I see nobody has had the nerve to reply to my last post. That’s fine. Just to inform you that I have played almost my last hand on your site. I will check once a week for now to see if you’ve fixed the problems with the bullies and bingo players. If not then I will be leaving your site for good.
I’m fed up with your site letting the bullies and bingo players reign. You make tourneys that encourage them rather than making tourneys that let’s the best poker players show their stuff.
If within the next couple of months I haven’t seen a solution to the problem then I will not be playing on your site any more. I enjoy a good game of poker and the bullies and bingo players ruin it.
I know I’m not alone in my feeling about bingo players and bullies and have seen some solutions posted to solve the problem. I even posted one myself with no feed back on it.
It seems you want to have bullies and bingo players more than having good players who want to play a friendly game of poker.
Maybe offering the private rooms which you have talked about would help. At least in a private room you could allow or deny the players who you wish to allow to play.
Until the problem is fixed I’m fed up and won’t be playing on your site more than once a week to see if the problem is solved as I said.
I give you 2 months to come up with a solution or you will lose me forever.
Good luck on fixing the problem and I hope you realize that it is a major problem that’s needs to be addressed quickly or you will be losing many more players than just myself.
Bob, I understand your frustration, but don’t leave, The issue is solved by creating a real sense of value in the free chips. This was solved by Poker Academy over ten years ago. To date it was not repeated and is lost in the basement of Full Tilt Poker, which is now owner by Poker Stars. They will not likely see its value.
But management here has been made aware and is considering a plan that will add value to chips with newcomers. When it is successful, however, it will only be the start of something good. I expect it will take a year or two before the full impact of the change tales place.
In the mean time look hard for good people and good games and find a favorite table and be happy with that. Build your bank and have fun.
Scratch
Yes, feelings are important!
Maybe they could add a safety pin icon to some player’s avatars to let us all know they are in their safe space. There could be “Safe Space” tables where the traditional rules of poker are set aside so everyone can feel special. Instead of all that aggressive betting and so on, they could all hold hands and sing until the hand ends, then split the pot equally just for participating!
Skill privilege is something that has to be eliminated!
What a load of BS
Stop letting them go back time after time for the free 2000 or 2500 wharever the ampount is.It just encouages the bad play,knowing they can just go to chips and reload! Make then wait a few hours in between instead .
OOPS OF COURSE I MEANT AMOUNT LOL
It is all poker…I have seen it in tournaments that I paid $160 to enter and seen it in cash games…just as I have seen people on this site whine that the game is rigged and whining about other people’s play.
The fact is that we all come to this site and play according to the rules of poker and the rules of this site…it is equal for all.
Perhaps instead of complaining you should start your own site where you can “do it right” 
The thing about these “bingo players and bullies” is that what they are doing is bad poker. If you use the right strategy against them, they are extremely easy to beat in the long run. I don’t understand why people keep complaining about bingo players when they are so easy to beat. Sure, it is isn’t as much fun to play against them, but you just have to get enough chips so you can play at higher stakes where there are fewer of them.
Sorry Scratch but I’m fed up with all of it. I will be gone in 2 months unless a solution is found by then. I agree that bullies and bingo players are a fact of life but I also know that if these people tried what they do at the casinos I play at that they wouldn’t make it across the parking lot when they left.
I’m a fairly decent player and win more than my share of tourneys even with all the bullies and bingo players out there but again I’ve noticed it getting a lot worse in the last year. A year ago when I started playing on your site there was a few bullies and bingo players but I would say that number has increased by at least 4 to 5 times in the last year. Unfortunate state and that is why I’m fed up.
The other issue is that your big tourneys bring out even more of them. Rather than creating a tourney that promotes great play your big tourneys promote being a bully and/or a bingo player. Look at the top of your leaderboards and you will find that each and every one of them is a bully and/or bingo player.
As I said you promised private rooms this year and if they are up and running in the next 2 months then great but otherwise I’m done with your site and will stick to visiting my local casinos from then on. Instead of solving the problem you seem to want to make it worse or ignore it altogether. I can’t deal with them any longer and that is why I’m giving you 2 months to come up with a solution.
Sorry thapredator but I’m fed up with all of it. I will be gone in 2 months unless a solution is found by then. I agree that bullies and bingo players are a fact of life but I also know that if these people tried what they do at the casinos I play at that they wouldn’t make it across the parking lot when they left.
I’m a fairly decent player and win more than my share of tourneys even with all the bullies and bingo players out there but again I’ve noticed it getting a lot worse in the last year. A year ago when I started playing on your site there was a few bullies and bingo players but I would say that number has increased by at least 4 to 5 times in the last year. Unfortunate state and that is why I’m fed up.
The other issue is that your big tourneys bring out even more of them. Rather than creating a tourney that promotes great play your big tourneys promote being a bully and/or a bingo player. Look at the top of your leaderboards and you will find that each and every one of them is a bully and/or bingo player.
As I said you promised private rooms this year and if they are up and running in the next 2 months then great but otherwise I’m done with your site and will stick to visiting my local casinos from then on. Instead of solving the problem you seem to want to make it worse or ignore it altogether. I can’t deal with them any longer and that is why I’m giving you 2 months to come up with a solution.
