000 in chips, then I get A K and bet 11,000 into a limped pot get one caller, flop comesA 6 3 I go all in he calls and shows 63 turn and river do nothing for me but gives him a 3 on the river for a full house just to rub it in more, and thats my tourney done, out in 41st for $7.66. it was a $3.30 mtt.
If I got to the final table which was looking possible 9th paid $36.77, 6th paid $100.85 3rd paid $201.69 and 1st paid $516.99, so I was looking at some good money.

t^^^ My friend that right there is my online poker story lately (well for MTTs). That is also the reason that I know that luck plays alot more of a factor than some people would like to believe. Now if it is a straight cooler and they had pocket aces to your kings, well that cant be avoided. But when you get your money in, with not only the better hand but the far better hand, AK to AJ for one, then they hit one of their 3 outs, well that just hurts. When it happens over and over, well I gotta believe that luck plays alot more of a factor than skill late in a tourney. Dont get me wrong, I believe that consistently I will make it alot farther than the average donkey. I also believe that "in the long run" I probably will win more tourneys overall. But that long run is probably based on 50 or 60 years of play. What I am supposed to do until then?? LOL I mean really, this variance thing is supposed to work itself out the more than I play. Eventually it is supposed to swing back in my favor. Well I can safely say that I play a ton of hands of poker, at all different levels, and that it hasnt swung my way yet (not once since I have started). I also do realise that when I am the one always getting in with the better hand, that they are the ones that have to suckout, BUT I would be happy if the variance god would just let some more of my hands stand up! Alot of these tourneys are not won by a guy with the most skill (or even alot of skill), they are won by the guy that gets the sick run of cards and the guy that gets lucky (gets variance) and wins suckouts time after time. Jamie Gold comes to mind (not that the guy has no idea how to play poker - but give any of the guys at the final table the cards that he got that tourney and they surely would have taken it down as well). When the Jamie Golds (can play but surely not as well as Allen Cunningham who also was surely the most tallented player there) win the big tourneys, it shows that luck>skill (ok ok in the short run lol!).

Not me. Gimme the donks, any day. I don't understand why people would actually leave a poker site because players are playing badly. I'm sure it's subjective, but I'd rather get sucked out than outplayed.

Playing against someone bad is as much a challenge as playing against someone good. It's just a different type of challenge. Sometimes you have to play bad poker back at them. (not raising strong hands preflop, making ludicrous bets on the river, calling without proper odds due to insane implied odds, etc) Sometimes you have to throw away quality hands, and just wait them out. Sometimes you have to lock it down and only play the nuts.

Remember, just because five-ninths of the table is going all-in with any two cards, doesn't mean you have to.

aside form all of this craziness, why have i been seeing the word "retard" a lot on this forum, kinda weird its used so loosely

guys i have a mission, lets go around and tell all donks to quit playing poker ok? I'm about 100% positive it will work. Then we can all play perfect poker and I'm sure we will all be winners

Welcome to poker 101. Online and live is the same, start playing games other than holdem and you should see a higher skill level pretty quickly

Online and live are NOT the same. No way... I for one am way better live than online. Bluffing online is just hoping for the best or get a silly little read on a person drawing. Bluffing in live poker for me is very profitable when I can read someone as weak. Also showing weakness or strength live can help you in a hand as well. Online I belive it's the cards 90% and playing the person maybe 10%. Live it's 50/50.

Phil took most of my answer...but one more thing,a few days off or a week or two even more makes poker alot more fun again.I played every day for 10 months straight and got burned out.I was grouchy,hatefull and every bad beat seemed to be the gods plotting against me.Then i read in super system how a friend told Doyle he was playing bad and doyle realized he hadnt taken a break in over a year.A vacation helped him.Well if Doyle can get burned out so can us mortals take a week off it will do you good.I took 10 days off and had my best month ever when i started up again.Good luck........

I am more inclined to agree with this, than the people that say online/live are exactly the same.

i rather play with skilled people rather then with donks , after a while frustration kills me... not only my game starts to suck i dont learn anything by playing donks...and start to question my game..

im not complaining about a bad beat or two, im talking at least a hundred. I dont play all day every day, I learned a long time ago playing too much costs me money. there have always been idiots but the last couple months every tourny ive played there have been at least 5 if not six or seven at every table. I dont pretend to be a world class player but I like to think im pretty good. I vote with the people who said Id rather be playing with good thinking players so if i do lose Im at least learning something other than the worse these idiots play the more they get rewarded. For the record I also play a fair amount of live poker and the only thing live and online have in common is the name Hold Em

From my own experience it seems that most of them come from the United States

the life of online poker...... aint it grand?

