GGPoker killing the HS poker dream?
Recently it has come out that they are planning on making VIP games (5k+) invite only taking a path which many feared co
That is nonsense. We have seen massive developments in the field since then. These comments were made around six months ago by Noam.
Q : What do you mean by the latest poker bots, are there any that are multi-player and not limited to fixed starting stack sizes?
Most NLHE 6 max is played around 100bb anyways, so the "massive development" doesn't disprove my point at all
This is my last post because these people are obviously ******ed.
When every HS player itt says that cheating/rta/collusion is rare at HS it’s just absurd that people that do not play these pools think their contrary opinion is relevant.
RyanW I believe you are correct using rta would not be that helpful at HS because playing gto would not beat rake, so high level exploit poker is needed anyways, the quality of which can only be done by a strong player to begin with, who would not have that much to gain from rta but a lot to lose so the risk/reward isn’t there.
HS regs who actually play in the games " The games are safe theres very minimal cheating going on if any"
People who have never played in the games or dont even play online poker "Theres cheating everywhere at highstakes its full of RTA and bots and collusion"
Lmao. People love having opinions on things they know absolutely nothing about
Most NLHE 6 max is played around 100bb anyways, so the "massive development" doesn't disprove my point at all
Can you not extrapolate through different verticals? You can read about Ruse for example here. If you put all of the collective improvements together with an ability to exploit, these bots would now completely destroy a table of humans.
I don't play online much anymore because it's full of collusion and RTA. I do play on GG occasionally, but only when I'm both out of the country and GG also has a tournament series going.
....
still feel weird about this hand
50/50/100 9k effective
I limp 100 UTG+1 with 77
Senior rec player to my left limps. Dressed like he just came from a business meeting. Not OMC type, plays more like a tight aggressive MAGWEP type. Made a joke about being new to playing poker that I think was BS.
Two more limps
are you sure you don't play online anymore because of the perceived RTA/collusion or is it just because you are a massive whale yourself?
This is my last post because these people are obviously ******ed.
When every HS player itt says that cheating/rta/collusion is rare at HS it’s just absurd that people that do not play these pools think their contrary opinion is relevant.
RyanW I believe you are correct using rta would not be that helpful at HS because playing gto would not beat rake, so high level exploit poker is needed anyways, the quality of which can only be done by a strong player to begin with, who would not have that
Computer systems which have access to massive databases to give population insights along with taking in the current player stats can obviously come to the best exploitable solutions far better than any human by deviating from the GTO answer based on the data. The bot makers were already doing this fours years ago, you can hear them talk about the system,
that used a combination of approaches. I think the system in that link was probably very far from arriving at optimal solutions but given the advancements we have seen in this area, the systems today should be very, very good.
Can you not extrapolate through different verticals? You can read about Ruse for example
. If you put all of the collective improvements together with an ability to exploit, these bots would now completely destroy a table of humans.
The bot would need some kind of extrasensory perception in order to max exploit its opponent's. I'm personally not into telepathy but who knows. A bot which uses villain's stats becomes exploitable itself. Obv it would work good at low-mid stakes, but high stakes is a different story. When would the bot start readjusting etcetc. If someone figures this out, he better starts exploiting bigger markets than online poker
Ruse is just a fast postflop solver which sacrifices accuracy for speed. The most sophisticated RTA probably use some variants of that. Great players would obviously benefit from that, but my point is that the benefit is way smaller that people seem to think. So putting myself in a HSNL players shoes, it actually does not make sense to start cheating for say a few extra $100k per year (and I'm being optimistic with that number). If using RTA would yield disproportional EV, I would perhaps think otherwise
BlackJackDegen can you stop polluting every NVG threads with your AI fearmongering?
It makes sense that cheating would be less at HS simply because it’s a significantly smaller pool of players so reputation means more. Not to mention you are more likely to get caught.
If I were a HS player, I’d mostly be nervous about new fish splashing around in the water. They’re the ones who might be more tempted to cheat.