Bob,
Joe Dirt and I are players, not staff or management though I was a moderator. Our time helping is trying to make the place better in some form or another. Joe, Warlock, SunPowerGuru, and many others are well adept at teaching and engaging aspects of the game. My interest is in lobbying for what you want, among other things. I have had some nice successes but not one of them took only two months; that is the nature of what amounts to a very large organization. Please just take a look at how many people play here each day, over 10,000 with 2,000 at any given time. Please be realistic as people like me try to get what you and many others want. By you leaving it is just one more good thing that will not be here. Play in the SnGs and win a few months of the leaderboard. You will meet nice people and see that there is a decent amount of good quality poker at every level. Give it a shot…
Scratch
What I have learned from being a dealer at Bellagio -and a long time tourney player…is that most all people think they are great players. The end goal is to win chips, so if you ask them “Gee, why do you go allin with 72os?”
The replies often are the following:
Because I don’t want to waste my time, so I want a big stack early on or get out fast.
Because I like putting people off their game, and the psychology within that…works.
Because nobody says that you can tell another person how to play ‘proper poker’.
Because ‘stealing chips’ is part of the game.
Because I can play any cards I want to.
Because any two cards can hit.
As much as I loathe these types of players myself, all which matters is that I personally played my best game. That I played a hand properly, not what others do.
People are right.
You wait it out, and watch those types of players get weeded out in the long run. You have to be willing to fold, and bide your time. Patience is what it takes. Poker is an art and a science…with a whole bunch of people having no clue how to play -along with the potpourri of people who do.
There’s a strange beauty to that.
As for private rooms, well now -just how many can they set up? How does one go about booking a room, and only inviting the people they like? I can see how the logistics of this is tricky…and to lose a few players here does not dictate the fact that it would be a hard thing to pull off here.
Bingo play in the mtt hi / lo that i play is so bad I’m thinking of leaving the site
Very well stated. The only thing I would add is that these players can and do take out players of higher (and lower) skill all the time and that is just a part of the game we play. In the long-run, they cannot win but in the short term they can flat out end your tournament or felt you in a cash game.
As an example, I looked forward to playing the Sunday European Millions tournament almost all week. I specifically set time aside so that I would be able to play what is one of the deeper, lower variance tournaments on the site.
Well, out of the gate I’m plodding along as I normally do and get to the break in ok but not great shape. Then , after the break my table is broken up and I find myself at a new table with not 1 but 3 of my least favorite donkeys on the site. Each of them has me covered at least 2:1 so I know what I’m in for.
I go nearly totally card-dead while the 3 donkeys are stampeding all over the table. On the rare occasions I have a playable hand or decent position, I’m getting whacked by the guy who limped J3 UTG and flopped 2-pair. It was a thoroughly miserable time for me and I eventually went out to a garbage hand in 60-something place so out of the money. I watched the lobby for a little bit and 2 of those 3 players went out shortly after I did.
The point of the story is that feces-happens. Its just the nature of the beast. I don’t like it and don’t enjoy it when it happens to me but I bet the players who took the chips off these donkeys and went deep in the tournament were very happy they were at the table. Next time I may benefit from someone’s poor play and go deep myself? Next time, I may have someone jam me on my BB when I’m holding pocket A’s (saw that happen yesterday too).
This is poker. You will get good games and horrid games and everything in between. You will find solid play at low stakes and stanky-fish play at high-stakes. You will be seated to the immediate right of a flatulent guy with insane body-odor at a live event you really looked forward to playing. That’s just life. I hate to be rude but if someone cant deal with that, maybe poker isn’t the game for them?
Yeah well, nobody talks about the fact that playing only premium hands…may render the danger of being ‘blinded off.’ You find yourself thinking, “Okay. I only have 5 blinds, so please…any face card will do.”
You start praying for a sloppy ace.
Get dealt A7os, and you go absolutely feral.
Then suddenly you are the bingo player…hah.
Strangely, people think any ace is a good hand -so they don’t know that they aren’t great at this.
Actually, what does constitute a fish…a donk -somebody you wish you could strangle with your mind?
Circumstance is everything in Poker, eh?
=))
Hi Cigar,
I know you mentioned this at the table as well. I can assure you that management is well aware of the problem and have been trying to come up with a number of layers in response to make sure that people who freely bet wild will need to spend THEIR time, not ours, in trying to get back the chips they so casually threw away. Anything and all things will not make an instant difference but in time, by the virtue of smart changes, the play will get better.
My sense tells me that by the end of the summer there will be a noticeable difference in how much better the play is. Instead of finding three or four bad players calling every hand there may only be one or two. And when you have one or two bad players at the table, the odds are very strong that they will be busted out.
As a general rule, and what I do, is make a one letter assignment to every bad player and when I get more than three or more at the table I will only play the highest of premium hands. If I can leave because it is ring, I will leave. If I can I will be super careful.
Stay.
Scratch
All games have frustrations… it’s the nature of all contests where someone wins and someone loses. It’s irritating to land on a hotel in Monopoly, it’s frustrating to ask for an 8 and be told, “go fish,” its no fun to lose a piece in chess, it’s irritating to get sniped in Call of Duty, etc, etc, etc. There are frustrating elements in every game.
So yeah, insist that the rules be changed because you can’t cope with reality… brilliant.
I know it is a hard problem to stop part of my problem is me i am a dav with ptsd get angry easily like this afternoon in the 20k i new the other players trips were bigger than mine was already angry i just wanted out sometimes it makes me play bad. i only play hi/lo now been playing it over 50 years so i hope they can slow the bingo dow
That is all true, SPG -but I’m trying to think of another competitive game where a person doesn’t just go, “Oh, crap! You sank my battleship,” but actually loses their cookies and goes full-on-tilt …quite like poker renders people.
Somebody sinks your battleship, and you are bummed.
Somebody has a higher kicker than you…and *you lose your mind and now you suddenly want the “villain” to die by a hundred bee stings.
Why is that?
*Universal you.