…or staff could finally admit the “shuffle” is broken and fix it. notice I didn’t say anything about the “certified” RNG. i’m sure it’s fine. the code around it isn’t. passing range too small and/or not handling dupe responses. makes for an unrealistic number of draws and paired boards. speaking of which, odds against flopping a set without a pocket pair 73:1, but on this site, even HU, it hits way more often than not
agree. should listen to their players more often.
An excellent point! According to my latest statistics, I’ve played 36,000 hands, and won 6,261, or 17%. I play a lot of 9-handed ring games and tournaments, but also went through a stretch when I played a fair bit of heads up. Also, those tables aren’t always full, particularly toward the end of the tournament, so overall winning about 17% of the hands I’ve been dealt seems roughly in line with being treated fairly by the RNG. Further, doing some math on the statistics provided, I’ve reached showdown 11,786 times and won those pots 4,577 times - only 39% of the time. As most of the time I’m showing down my cards I’m either heads up or one of 3, very rarely more, that actually sounds like I might be slightly on the unlucky side of things.
I also tend to play my good hands fairly aggressively and fold off my bad hands - also per the statistics page, I’ve only seen 15,497 flops (43% of total hands), and of those, 10,728 (69%) were when I was in either the small or big blind. Because I’ve minimized losses when I have weak cards, but maximized gains when I have good hands, I’ve been able to grow my bankroll despite having average-to-poor luck over time.
For those of you complaining about “always” being on the short end of the stick, what percent of hands have you won, and how does that compare to the size of the tables you usually play? How often have you lost when you reached showdown?
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Which to me sounds like it’s the very essence of poker. I’m a neophyte to this poker world and most of the terminology used here is way over my head (I didn’t know what the ‘River’ was until a month after I started). But I understand financial management. Your philosophy might be analogous to Wall Street’s ‘buy low, sell high’ which also sounds easy in theory but requires serious discipline and contrariness to put into effective practice.
According to my own stats- I’ve played 17,346 hands, folded 59% but I’ve seen 14,652 flops. I’ve won 24% pots with 58% at showdown and 42% without showdown. I honestly have no idea what all that means. And any breakdown or advice with that info is welcome.
Note- I did see that BobbyBullets (who commented above) won, in the last four months alone, pots sized- 3.5 mil, 955 k, 880 k, 712 k and 402 k. Yet now Bobby holds only just under 100k in chips? That’s some wild ride! (my single biggest pot was 100 k and that was a fluke because I’d had too many glasses of wine and got lucky)
hi warlock always good to get a reply from you…i do beleive if you have a cut off for a tourney even if its a 50k tourney its a physocological factor as you have to be ranked 10k and below…it creates a sense of achievement for players if they are between 20k to 30k to get there…thats means they have to play a better and sensible game to be in the 10k bracket…and they continue in the same vein in the tournies as its like a sense of achievement to get there.
i dont agree that the 5 mill buy in and 50k buy in tournies levels are the same nor the pattern of play…try to play in one of the 50k tournies now its a circus…most of these players filter between the 20k/15k/5k buy ins…and nowadays im seeing even 100k ranked players coming into the 50k tournies… amen
Thanks for your post. I am able to read my statistics now. I couldn’t make any sense out of it till now. But still I am confused. It says total hands played 45,599, total hands folded 31,308, flops seen 32,824. They don’t add up.
Hey @jazzbythebay - always good to converse with you as well. I see where you are coming from and its an interesting idea but I’m not sure its practical or would even have much of an impact on the type of play in these games. Also, I don’t think the type of behavior you see is limited to just the play on this site. Let me give you some real world examples.
The WSOP Main Event is coming up - a $10,000 buy-in, freezeout (no reentry) tournament. Some 7,000+ players will enter. Some will pay the full 10K and some will get there via satellites with as little as $200 entry fees. You will have players ranging from top pros to total amateurs and everyone in between. There will be people who have played countless tournaments and some who have never played a live tournament before in their lives. There will be people who have $10K in spare change and those who have saved for years to be able to play in this event just 1 time. Quite a range of players. The 1 thing they all have in common is that they want to play and hopefully win.