BlackJackDegen can you stop polluting every NVG threads with your AI fearmongering?
That is no problem. I'll stop posting. Imagine actually wanting to out the problems and maybe discuss ways to actually tackle the issues. I wonder how many people posting are cheating themselves and would rather these issues disappeared from public view.
Think happy thoughts everyone. I'm sure everything will be fine.
I’m supportive of a more hands-on approach to managing who plays in high-stakes games; there are multiple ways to make it work, and each arena handles it differently. Personally, I’m working on leveling up in Hold'em because it’s becoming so popular here in the U.S., especially with the next generation. New platforms are entering the market, and regulated options are gaining traction. With the learning tools available now, it’s easier than ever for players to improve.
For those chasing the ‘poke
lol
I think they will invite 99% of players who want join. Just email GG, and they accept you. If this is not GG plan and they really ban elite players, this are big mistakes by GG
Btw poker sites need pros. See what happened to stars…
Fishs are the best customers, but fishs alone doesn’t make the site run.
Anyway, curious to see how this will be played.
Btw poker sites need pros. See what happened to stars…
Fishs are the best customers, but fishs alone doesn’t make the site run.
How do you figure? Of the 2 or 3 whalish homegames I know of they run just fine with pure degens. Sure a pro here or there is allowed but only because he's in super tight with the host and the fish dont really care as long as he gives action.
Preface: I don't play in these games and haven't played much online in years, Just play live now. A couple observations since this topic is interesting to me since it reminds me of live high stakes a little.
1) seems at least half the comments in this thread have been about cheating/RTA which is kind of a derail. It didn't seem like this was the main reason given for the games becoming invite only unless I'm missing something. So why is everybody going on and on about cheating and game security?
2) just like live poker, it's not because of cheating, it's the only way to create a more enjoyable playing experience for the VIP's which are the players these games revolve around. Public live games are infested with undesirable pro's (predatory,playing similar strategies, anti-social, don't give action) that many players just don't like to play with, but since they aren't breaking any rules casinos can't exclude them. Similarly, online has pro's who study, practice using solvers, play similar ranges, don't give action, and are predatory as well. Just like live poker, they can't really not let them play for playing a style VIPs don't find entertaining. So they are trying invite only to try to weed out undesirable players from the player pool in high stakes.
3) how will this effect pro's ? That is the really interesting question.
Seems like a little overreaction so far, almost like they announced no winning players will be allowed. Can't blame pro's for reacting that way, their income is effected. But who knows what the criteria will be. I'd agree that not having any pro's would be bad for liquidity. Some factors that might be considered by GG:
-winrate - hopefully not too much of a factor
-bumhunting- not sure how they would track, back just playing only with huge fish is predatory and should be penalized.
-pace of play- if the pro is known to take a while to respond consistantly, should be penalized , don't care if it's because of muti-tabling or just a thoughtful players, if you ruin the pace of play and game experience , you're out
-popularity- if the pro has a big name that could attract some players, that is a good thing.
Preface: I don't play in these games and haven't played much online in years, Just play live now. A couple observations since this topic is interesting to me since it reminds me of live high stakes a little.
1) seems at least half the comments in this thread have been about cheating/RTA which is kind of a derail. It didn't seem like this was the main reason given for the games becoming invite only unless I'm missing something. So why is everybody going on and on about cheating and game sec
Big games going private at the expense of public games has been an ongoing trend for a while. I think that’s why Joey refers to it as natural evolution of the games.
This is what I meant by a natural evolution of the games at high stakes depending on who is running them. The operators/runners want to create their own environment for VIPS/regs/players while putting more rules in place on what is allowed. The same idea applies to online games and live games.
I'm not saying the natural evolution of all high stakes games are to go private - there's clearly a market of players who want to compete in the public arena at the highest stakes and have a fair way to work there way up. That should also exist.
