Games Have Gone Bad

Now I see why the books and pros talk about the importance of “game selection,” which is poker-code for “play with the fish, avoid the sharks.” I think the sky is, in fact, falling.

In the last week, either my game has completely fallen apart, or the on-line tables are suddenly much tougher. I don’t think I’m playing much different or particularly bad. I’ve reviewed hands afterwards, and I don’t see much different about my play or any glaring mistakes. I’m honest with myself when I fuck up. I think I am witnessing the rapid effect of new laws choking of the continuous supply of funds to the on-line fish.

I’ve played SNGs regularly for a couple of years, and I’ve kept complete records for about 14 months now. I have consistently turned a profit in SNGs with a ROI around 20%. I’m a hobby player and no part of my family income is derived from poker, but I play to win and I hate losing. I’ve been playing off a single $200 on-line deposit since 2003. I've used Neteller only to move funds between sites, but I've never used it to make a deposit. The longest stretch I’ve ever gone without a cash in the last year is five SNGs.

During the last week, I had a 1-for-12 cash stretch at the $33, $55 and $75 levels. An all-time losing streak. Here’s what I see happening: The weak players are getting washed out of the games.

In a typical SNG at these levels and lower, prior to the legal crackdown, a table consisted of 3-4 weak players and the rest decent to very good players. Solid players rely on weaker players to make mistakes, which provides profit in the long run. The weaker players don’t have to be “bad,” they just have to make enough mistakes in the long run to provide a decent ROI for the solid players. These weak players can’t fund their accounts any more, and they are disappearing from the game.

Evidence of this trend:

1. Checks on Sharkscope prior to the crackdown revealed an amazing number of players that had huge losses in SNGs. They have to be continuously funding their accounts to keep playing. Now, checks on Sharkscope usually reveal only players that are making money. This is bad.

2. Lots of players are lasting longer in SNGs. The main characteristic of weak SNG players is that they take too many gambles at the early levels. In the past, a typical SNG was down to 4-5 players when pushbot play started. Now, there are sometimes 7-8 players still around during what use to be the bubble level – way more than I’ve ever seen before. At this point, all players are using correct strategy to be in pushbot mode even if they are a big stack because they are raising small stacks. Its become a contest of 7-8 players pushing, and just having your hand hold up, like the middle stages of a short-stack PStars multi-table tournament. The overall effect of stronger players is easier to see in SNG rather than cash games.

3. I see lots of posters on message boards that are suddenly short on funds and need help with transfers between sites. I’ve been kind of amazed at the extensive discussions on new creative methods to get funds into accounts – phone cards and such. These were the regular depositers that have lost the ability to fund their accounts. The games are literally drying up without their funds.

Another contributing factor is that I have not been able to win a single race situation in SNGs, which is really what you need against a table of solid players when everyone is in pushbot mode in later rounds. My AQ gets beat by KJ, my KQ gets beat by AT, my JJ gets beat by AQ, etc. – I was on the losing end of far more than my share of races in this stretch.

Not bitching, it just what happens sometimes. But, it used to be that these losing streaks were ironed out because not every SNG results in 7 players in pushbot mode. Previously, these occasional tough tables were broken up by tables with weakers players that naturally thinned the field, so only 3-4 players went to pushbot mode rather than 6-7. In the long run, this will have a dramatic effect on results.

Its inevitable that choking off the deposits will completely strangle on-line games. Sharks will play only with sharks, the very best and the lucky will win in the short-term, and the rake will eviscerate the funds in circulation. I am not one of the very best. I can see that continuous deposits from fish are absolutely critical to on-line poker, and the lawmakers certainly chose the most effective means of killing the games.