K
Kelani
Rising Star
Bronze Level
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
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
