How are you Americans doing since the ban?

Another conspiracy theory post alert!!!!!!

Just played an $1 18 player SnG on Stars - 2 Americans, 16 non-Americans. I came 4th, the 2 Americans ended up H2H after blundering their way through (calling all-ins with A 10, going all in with 1/10 odds UTG with 99 etc, then being dealt monster after monster when short-handed).

I always used to think non-Americans tended to do a bit better (at low levels) than Americans - there isn't the same cultural or social attachment to poker outside the US, if you're not American and are playing, you have made a conscious decision to learn and play the game (I don't think there are a lot of Non-American housewifes, retired people and kids, playing for the social interaction).

The CC games at Pokerstars have also had a noticeable shift away from the Europeans/ Canadians to the Americans in recent weeks as well. It used to be the case that the top 4 or 5 players would be European / Canadians 75% of the time, but this no longer holds true.

Is it a coincidence that this shift appears to coincide with the ban on Poker in the US - If American's lose their roll, they are going to find it difficult to replace it now?

Discuss........



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Yes.

- The American player base at the moment is stronger for exactly the reasons stated in your OP.

- The 1-2 is a coincidence. Bad players win huge donkaments sometimes, and the odds of that are longer than the odds of a 1-2 in a 18-player donkngo.

- If anything, don't CC forum events go a long way to discounting your 'theory'?

Well I think that the Americans playing now have to try harder to play so you're mostly getting the American players that are better at poker. There aren't as many houswives able to put money online just for something to do while the kids are at school.

There's a much higher number of Americans playing at these sites now - we all had to move from sites that banned us. So of course the % of Americans at the sites that accept us has increased dramatically and you will see more Americans playing and more Americans winning.

Personally my play did not change at all for fear of losing my bankroll. Though it is not as easy to put money in we still can. (And I always have my husband's debit card from AIB as a back-up - I don't use it because of the exchange rate.)

OK. This is very hush hush but as a Brit living in the US, I feel it only right and proper to let the cat out of the bag....

I'm sure it was a mistake, and that they only sent it to me thinking I was a US citizen, but we all got letters recently from the "World-Wide Poker Federation" - the WWPF - this is a conglomerate of all of the major poker sites.

I won't go into all the detail, but they told us that "because of the ban on Us players playing at many of the top poker sites, we are concerned that you may revert to playing spades and hearts and that we may lose your valued custom forever. Accordingly, and please note that this is in the strictest confidence, whenever US players play in any of our tournaments in future, we will ENSURE that you suck out on an even more regular basis than normal ."

Please don't tell Debi that I blabbed. She told me not to say anything.....

Very droll, but i was really looking for responses from American players, people that were losing before the ban that maybe have seen their losses slow down since.

With the exception of this morning, I've just started playing higher level SNGs to escape the allin fests. I generally play 10-40 SNGs and have done well the past few months. I agree (amazing) that the difficulty reloading probably slowed down some of the donks for sure.

This morning I woke up early and a $1 tourney was just starting on Absolute so I figured why not. There were 122 players and it took 2 1/2 hours to win the $30 top prize...

US player here.... no change same win rate. Not counting the past 2 weeks
of unbelievable suck outs.

Interestingly enough, I didn't put any money online until after the ban. If you know where to go and how to do it, you can get money in for a small fee. Americans love to skirt the rules, so I think you'll find that people are generally not concerned about their bankrolls since there ARE still ways to fund 'em.

One thing you said, I found very interesting. I wasn't aware that most European players play to play and not to play AND socialize.

I was winning more pre ban, and can't find any tree in the forest these days.
Gesshoo, please forward my specifics to that WWPF as an especially needy American poker player who has reconsidered bridge.........

Maybe it's just me or I misread your OP, but it would seem your underlying foundation for this discussion is flawed. To suggest that simply being from America, Canada, England, Austrailia, or anywhere else somehow dictates what type of poker player or how good you are is absurd at best. So what, in my haste, am I missing?