There is also a big market of people who don't want anything to do w/ the public arena. I don't think that makes them bad people that they want to play with fish and regs who aren't the best in the world in a friendly environment.
it's mostly true, and GG recently have actually been pretty good at removing cheaters.
it's HS twitter larps that like to say online poker is only cheaters
The regs ITT bring up a good point about working together w/ the operator to self-police the games on reputable sites at the higher stakes/small pools.
In USA it's mainly app game/live private world so that's the world most people on Twitter know unless they are outside the USA. Those places have a bad reputation but it doesn't mean every game is only cheaters.
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Why wouldn't GG want to keep the public games/arena open and also build up their close games/pools which they have been doing with ClubGG?
I think that makes a lot more sense than getting rid of them entirely. I also think the sites could do a lot better job promoting those games and players to justify the reasoning for having them. I see a big market for fans of that world on YouTube still.
I would wait to hear more from the trusted ambassadors who have seats in the games to see what they think. If you guys are angry I would let them know.
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I'm not really sure how this is natural evolution of the games.
It's a shame to see you have this opinion, I guess you don't play poker for a living any longer, and are more involved in making money through poker, with commentating and those gigs (Could also be bias with the GG commentary?)
The main thing that attracted me as a "recreational" back in the day and then turning myself into a poker player and playing millions and millions of hands over the last 15 years.
Were the highstakes cash game
What is surprising about it?
That type of poker dream was also what attracted me to the game and made me want to play every day for years and build my YT channel around those players/stories.
WSOP barely puts any effort into their cash game online ecosystem here in Vegas. We don't have GGpoker. Playing on cash game shows like HCL, starting social channels and winning tournaments is that type of dream now in the USA. People run their own games if they are for profit players or play in small groups.
I don't think it's a good evolution, I would love to have the high stakes glory days culture that I grew up in and was obsessed with for years here in some way but I settle for reading a few pages on 2p2 HS each month.
I commentated w/ GG poker once on Limitless v Fedor match but have turned down all their other sponsorship since they first launched the site. I grinded hard on my channels the past 10 years and learned a lot along the way so I don't need to worry about poker being the only way to make money. Once I had the ACR drama and realized that I didn't have many/if any good PLO options to play while the poker dream also was basically dead in the USA - I focused more on building channels and content creation. I built my network through podcasting and living in Vegas so I got lucky in that regard.
My new content is still around that type of player and lifestyle - the players who are trying to achieve their own version of the poker dream. I'm playing more than I have been in years.
Why is the action on Stars so dead? Is it purely because of all the regulations/restrictions with certain countries so the fun players can't play there? Even 500z completely dried up, bring back the OTB days
Money/legal restrictions that some operators follow and some don't for deposit/cashouts/limits/KYC/AML probably have something to do with it
not sure why anyone listens to chicagojoey's opinion on anything these days when he can't even beat .25/.50 PLO online and the majority of his posts are just marketing/shilling for himself
The fish are friendly here than I remember - the games are good
I don't play online much anymore because it's full of collusion and RTA. I do play on GG occasionally, but only when I'm both out of the country and GG also has a tournament series going.
As a primary live player though, I enjoy the private/semi-private/public game dynamic. I've been a winner in every game I've played regularly in and I've never gotten removed from the invite list for winning. It comes down to understanding what your rake is being used for. In every private game I play, the
Nice post
I'm not as worried about RTA as the operator actively working to scam you and other collusion strats but a site with strong security + other players looking out for the game should be a strong strategy to reduce the issues in smaller player pools. The best players using RTA/HUD as a guide to making their decisions but being willing to exploit when they feel it's right is probably the better strategy. It depends on the quality of output you are getting and against better players who are able to change their strategies better, would need to be high level to create outputs that are node locking for individual tendencies. Something like GTOW AI now are creating strats vs other GTO strats but isn't very realistic against some peoples strategy. If output says to bluff a river but the players turn range is a lot tighter vs overbet and you aren't node locking for that then you're balance could become a massive blunder.
After watching the old deeplay presentation from a few years ago it sounds like that is what their product solves for in building those types of strategies but how good would they be against the best of the best players if they aren't also card sharing?? The graphs they posted showed plenty of variance in the samples.
