Is PokerStars Competition Really That Tough?

[gaming_mouse]

I was reading the reviews of the various poker rooms on pokerlistings.com, and while they rank party a 7 for soft competition (higher number means softer), they rank PokerStars a 2.

Anyone who play at both sites regularly agree with this relative ranking? I'm interested especially in the difference at low-stakes limit holdem (3/6 and thereabouts).

TIA,
gm

[AngryCola]

Some of the extremely low limit games are soft, as well as the cheaper single table tournaments.

The full ring games at 1/2 and up are very tight when compared to other sites. I'm sure an expert player could beat these games, but there are better (softer) places to invest your money.

It's really a shame, because Stars has the best site out there.

[MicroBob]

I would probably agree with these ratings for full-ring. Although I might put stars full-ring at more of a 3 or 4.
6-max games there I would rate around a 5 or 6 though for general fishyness.
Tourney games (MTT's and SNG's) there I would give a 7.

[Hack]

I agree with this. Even at as low as .25/.50 on Stars, the average percentage of players seeing flop is typically below 40%. At Party it is much fishier.

I've heard that the three P's(Party, Paradise and Pacific) are generally considered the fishiest sites around.

[Russ McGinley]

Overall I think PS has the toughest competition but it is by no means impossible. To put it in a better light, on places like Party and such, you'll play on a table and you might have 4-6 players who have no idea what they're doing, calling raises SOOOTED and what-not, while on Stars you might have 2-3 players on your table doing that. There are still bad players, enough to make playing profitable, just not as many. Stars does however have insanely tough tournaments since they are without a doubt the leader in that area.

[MicroBob]

I don't think their tournaments are that tough at all really.
have you played in their $11-rebuy's. The play in these can be positively atrocious.
not as bad as some tourney players I've seen on party....but still kinda lousy. Lots of A8o all-in's (not on short-stack).


I think your estimates of the number of idiot-clowns per table is high.
The average see-flop percentage on party I believe is less than 40...even at .5/1. This info comes from others' posts on their own pokertracker stats but I assume it to be fairly accurate.

I certainly don't think there are 4-6 players at each table who are in the 'No Clue' category. It's fishy...but it's not THAT fishy.

[AngryCola]

[ QUOTE ]

I don't think their tournaments are that tough at all really.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, Stars has great opportunities for a tournament player. Most of the Stars fish only play multi-table tournaments.

[JordanIB]

I'm currently clearing the reload bonus at 1/2, and the end of that can't come soon enough.

My normal game right now is Party .5/1. Stars 1/2 I have found to be much tigheter and much more aggressive. I've adjusted a little bit to the aggression by re-reraising at times when I thought appropriate, and have gotten a raiser to fold, but it's definitely been the biggest test to my ring game abilities thusfar.

I feel like it's playing like the final table of the WSOP sometimes; fold around to the CO or button, who steals the blinds. I've successfully taken blinds with weaker hands (A7, A8) from middle position when I've felt the time was right.

Bottom line, it's much tougher than Party. Like another poster said, not impossible, but tougher.

[Russ McGinley]

The rebuy tourneys are always a joke because it's double-up or rebuy on every hand. I was thinking more along the lines of the $50 and up tourneys.

As far as the ring games go, I was just kinda making a point that the Party skins and such generally, from what I've seen, have about twice as many bad players as Stars. I'd say I usually get between 4 and 6 "not good" players on the Party skins and 2 or 3 "not good" players on Stars. When I say not good, I mean anywhere from deranged (cold calling 3 bets with 82s) to pretty dumb (cold calling 3 bets with KTo). A lot of the time on Stars raises go uncalled which is murder if you're bonusing. But then you still get the one guy who plays the SOOOOTED no matter what, but it's less frequent on Stars I'd say.

[Izaak_Walton]

The streets around here are filled with piles of trash because all the dumpsters are being lived in by guys who lost their homes playing on PS. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]