State of Online Poker in 2019

[Mr_Hand]

Trump will do whatever to let him win. I think there may be a better alternative than Trump and will not vote for him on the poker issue.
I hope someone does legalize online poker with some restrictions.
1. Do not let AI programs profile and database your play
2. Provide a monitor program to enforce number 1
3. Identify and restrict BOTS from the tables. ACR actually did this recently not all BOTS but some Russian BOTS
4. Make it nation wide in the US and tax it like real casinos.

IMHO

I really don’t know what’s so hard about it. I received multiple withdrawals from Fulltilt at 5k a piece. They could have just sent me a 1099 with them like the casino’s do. Problem solved. I get to play and they get taxes.

 

[bzvz222]

Trump will do whatever to let him win. I think there may be a better alternative than Trump and will not vote for him on the poker issue.
I hope someone does legalize online poker with some restrictions.
1. Do not let AI programs profile and database your play
2. Provide a monitor program to enforce number 1
3. Identify and restrict BOTS from the tables. ACR actually did this recently not all BOTS but some Russian BOTS
4. Make it nation wide in the US and tax it like real casinos.

IMHO

I am not from the US but I agree with you, I would certainly like to see US players at my tables on pokerstars.

 

[Mr_Hand]

I am not from the US but I agree with you, I would certainly like to see US players at my tables on Pokerstars.

It’s funny to see how each country considers the other countries to be fish. My old answer on PocketFives for what’s your favorite game: Any game that has Europeans at it.

 

[dark IPA]

after a long break, i started playing online poker at the end of 2018. the main change that i noticed was the increase of allin-players which indicates the increased popularity of poker among people who are not interested in the essence of this game

 

[Mr_Hand]

after a long break, i started playing online poker at the end of 2018. the main change that i noticed was the increase of allin-players which indicates the increased popularity of poker among people who are not interested in the essence of this game

I don’t think that is a fair assessment of what that play is. Sure, some just use it as a way to not get better and fumble their way through. But I think there has been a number of more experienced players that use it to apply maximum pressure on an opponent. Just watch the likes of Bryn Kenny who constantly puts maximum pressure on people. For skilled players, it’s just another tool to use.

 

[andosalado]

Yes I noticed that, specially on stingos, but in this case, at least my read is that people are getting better and know Nash charts, and also know they can put pressure on other players.

 

[Datdude1]

When I was playing in pervious years it was easy to find a table with just about any stakes and freerolls were abundant. Now when I want to play later in the evening tables are difficult to find unless you're playing big stakes and freerolls are rare.

 

[Smokewood]

I was a regular online poker player before black friday, playing mainly low stakes STN and tournaments. For different reasons I stopped playing for a couple of years, but now I'm back and doing pretty well on my first month. What I wanted to know is your opinion or insights on how much the game has changed in this years, lets say from 2012 to 2019.

The only main difference I notice is there's a lot less people playing than before.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Online poker is completely rigged, unsafe, and unregulated.
Play live or don't play at all....

 

[Queenlimp]

The poker craze is over.
Before Black Friday, everyone wanted to play poker.
That created a gigantic pool of newbies and fish.
Not the same today as players have gotten better and newbies are down.
Minimal platforms.
For US players, we are all dependent on only a few relatively new platforms.


Oh the partypoker/Pokerstar days, seems so long ago...

 

[andosalado]

Online poker is completely rigged, unsafe, and unregulated.
Play live or don't play at all....

What do you mean by unsafe?

Do you have any proof that's rigged?

 

[andosalado]

The poker craze is over.
For US players, we are all dependent on only a few relatively new platforms.


Oh the Partypoker/Pokerstar days, seems so long ago...

Yes, US player have it very difficult as I understand. Luckily I'm not, I'm from Uruguay.

 

[Smokewood]

What do you mean by unsafe?

Do you have any proof that's rigged?

Do you trust your money sitting on ANY of these sites? I don't.
How could I possibly PROVE that it is rigged???

It's not that big of a stretch to assume that a US facing poker site in 2019 might be up to no good....

 

[andosalado]

Do you trust your money sitting on ANY of these sites? I don't.
How could I possibly PROVE that it is rigged???

It's not that big of a stretch to assume that a US facing Poker site in 2019 might be up to no good....

I wouldn't go as far as saying I trust 100% the sites, but declaring they are rigged with no proof at all is worth nothing as an argument. You can say you are suspicious or that you don't trust them, that's fair and valid, but you were pretty decisive in your statement, that's why I asked.

 

[Mr_Hand]

I’m not accusing Smokewood of this at all. So don’t take it that way. But I have had many friends in the past that were losing players, and they all claimed that online poker was rigged. But I continued to make money. I came from a very negative mindset, but with a lot of study and training on my game, as well as combatting the negativity with reading about it, I turned my game around and made thousands. My friends chose not to put in the same time and effort that I did, and they continued to lose and just blamed it on it being rigged. People are always going to find a way to cheat at everything, but it’s not going to stop those who are determined from success.