3) how will this effect pro's ? That is the really interesting question.
Seems like a little overreaction so far, almost like they announced no winning players will be allowed. Can't blame pro's for reacting that way, their income is effected. But who knows what the criteria will be. I'd agree that not having any pro's would be bad for liquidity. Some factors that might be considered by GG:
-winrate - hopefully not too much of a factor
-bumhunting- not sure how they would track, back just pl
Nice post - The email posted in the OP made it sound like it's more CLUBGG style with an individual host running their own series of games but haven't seen any clear answers on that.
This is my last post because these people are obviously ******ed.
When every HS player itt says that cheating/rta/collusion is rare at HS it’s just absurd that people that do not play these pools think their contrary opinion is relevant.
RyanW I believe you are correct using rta would not be that helpful at HS because playing gto would not beat rake, so high level exploit poker is needed anyways, the quality of which can only be done by a strong player to begin with, who would not have that
Why is that absurd?
I wouldn't say high stakes poker players are very trustworthy people.
I do think it's nice a few HS players ITT think everything is all good there and it's fair competition in the public games. Maybe enlightening people who aren't in those pools is a better idea than not posting if you want them to have a different option.
That is a ridiculously long post.
Replying to a bunch of things in one post > making a lot of single posts imo
Lots of interesting things being posted ITT and it's a pretty important discussion if you care about the future of high stakes poker online
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I think CoinPoker is trying to become the next GG so I would talk to them and get these high stakes games/pools going there as an alternative. They are reinvesting into the poker player dream as of recently with the new owners.
Why is that absurd?
I wouldn't say high stakes poker players are very trustworthy people.
Really Joey? You have interviewed dozens of them and they are your primary podcast guests. Well good to know where you honestly stand.
I do think it's nice a few HS players ITT think everything is all good there and it's fair competition in the public games. Maybe enlightening people who aren't in those pools is a better idea than not posting if you want them to have a different option.
I think when someone insists, even though they don’t know what they’re talking about, to people with first hand experience, that is foolish and those people can not be reasoned with.
But here is the explanation why RTA/collusion at HS is rare:
When you don’t play in these games you can get the idea with how many scandles there have been over the years at low/midstakes that after almost a decade of solvers avalaible that the high stakes arena is primarily dominated by players that have integrated rta into their game.
Frankly when I returned to the poker arena 2 years ago to work up to those games this was my fear too.
When I started playing in those games and talk to friends in those games it became apparent that foul play was quite rare.
Reason 1 is that you need to beat an 3-8bb rake trashold. RTA only beats the best players by a small margin, 1-3bb/100 at most. So you would have to combine exploits on top of it. But exploits in that pool are very challenging and require great poker in itself.
So it would require a very strong poker player to begin with which means someone with a lot to lose. They would also have to betray all the principles that brought them to that place. Most people that passionately perused this game are in fact not psychopaths.
Then they have to evade site security
And they have to not be detected by their pool who are the most analytical poker players in the world and all talk to each other.
You can tell when you’re playing against a human. So many decision points through out a match are evidence of emotional reactions.
Ive played against rta and collusion in the past and could tell within a few sessions.
It’s not impossible but it’s quite a few filters.
Why did this get moved from NVG? it is relevant to teh poker world imo and didnt need moved
Really Joey? You have interviewed dozens of them and they are your primary podcast guests. Well good to know where you honestly stand.
I would be happy you've been in the trustworthy high stakes player bubble because it sounds like we have very different experience with the players and the "sites". I'm also exposed to a lot more information, accusations and groups of high stakes players. There are people I would trust and a lot of them I would never trust unless I got to know them and depending on what the situation but some of these people are very good at their hustle.
I don't think anything is out of line about that - this is lesson number one I would give someone living in Vegas and getting into poker.
It looks like you got back into poker in 2023 so I hope you keep finding the good people to surround yourself with. Would be interesting to have you on my show and hear more about your perspective on this and being in the HU world/current poker world assuming you are Lotte Lenya.