Surgeon Generals Warning....

Quiting poker now greatly reduces STRESS.

am i missing the point here? dont you want maniacs playing like retards or do you want everyone to be highly skilled so they play a 'normal' game but just destory you?

Myself,.. I too prefer to be on a table of decent players (I do better on those tables,... much better). After goin' on a sng run of 20 straight KO's with 19 of them bein' an 87% fav. on the flop when getting my chips allin, or on rarer occasion of getting sucked out on as a 4:1 fav preflop (more understandable obviously), then yah,.. i'd have to say I prefer to play against decent players too.
Something wrong with my game perhaps?? Hmm... on the one's in question I would think not, reviewed all hands and rarely had a mis-step of any kind and never when losing a large pot (onlyl a few times when I might've been able to pick up a few smaller ones).
Some really prefer the donk super mini micor buy-in tables but personally I think the game is boring there for one, and two, soooo much more of the luck factor seems to come into play (limp limp, limp limp, min raise, call call call,.. flop.... min bet, call call call call,.. min raise,.. call call call call,.. Is that poker??? reminds me of a homegame as a grade school kid but I don't think we played that poorly??... maybe we did???)

Eh thats poker. im sure if u had the winning hand and hit a 1 outer u wouldnt of complained. sometimes luck is a factor.. in the long run it doesnt mean crap over knowledge of the game. people complain about bad beats. but i mean look at how many hands u actually end up playing on a website an hour. specially if u was like me playing 2-3 tables at a time. it happends

Here here... much agreed!!! If ya haven't had a time where you've experienced this, you've either been fortunate or maybe you're just not that good to have it happen to you.
What I do when experiencing a bad stretch is to go and play some freerolls, getting into some freeroll mania. Actually got into it alot this past month due to the prior one being so completely lame and so far in May have had 40+ freeroll cashes (yah.. 40+,.. craziness but very tiring). Have almost earned enough thru them for a decent single buy-in now, lol.

I agree that I'd much rather play good players than players who don't really have a clue as to how to bet, what to bet or when to bet! I HATE tthose friggin' "All-Ins" or even people calling w/nothing! And then they friggin' WIN! Wouldn't be so bad getting beat, but I'd like to at least learn sumpin' when I do!

Take a look out the window its called the human race

why the hell would you want play against good players - yeh they'll know when to bet and fold etc. but they will likely crush you in the long term. whereas playing against a total idiot, who cant wait to donate his chips to you when you have the nuts, you will beat them eventually in the long term.

i just dont understand the logic of some people sometimes. or is it just me?

Its a no win situation for the fish out there - people lose to them and get annoyed that they (the fish) played badly.

People win and rib them at how bad (supposedly) they are.

It is of course better to play against a bad player, a table full if your really lucky.

The main reason players get ticked off when someone makes a really stupid call when they know 100% they are behind and get paid off, is because it's a tournament. Many posts in all forums correctly state that in the long run, solid play will pay off, that holds true in ring games, not in tournaments. Luck plays a huge part in tournament play and anyone who won a tournament and tells you they didn't suck out at least once is deluding themselves. In ring games, it doesn't matter is the fish chaser sucks out 1 in 4 hands, in the long run, they will lose. I don't recall ever feeling like throwing the lappy out the window after losing a cash game hand to a bad beat. Totally different in a tourney though, because you got railed by a bad play and 3 hrs of solid play goes down the toilet. Luck wins tourneys, skill wins cash games.

Hmmm...first allin started by a player with A/J offsuit and the next by 4/7? (Sklansky would be licking his chops sitting at that kind of table.) As for me, I LOVE watching foolish players fighting it out in early stages! The winner is the guy who's gonna fatten me up with his careless play later when I've got the goods and he's betting on la la land. These are undoubtedly the same people who buy $10 and $20 scratch off lottery tickets so you KNOW they are bad at math. Anyone who's willing to lose their ass in an effort to save face is welcome at my table!