The other obvious flaw is basing the findings on the narrowest of statistical percentages. I could quote a gazillion similar theories using that basis.

Pre Ban i was winning more money cause i was playing more, since the Ban, i have only played Bodog cause the day before the ban i put money there, i got 1 check from bodog this past monday and ive got another 1 coming, then i will put money at Stars and play there more,, i think the ban got a lot of us USA players down, i know i debated weather i would just give up poker, then i thought, No, cause that would be like letting the Gov. win,, but im going to put some $$$ at Stars very soon, i also want to play in the WSOOF tourneys>>>>>>>>>> buck

"you" americans?
lets put it this way, it will take alot more then a dumb ban to get "us" americans to stop playing the game "we" invented.
As for the theory I find it offensive that you are suggesting that the only way americans can win is if the poker sites rig the game so we can have a bankroll.

better winrate for me since the ban, but i started taking poker seriously so that's why i'm sure.

See, here's the thing- We, the Imperialist Donkey scofflaws, in a concerted protest against the infringement on our persoanl liberties, and in order to form a more perfect poker union, have vowed not to rest until all the cash in online poker is OURS- mahahahahahahaha. Ha.

Hey Rob,

How are you Americans doing since the ban?

Since the ban, I have taken my money out of Titan (obviously). And put it on Pokerstars and Bodog. I am doing consistently well on both sites. I am basically only playing $50 NL.

I always used to think non-Americans tended to do a bit better (at low levels) than Americans - there isn't the same cultural or social attachment to poker outside the US, if you're not American and are playing, you have made a conscious decision to learn and play the game (I don't think there are a lot of Non-American housewifes, retired people and kids, playing for the social interaction).

The only time (on line) I play when it is "social" is when I am playing with the CC bunch. And it is always at lower limits than my normal $50 NL ring tables.

If American's lose their roll, they are going to find it difficult to replace it now?

It is an interesting point you bring up here, I think about how it would suck for me personally to try and re-load without Neteller. But it has not changed my game. I am still learning and reading and playing to learn.

I think some Americans might try to improve their game because of the difficulty of re-loading, but I'm not sure.

Now I have a couple of Question for you Rob.

Do you always Check where peeps are from when you are playing a tournament?

I never, ever do. I'm sure if you are "Down" on players from certain countries you might play against them differently.

Do you use where someone is from as a form of a Tell?

Why not? Wouldn't it be absurd to say that every country has players playing to the same standard - i said why i felt there were more American fish, more social players playing for fun. Doesn't mean that Ameicans on this site are worse than average does it? Russians and Brazilians are known to be fishy players too, i've heard people say the same about the French. I didn't see any off the Bulgarian mob setting the world alight over at Titan.

I thought there were generally accepted player traits, eg Scandinavians being agressive, Spanish being gamblers etc? Maybe not??

Yes i do, it's hard not to at Pokerstars because it has their location next to their name in the tourney lobby. I look for people playing late at night, especially at weekends, and those players (Sat and Sun morning for me) are Americans. It's not just me, there are whole articles in the poker magazines i read about how to hunt out tired, drunken Americans.

LOL, okay thanks. Obviously I didn't miss anything at all in the OP. It truly was nothing more than personal beliefs based on flawed theory and psuedo-stereotypes. Glad we got that cleared up.

For me the ban caused me to be more disciplined in my bankroll management decisions, which was certainly a plus, thank you very much Senator Frist, but my play hasn't changed much, simply continuing to slowly evolve. Still didn't prevent me from walking away from the, fish in a barrel tank known as Bodog so overall minimum effect. Competition seems to be better overall is the only difference I see. Donks with minimum bankrolls going or gone.

Simply personal observation, that's all.

i dont think rob is implying that americans are bad poker players. i think he's saying that we have more idle people (eg soccer moms) than most other countries.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^This.

Nice how you base your whole theory on one or two incidents. It was a coincidence, nothing more.

My winrate has increased drastically since the ban, actually since 2-3 months ago. I was a winning player at around the time of the ban but it was miniscule. I found some pretty big leaks in my game and plugged them and have been winning much more since.