Well, on Day 1 you will have the professionals playing tight and trying to keep variance down and grind their way through and chip-up for the most part. No one wins on day 1 but plenty of people go home. You will also see people come in and start open-raising to 10XBB and playing like absolute maniacs. People who are used to playing 1/2 live games will bring that same strategy to the Main Event and cause all sorts of headaches for the other players. Imagine having saved up for years to be at this game and on your very first session facing a total maniac. You sure as heck don’t want to go out in the 1st few hours so you are folding hands you normally wouldn’t and having an overall miserable time. Now some of these maniacs will go bust and others will rake in the chips and send players packing.
Tournament poker is a high-variance game. It is not the same as cash where you can rebuy or leave or change tables. You are stuck with the table you are seated at, period. You may be seated in between 2 absolute agrotards or you may get a table with rocks. You may be seated to the immediate right of a world-class professional who is looking at you like you’re a free meal. You just never know. Sometimes it works to your advantage and sometimes it doesn’t. That’s the nature of the game, whether played here or at the Rio.
I’ve played in many multi-day live tournaments and I’ve seen plays that would make you nauseous. I’ve been in the spot where the math says call but I fold because I wasn’t willing to risk my tournament life just then. I am positive players like me get exploited the heck out of by the better players because they know we are more risk averse than they are at the moment. I’ve seen maniacs come in and go out of their way to try and bust the pro at the table - not because its the smart play but because they want to be able to tell their friends they did it.
So basically all open-entry tournaments are zoos, other than the really high $ events that only the very wealthy or very accomplished enter. If this is the case for actual money, how do you think tournaments for play-chips will be? Its reasonable to assume that in the aggregate, without the monetary considerations, the play and the players here will be wilder and looser than those playing for money.
IMHO, I think that everyone should find the format that they are most comfortable with and just try to enjoy it as best they can. I’ve always believed that format matters far more than stakes. Higher variance players will enjoy the shorter/shallower formats more. Players who enjoy the meta-game, the ability to make plays and try to minimize variance will enjoy the longer/deeper formats. Over time, the formats dictate the type of player you are likely to find in any given game. This is why I think you would enjoy some of the 15K MTT’s with 125+BB starting stacks more than a 50K or 100K game with 75BB or less and rapidly escalating blinds.
As always, GL and best to you and all. Find the games you enjoy and don’t worry so much about the buy-ins.
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My stat: Played 45,599, folded 69% (31,308). Flop seen 32,824, in blind 14,513, out 18,311. Pots won 16% (7,381), showdown 81% (5,987) without 19% (1,394)
58% at showdown and 42% without showdown indicates you are moderately a big better. You win before showdown by betting big. Contrast to my stat of 81% at showdown which indicates by and large small bets. WannabeCoder’s 39% at showdown indicates he is even more aggressive.
Your winning of 24% of the pots doesn’t say much, without knowing how many hands on an average you played against. If all this winning comes from nine seater tables, its an excellent ratio as opposed to 11% average. If it is all from two seater its poor against 50%.
Folding 59% isn’t saying much either, as itsn’t saying at which stage you folded. But it does say that 41% of the time you went up to showdown or won, and won 24% of the times. Gives you a ratio of 58% from playing to winning. Better than mine (69% fold, 16% win) which is 51%. Which says you are more selective of cards than me. Wannabe’s 53% (6,261/11,786) puts him between the two. Again can’t say which is a better win without knowing number of hands played against, size of the bets faced and type of the game (Omaha and Royal you tend to play more). If someone is having poor play to win ratio, that’s something they have to work on.
You have seen the flops 84% (14,652/17,346). Which means you have folded 16% of the time without seeing the flop. Total folding is 59%, means you have folded 43% of the time after seeing the flop. Mine is 72% seen the flop, 28% folding before seeing the flop and 31% folding after seeing the flop. Though my folding percentage is much higher than yours 69 to 59, I tend to play more after seeing the flop, yours is more selective. Pre flop folding may depend on the kind of game we play. In tournaments as the blinds increases, over a time one tends to play only his blind, or good hands. The pre flop folding gets higher in these cases, like mine.