I think when someone insists, even though they don’t know what they’re talking about, to people with first hand experience, that is foolish and those people can not be reasoned with.
But here is the explanation why RTA/collusion at HS is rare:
When you don’t play in these games you can get the idea with how many scandles there have been over the years at low/midstakes that after almost a decade of solvers avalaible that the high stakes arena is primarily dominated by players that have integrated r
Thanks for the insight and I'm sure others would like to hear from more players sharing their own experiences.
The people who make the decisions for the sites and the games are reading these threads so I would give your pitch if you want to keep the games as they are and encourage others to create the same environment.
I would be happy you've been in the trustworthy high stakes player bubble because it sounds like we have very different experience with the players and the "sites". I'm also exposed to a lot more information, accusations and groups of high stakes players. There are people I would trust and a lot of them I would never trust unless I got to know them and depending on what the situation but some of these people are very good at their hustle.
I don't think anything is out of line about that - this i
Okay fair enough, you're actually right about that😉. If you surround yourself with people that are passionate about poker and they tend to be really great people.
There are of course rings of professional hustlers. There are app clubs that are completely riddled with those.
The reason I'm convinced the mainstream HS games are clean (even on apps) is that I see clear evidence of human play in my opponents. Typical human errors, nobody plays close to perfectly balanced. Even in the biggest HU matches in the HS thread you see all kinds of hh's that contain typical flawed plays that only a human would make. When playing opponents you can feel they are predictable to some extend in how they attempt to balance their ranges and you can observe them getting worse when they're tired, losing or playing more tables. Moreso these observations are verifiable because of the feedback loop in poker and the peer players that I talk to share a similar experience.
Again with collusion, over enough hands with all the most observant players in the world watching every hand, evidence would emerge.
I can not speak for the nlhe pool but I have heard accounts of players and they seem to share the same observation. Also there are examples of players like Stefan that capatilise very strongly on human psychology and errors, such a person could not thrive if people were using RTA.
I'm a big fan of the HS threads and if you read between the lines those showdowns you can see every player, Linus, Barack, Daniil, seallama etc, all have a distinct style and they make adjustments that wouldnt make any sense in an RTA environment.
The HS dream, to take a shot, go on a run and make it through poker is what drew us all to poker. It is the storyline of Rounders.
Passionately pursue this game of strategy to make a living at it.
Your opponents at HS are basically rich business men and other pro's. You're not taking money from degen gambling addicts. You're taking a serious personal risk to compete with other great minds for money.
That's whats beautiful about poker and separates it from all other forms of gambling. Every guy deep down has the desire to try it out and compete, see if they can pull it off. Most people even after failing respect the game and the people that made it.
I was happy to discover that this dream is in fact still alive. But the biggest threat to it are not RTA or colluding. It is GG poker with their monopoly position and rake practices. Of course they are just a company and they do whats best for them. Thats understandable. But they are the biggest threat to the poker dream and players should not endorse them.
The HS dream, to take a shot, go on a run and make it through poker is what drew us all to poker. It is the storyline of Rounders.
Passionately pursue this game of strategy to make a living at it.
Your opponents at HS are basically rich business men and other pro's. You're not taking money from degen gambling addicts. You're taking a serious personal risk to compete with other great minds for money.
That's whats beautiful about poker and separates it from all other forms of gambling. Every guy dee
Great post. The small nuance I want to add is that gg was also the one keeping the dream alive with their marketing, liquidity, great software, action etc. just looking at the vip games lobby and briefly railing while playing knowing the shot is getting closer and closer is what firing me up so many times. There is the most high stakes but also (public) nosebleed action we had in years. On stars you see the same 2 people sitting out on an empty table on 5k+ and that it is in terms of action, which is clearly pretty demotivating.
But yeah now gg is going over the top. I really hope they get a piece of mind and just make the vip games public again with maybe some private tables. Wonder how it's gonna play out.....