 

[andosalado]

I came from a very negative mindset, but with a lot of study and training on my game, as well as combatting the negativity with reading about it, I turned my game around and made thousands. My friends chose not to put in the same time and effort that I did, and they continued to lose and just blamed it on it being rigged. People are always going to find a way to cheat at everything, but it’s not going to stop those who are determined from success.

It's good to hear stories of success. That's what I like to believe, that if I work enough and play my best every time I will be able to make a profit. I'm very rusty right now and trying to figure how people are playing, yet I still have a positive ROI in about 200 sitngos. So I'm inclined to think that if I continue improving I will have an edge to beat this small stakes games and make my way to bigger stakes. That is if I can control my tilt impulses

 

[Mr_Hand]

It's good to hear stories of success. That's what I like to believe, that if I work enough and play my best every time I will be able to make a profit. I'm very rusty right now and trying to figure how people are playing, yet I still have a positive ROI in about 200 sitngos. So I'm inclined to think that if I continue improving I will have an edge to beat this small stakes games and make my way to bigger stakes. That is if I can control my tilt impulses

That sounds like a good way to start! You’re already ahead of most people. The average player just wants to “have fun”. Which basically means they want to just play, and if they get lucky, great, but if not, oh well. That’s good for those who want to study and get better.

As far as tilt, just try to think of it as hundreds of thousands of hands. Don’t get hung up on 1 hand. That kind of thinking is toxic and will make you play bad. Good luck to you!

 

[Smokewood]

I wouldn't go as far as saying I trust 100% the sites, but declaring they are rigged with no proof at all is worth nothing as an argument. You can say you are suspicious or that you don't trust them, that's fair and valid, but you were pretty decisive in your statement, that's why I asked.

nope, they're rigged.

 

[Acechador]

Currently there are new variants of the Texas Holdem mode, you can find many rooms with games like Spin & go, Zoom, etc.

That is one of the main changes that I have seen in recent years

 

[andosalado]

Currently there are new variants of the Texas Holdem mode, you can find many rooms with games like Spin & go, Zoom, etc.

That is one of the main changes that I have seen in recent years

Yes, I tried spin an go, didn't like it, too crazy. I can see me making a positive ROI playing them.

 

[ekgbeat]

I would say the main difference between then and now would be the following: more sophisticated bots, more information/training sites on how to "properly" play the game before you had to know good player and talk hands, and less losing players out there.

 

[puzzlefish]

There's no way to prove that any RNG is rigged or not rigged without absolute and unlimited access to its source code and the full complete hand history of any particular tournament or cash game. The issue is that this information is not available and all anyone has to go on is their own personal hand histories and statistics. The problem lies with the interaction of hands and non-randomness of the community boards that are generated at different times in any cash game or tournament. i.e. how often does the big stack complete a draw with ATC vs. a smaller stack, how often are sets completed on the same board as a straight, or straight completed on the same board as a flush, etc. You can't measure these without seeing everyone's hand history for the whole table, and you will never see that information.

 

[jfitzg414]

may be hard to prove but I have to agree with Smokewood

Online poker is completely rigged, unsafe, and unregulated.
Play live or don't play at all....

I do not play with real money anymore unless I squeak it out of a freeroll. I started logging bad beats especially river beats and 2 runners win. It is surprising how often this happens online. Usually it is more prevalent once you played on a game for at least 5 to 10 min.
Preliminary conclusion
1) you are inticed to play early on with bad play and bids in the early rounds
2) you are profiled BOTS and sites the longer that you play by AI programs modifying "random cards " based on your play or BOTS working their database of a site programming to beat you.

Lastly I have no definitive proof that this is true but preliminary data seems to bear it out.

BOT detection
Talk to the players and do NOT use standard phrase to see if you get a response. If not then I not a possible bot
Enter a low person table 1-3 persons originally then see how fast familiar userids populate the rest of the table
just what I have noticed

 

[jfitzg414]

I do not play with real money anymore unless I squeak it out of a freeroll. I started logging bad beats especially river beats and 2 runners win. It is surprising how often this happens online. Usually it is more prevalent once you played on a game for at least 5 to 10 min.
Preliminary conclusion
1) you are inticed to play early on with bad play and bids in the early rounds
2) you are profiled BOTS and sites the longer that you play by AI programs modifying "random cards " based on your play or BOTS working their database of a site programming to beat you.

Lastly I have no definitive proof that this is true but preliminary data seems to bear it out.

BOT detection
Talk to the players and do NOT use standard phrase to see if you get a response. If not then I not a possible bot
Enter a low person table 1-3 persons originally then see how fast familiar userids populate the rest of the table
just what I have noticed

should read
If not then I note a possible bot
sorry about the typo

 

[jfitzg414]

Recently I did some research on a screen scraper program. This would be a program to automate manual logging of play on online sites. It seems that this could be one of the next enhancements to online poker.
http://www.poker-ai.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2418

For me it is not worth it to fight against this. I live in a state with very few casinos but the above totally deters me from playing real money online

 

[Rob Hobson]

The number of players has increased substantially through this period, and all the rest of matters came together. But the better strategies has not changed much, since the quantity of insane loosers waves, and losers increased a lot too.