So, within the last week or so, there has been a heavy influx of what we will kindly refer to as "shortstackers" (but who are in reality the parasitical pirhanas of the poker world) onto Pokerstars. This is because Full Tilt recently essentially banned the practice, and so these souless fiends have gone in search of other feeding grounds. Since Pokerstars still has no policy that keeps this in reasonable check, they have largely chosen to descend here and consume the heart of poker. You may think I am exaggerating. I can assure you I am not. Imagine trying to have a conversation with someone, but instead of the normal rules of logic and interpersonal communication, this person constantly responds with, "No, see, here's a coin; we'll flip it to see who's right." To which you respond, "That's ridiculous and completely illogical." But, no, they already flipped the coin. You lose the argument. What this looks like at the poker table is every decision is reduced to a preflop action because someone is allowed to and chooses to sit on the minimum buy-in. Not just someone, but half of nearly every table available. As a thinking poker player (well, on my good days anyway), I would prefer to be able to use the tools I have worked so hard to develop for postflop play. Instead, my hand is forced over and over to move towards a slot machine mentality, when the whole point of poker is the possibility to rise above the mayhem of gambling. Thank you, you worthless pieces of flesh, for exploiting a nonsense rule to propogate the monumental waste of time that is your life.
Sincerely,
Jesper
P.s. Re: Posting Heading -- Should you be looking for evidence of how beautiful post-flop play can be, check out Episode 8 of 2M2MM...poetic.
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PokerStars has "no policy to keep them in check"? 50BB min tables, imo.
ReplyDeleteYes, but the marks don't like those tables and I like the marks, therefore the policy is flawed in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteSo, based on some cursory googling, it looks like shortstacking is entering the game with the minimum buy-in (i know very little about poker). So, would the strategic advantage of this be that SS-ers can bet more aggressively pre-flop without the fear of losing a larger buy-in?
ReplyDeleteAlso, why not fight with fire when it comes to this practice?
Yeah, the benefit is that they may, at any time, push their stack in, which generally halts any other action (as in a raise from a full stack being called by another fullstack who is hopefully the intended mark of the raise...just for example). Once their money is all-in, that is usually the final decision for the hand. I believe that "professional SS-ers" (*shudder*) can make about 1BB/100 doing this if they're good, where a full-stacker can reach 5BB/100 and possibly more. Having the SS-ers present decreases this winrate for the full-stackers because play becomes grossly simplified. What the SS-ers are capatilizing on is a money back program that Pokerstars (and most poker sites) offers that allows them to make money by playing 20 or so tables and accruing player points. You can imagine that this has the effect of creating a sea of parasites that are at nearly every table. Hence the angst. Hopefully that helps. =)
ReplyDeleteAnd it can be done by bots!
ReplyDeleteCan you make me one?
ReplyDelete