Change in player pool- more difficult?

[StealTheButton]

Has anyone noticed that online poker has grown more difficult , especially in the last two months. I play sit and gos and on good months I've cleared 100 buy ins or more- However, for the last 1.5 to 2 months I am about even. It seems all the fish have busted and are no longer playing. There are a lot of aggressive players, some of them not very good, and some who are turning a profit. When you have super aggressive players to your right and to your left it can become difficult. When the betting is finally open to me I am getting frequently 3 betted or jammed. WTF.

I'm playing on pokerstars PA, but I may check out ACR- haven't played there in a while.

 

[StealTheButton]

* I am also seeing a lot of players jump down from higher stakes in the games I'm playing, so it may be getting tougher there too.

 

[fundiver199]

I'm playing on Pokerstars PA.

Developments on this particular site are not very representative for online poker as a hole, since its such a small and geographically limited player pool. From what you have told, games on PokerStars PA seem to have been exceptionally soft. So maybe you are just seeing them become more similar to, what you will find on other sites like for instance ACR.

 

[DS3]

Has anyone noticed that online poker has grown more difficult , especially in the last two months. I play sit and gos and on good months I've cleared 100 buy ins or more- However, for the last 1.5 to 2 months I am about even. It seems all the fish have busted and are no longer playing. There are a lot of aggressive players, some of them not very good, and some who are turning a profit. When you have super aggressive players to your right and to your left it can become difficult. When the betting is finally open to me I am getting frequently 3 betted or jammed. WTF.

I'm playing on Pokerstars PA, but I may check out ACR- haven't played there in a while.

Obviously your experience is quite specific, so I'll admit there is little for me to compare to directly. Nonetheless, I do sympathize in general.

Oddly, my results have picked up over the last few months, but this year, not just last two months felt distinctly different than the last. I have chalked half of it down to run bad/ run good. Nothing has radically changed with my game as I study but expect sensible incremental improvements. So I decided to dial back my play for two reasons, the first being the aforementioned run bad. But the second was because I felt play, like you, had just gotten decidedly more aggressive. And far more aggressive in a stupid manner - the word that keeps coming to mind is belligerent.

But, I do not think this is far fetched. Last year a lot of people rediscovered poker due to Covid. After two years of the pandemic I think many are frustrated and bitter at the moment. I do not think it justified but the fact is people are fighting on planes and even traffic accidents have rising dramatically as people are driving more aggressively. So, I've simply assumed the increase in aggressive play is down to cultural frustrations.

Admittedly, I am swimming in the poker shallows where you can see a lot of aggressive/silly play but the last few months I found myself really not enjoying play...so dialed back a lot. This somehow coincided with some run good and an upswing in results which has been great. But...if that upturn had not happened I think I would have been feeling frustrated at the end of 2021.

 

[Alex70793]

Sit & Go is a specific discipline, not every player will be able to play it profitably. Maybe it's better to play regular tournaments or regular cash games.
I also play omaha hi/lo, there used to be tournaments and cash games with 9-8 players at the table, but now it's all been removed and all the games have been done only at the 6-max tables, for hi/lo format games this is very bad, because the fewer players at the table the harder it is to win.

 

[alien666dj]

I believe that it is not the pool of players that has become more complicated, but the presence of a large amount of information on the Internet and its erroneous interpretation leads to the situation you described.

 

[StealTheButton]

Developments on this particular site are not very representative for online poker as a hole, since its such a small and geographically limited player pool. From what you have told, games on PokerStars PA seem to have been exceptionally soft. So maybe you are just seeing them become more similar to, what you will find on other sites like for instance ACR.

4-6 months ago this site was definitely softer. Obviously it's a small player pool. 1 or 2am there are about 300 players. Peak time around 8pm or so sees around 1200 players. I'm not sure what the larger sites have.

I'm seeing a lot of players I haven't played against before. I look up their stats and they are mostly players who have who have played thousands of tourneys who have moved down from much higher stakes. It has grown a little difficult because I'm either playing against players who know me well, or hyper aggressive high stakes players.

I've done well these past few days by varying my play a little against the regs that know me, and picking my spots against the more aggressive ones.