I think if anything the ban weened out some of those soccer mom social player types. There are always going to be people at all levels that have little regard for money, no matter where they are from.

pokernut lets hit up harrahs

you want to tomorrow? I guess that's today considering it's 3 a.m.

The wife is working.

^^^^

My play was to try and sattie into the FTOPS main event all day but that can be changed. If I do end up doing that I wouldn't mind playing in the cards chat PLO event too, if anyone would like to transfer me the entry fee and i'll send it to them on FT?

I put my whole roll on FT because of rakeback purposes. I thought it was more beneficial for me to consolidate to one site but am now regretting that some because of all the CC events on PS.

I'm going to have to get some money on PS for the WSOOF events anyway.

Actually, I think the French invented it, to be strictly accurate.

You know the French :- smell of garlic, surrender at the first sign of trouble (as long as we are doing dubious national stereotypes).

But I am willing to overlook that, if you are, mon ami.

Non! You conveniently forget, mon ami, that it was the froggies who kicked Engleesh ass in good old 1066 - probably while Harald was off playing poker somewhere!

Perhaps you are confusing us weeth the Italians?

While I agree that the 'conspiracy' theory is a load of nonsense, why can't poker players from one area be stronger than those from others?

African countries produce a huge proportion of great distance runners because of the lifestyle in many of the countries (more limited transport means more walking/running from place to place etc).

Who's to say Americans aren't generally worse at poker because of the simple fact that it's increased presence (on TV/radio/general advertising) means that more weaker 'recreational' players pick up the game? Sure, some of them might eventually study the game, but most of them would be shocked to hear that poker forums and poker books exist.

In general, the less poker is force-fed to people, the more out of their way they will have to go to 'discover' it, and the more interested they will be in actually learning the game in-depth.

A few years ago, before the dawn of internet poker, I read a "fact" that over 50 million Americans played poker on a regular basis. God knows what that number is now. So, while there are many new players, there are also many many experienced players. They may have not read any poker books, and they may not belong to a forum such as this, and there is no doubt that such things can and do benefit peoples' games, but there are still many decent players who deserve respect.

I know that poker is shown on TV in Europe, but unless it has changed, this is often in the early hours of the morning? Over here, it is BIG. It is shown on 3 or more channels every day, at prime time, and it isn't unusual to have poker on 3 stations at once. Watching top players can only be good experience, can't it?

Finally, these top live tournaments now attract many internet players. Initially, when this started 3 or 4 years ago, some of the top pros looked down on these players, but no longer. They are very aggressive and are succesful - and there are thousands and thousands of them. Theory is great, but the fact is that 2-7 off can and does sometimes beat pocket aces. This happens more often with more people in the hand. That is the reality of internet poker. More people stay in hands that the book says shouldn't, and that affects the odds for the people who play by the book.

That is what the pros found when they initally looked down on internet players - "why were you even in that hand" they'd ask/complain when they lost. Theory is great, and knowledge is power, but players like Doyle Brunson didn't read poker books - they wrote them.

What the..........????

So that's where my money went!!!!!!!!!!

The problem is that TV poker is a bastardized version of 'actual' poker. If someone raises allin on a flop with 9 high and very little fold equity, Mike and Vince wouldn't be berating the play if the player's opponent folded - they'd be creaming themselves with the usual "WHAT A DARING BLUFF VINCE" and "YOU'VE GOTTA HAVE HEART TO WIN AT POKER MIKE".

Not that I blame the TV networks greatly - people en masse are stupid and want to see 'exciting' allins - they don't want a half-hour debate on whether such-and-such a call was +$EV.

Some more recent programs have bucked the trend a little, but even on something like HSP you're seeing professional players who know each others games inside out playing - therefore they will make plays that someone playing $25NL against a table of unknowns should blatantly not be making.

I'd purport that watching TV poker actually does a player more harm than good unless it's supplemented by 'proper' study.