Kind of tried to interpret the statistics, this is the first time I am trying, thanks to Wannabe’s post. Hope I haven’t confused you or anyone way beyond.
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ive got the last 6 years WSOP on tape…also have seen the stu unger and chan wins and pretty amazing chan won it twice and ungur 3 times(but in his case the entries were few)…winnning today in a WSOP is having wild luck to be honest hence no once since Chan ever has won it twice…and given the entries are close to 10k players the chances and odds disappear…be it a negrano/helmuth/moneymaker/antonius/juanda they have never won it…unless you have the luck jamie gold did and since winning the WSOP he hasnt done much …he doesnt have to actually ,he won 10 million in that one tourney.few of us planning to enter next year…play the satellites or pay and enter…
few of my friends did go last year they were just blasted out…as you said you got pros and ameteursand lot of rich die hard poker players…celebrities included…its such the largest event with all the hype…but its a poker players lifetime wish to play it once …the odds are crazy to win or even think of the final table…skill,luck,bad beats,grind given form an integral part of winning here…all said and done its still a card game…not chess…
last year the winner took home 8.5 million …if you rank somewhere in the 1000 region you still take home 15000 dollars…just being there itself is like disneyland for adults…a visit even if you not playing the main event is a must for all die hard poker lovers…
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Compared to live and real-money online tournaments, even the deepest MTTs on Replay are extremely shallow and quick. It’s a great thing for those of us with limited time to devote to a tournament.
On the other hand, I prefer ring because it is deeper, which offers more manueverability than the tournaments, which as you said, favor high variance players because the blinds increase so quickly. Plus, you can pick up your winnings and walk away from ring at any time, you can’t get blinded out, and you can double or triple up actual chips in one hand.
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Blame it on the God of Irony.
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Or blame it on the idiot player or maybe the dealer (who just sat down)-
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hahaha 
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Hellmuth was right though - Adam Levy was, is and always will be a donkey (IMO).
but he was suited!!! least that’s excuse I get when people make donkey calls
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this is right off the 50k table from replay…lollllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
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Hey all , here I am back again. After my dreadfull downswing things pick
ed up for a while but once again back to loose,loose .loose
I just dont get it , other platforms that I play ,usually ave. or above.
Here on replay I have been playing for 3+ yrs & still nothing too show.
Is the Replay algorithem bad or what
Have other players had similer issues?
Just doesen’t seem right somehow.
Hey I’m not bitchin but you know it just gets a bit tedious when one hardly ever wins.
Even though others at a table seem to be blessed!.
Continnually being beaten on the river seems to be common as does flushes!
I’m happy to play but as far as entertainment goes this site is sadly lacking.
After all that is all it is!
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happens all the time to me.
I am sure there are people here who have had more luck than others. In any large population, there will be outliers on both ends of the bell-curve. Because of the nature of the game (play-chip), you will see a ton more crazy plays here than you will in cash (that’s a fact, don’t hate me for it). Therefore luck will be a larger factor here than it would for cash. You may actually be on the far left of the bell-curve in terms of luck here and it would not mean there is anything wrong with the RNG, just as there are players on the far right.
Its true that in the long run, things revert to the mean - the only problem is that sometimes the long run is too dang long. I hope you can find a way to enjoy it somehow, even while the cards are running against you. Its not easy and sometimes you just need a break from it. Whatever you decide, I wish you luck - I’d give you some of mine but frankly I lose more races than a tortoise with a bad limp 
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OMG - I’ve watched a few and you are right! No idea what is going on here but when you see people donk-shoving stacks of ~2500 at a 300 chip pot with top pair, no kicker, its a zoo. I’ve now seen enough of this from 5K-1M and all across the SnG spectrum to make me think something is in the air. I’ve been gone a while but I don’t recall seeing it this bad before. Just wow.
The only way I can explain this is that there are some players who have no legitimate chance of winning a tournament without building a huge stack early. They take their shots and if they bust out, they just go to another tournament. If they double or triple up early, they can be a legitimate pain in the butt for quite a while, especially in these short-format games.