Why I love Pokerstars

[3rdEye]

Check out these hands from a $5+.50 S&G at Pokerstars:

Here's the first one:

Table '1398786 1' Seat #4 is the button
Seat 4: 3rdEye (8895 in chips)
Seat 5: tfoxtodd (4605 in chips)
3rdEye: posts the ante 25
tfoxtodd: posts the ante 25
3rdEye: posts small blind 200
tfoxtodd: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to 3rdEye [8h 8s]
3rdEye: raises 1200 to 1600
tfoxtodd: raises 1200 to 2800
3rdEye: raises 6070 to 8870 and is all-in
tfoxtodd: calls 1780 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [Qc 6d Ks]
*** TURN *** [Qc 6d Ks] [Qh]
*** RIVER *** [Qc 6d Ks Qh] [Kh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
tfoxtodd: shows [2c Ac] (two pair, Kings and Queens)
3rdEye: shows [8h 8s] (two pair, Kings and Queens - lower kicker)
tfoxtodd collected 9210 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 9210 | Rake 0
Board [Qc 6d Ks Qh Kh]
Seat 4: 3rdEye (button) (small blind) showed [8h 8s] and lost with two pair, Kings and Queens
Seat 5: tfoxtodd (big blind) showed [2c Ac] and won (9210) with two pair, Kings and Queens

A mere three hands later:


Table '1398786 1' Seat #4 is the button
Seat 4: 3rdEye (3865 in chips)
Seat 5: tfoxtodd (9635 in chips)
3rdEye: posts the ante 25
tfoxtodd: posts the ante 25
3rdEye: posts small blind 200
tfoxtodd: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to 3rdEye [Jd Jc]
3rdEye: raises 1200 to 1600
tfoxtodd: raises 4000 to 5600
3rdEye: calls 2240 and is all-in
*** FLOP *** [Th 7d 4s]
*** TURN *** [Th 7d 4s] [8c]
*** RIVER *** [Th 7d 4s 8c] [Kc]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
tfoxtodd: shows [Kd 7h] (two pair, Kings and Sevens)
3rdEye: shows [Jd Jc] (a pair of Jacks)
tfoxtodd collected 7730 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 7730 | Rake 0
Board [Th 7d 4s 8c Kc]
Seat 4: 3rdEye (button) (small blind) showed [Jd Jc] and lost with a pair of Jacks
Seat 5: tfoxtodd (big blind) showed [Kd 7h] and won (7730) with two pair, Kings and Sevens

God, I love PokerStars.

[PrayingMantis]

Was this you first HU situation?

When HU with very big blinds, like normally what happens at the end of SNGs, the 2 players often find themselves all-in with what both believe might be the best hand, or at least not a big dog. That brings with it a big amount of pretty close races, because you're seldom a HUGE favorite pre-flop.

First hand you're 1:2 favorite when the money goes in. You'll lose it 1 out of 3 times.

Second hand you'r 2:5 favorite. You'll lose it 2 times out of seven.

Which means, that even when these two specific match-ups appear one after another in a row, with both players going all-in, it's about 10% chance you'll LOSE BOTH, and merely 48% you'll WIN BOTH.

HU brings with it a lot of variance. Hands like you've posted here are very very common, it has nothing to do with playing at stars.

And if your point is the river suck-outs, you should look for a thread originated by Holdem101, about the river cards in *Party* being rigged or something. He promised to bring some proof from his PokerTracker, but we've never heard of him since. It was maybe a week ago. We are still waiting, of course.

You can also look for "river card syndrom" in the psychology (and probability) forums.

[3rdEye]

No, I've been heads-up several times and often get in some low buy-in HU sit-and-gos to improve my heads-up play. I was just salty about the two consecutive bad beats.

The river suckouts, I must admit, do get under my skin. While this may or may not be true (and probably isn't), it certainly does *seem* like the river always kills me when I'm all in as a short-stack (e.g., in the second example in my original post). Of course, a lot of that is psychological; I'm definitely much more likely to remember river card suckouts when they happen to me than when I suck out on someone else.

I know it really doesn't have anything to do with PokerStars; it's just easier to blame the site than random luck because "the site" is tangible. Obviously I don't give much (if any) credit to the notion that Stars is "rigged," especially in the context of tournaments in which the rake is a function of the number of players rather than the average value of the pots earned.