PokerStars- A Review

ZZZSpeedster · Nov 16, 2005

I used to only play freerolls there, I signed up about 2 1/2 years ago, and never played online poker for real money....I would just login usually at 3:00am EST for their freerolls...There used to be 3000+ people in the tourney.....I was just trying to learn and play as many hands as possible...

I made my first real deposit yesterday morning, and thought I would give it a whirl...I've been playing poker online only, for real money at various sites....I really liked the size of the tourney prize pools at PokerStars so I thought...here we go!

After making my initial deposit via Debit Card which was quick/easy/and hassle free I entered my first tourney....a 30+3.....There were a lot of entries, but I thought I would give her a go......CRASH AND BURN.....I think my main problem is during these longer tournies due to the large number of players, I get "bored" and end up betting more than I should on hands that I shouldn't....NORMALLY in CASH GAMES I am probably what you would consider "tight"....I will play the occasional 7/8 suited, 10/J for good money, but usually try to stick to great hands...

After the tourney disaster I decided to try my hand at the tables...I joined a 1/2 table since I had 17$ left from my initial deposit......The cards seemed to be in my favor, and I stopped play at about $150....and then moved to the $5/10 tables....Continued winning and I played for most of the day

After having about $500 in winnings, I decided I would try my hand at more tournaments....I did one that had rebuys/addons and I ended up going through a cool $80....and was out of the tournament with 100 people left....I played 4-5 more tourneys throughout the day, and I didn't get real close in any of them......Once again, the prize pools look SO tempting....but I just can't seem to last...I'll get a decent size stack, and then I'll get a horrible beat, and there goes my stack after that playing "loose"

All in all I currently have about $875 in my account....Not bad from an initial $50 deposit, but really starting at $17 on the money tables

hand after hand at the money games, people seem to call with ANYTHING...if you have ONE PAIR off the flop...you are USUALLY good to go.....I find the cash games there VERY lucrative....I hope it is not "starters" luck on PokerStars.....

I did not have one system crash/game freeze/etc. like I do at other sites...Everything seems to run really smooth, and I love the layout...

I will update after my first withdraw experience....

kidslick · Nov 16, 2005

Pokerletter-How to Cheat at Party Poker

probably a goof i saw this somewhere..

BaseballGuy · Nov 16, 2005

ZZZSpeedster said:
I used to only play freerolls there, I signed up about 2 1/2 years ago, and never played online poker for real money....I would just login usually at 3:00am EST for their freerolls...There used to be 3000+ people in the tourney.....I was just trying to learn and play as many hands as possible...

I made my first real deposit yesterday morning, and thought I would give it a whirl...I've been playing poker online only, for real money at various sites....I really liked the size of the tourney prize pools at PokerStars so I thought...here we go!

After making my initial deposit via Debit Card which was quick/easy/and hassle free I entered my first tourney....a 30+3.....There were a lot of entries, but I thought I would give her a go......CRASH AND BURN.....I think my main problem is during these longer tournies due to the large number of players, I get "bored" and end up betting more than I should on hands that I shouldn't....NORMALLY in CASH GAMES I am probably what you would consider "tight"....I will play the occasional 7/8 suited, 10/J for good money, but usually try to stick to great hands...

After the tourney disaster I decided to try my hand at the tables...I joined a 1/2 table since I had 17$ left from my initial deposit......The cards seemed to be in my favor, and I stopped play at about $150....and then moved to the $5/10 tables....Continued winning and I played for most of the day

After having about $500 in winnings, I decided I would try my hand at more tournaments....I did one that had rebuys/addons and I ended up going through a cool $80....and was out of the tournament with 100 people left....I played 4-5 more tourneys throughout the day, and I didn't get real close in any of them......Once again, the prize pools look SO tempting....but I just can't seem to last...I'll get a decent size stack, and then I'll get a horrible beat, and there goes my stack after that playing "loose"

All in all I currently have about $875 in my account....Not bad from an initial $50 deposit, but really starting at $17 on the money tables

hand after hand at the money games, people seem to call with ANYTHING...if you have ONE PAIR off the flop...you are USUALLY good to go.....I find the cash games there VERY lucrative....I hope it is not "starters" luck on PokerStars.....

I did not have one system crash/game freeze/etc. like I do at other sites...Everything seems to run really smooth, and I love the layout...

I will update after my first withdraw experience....

Wait till you keep playing there for a bit. You will lose your ass in no time.

Everyone wins on their first deposit at pokerstars.

You think it is normal to be able to turn 17.00 into 800 in one day?

ProPokerPlayer · Nov 16, 2005

I too love the software, layout, ect..but after a few months initial success all ive seen of late are Bodog type hands....1 i posted in another thread yesterday...guy called my all-in with 4 to a flush..didnt hit the flush....but got runner runner for the MIRACLE straight....at least the last 10 tournys ive played in i busted out when i was a 90% fav after the flop and somebody hit a 3 outer on the river to beat me...i cant beat ray charles right now on any site but it sure seems fishy to me... :icon_conf

WorldNumberOne · Nov 16, 2005

i used to think it was a little fishy .. kind of felt like the software would read hole cards before the flop , turn and river.

played a home game last night and saw some things that reminded of online stuff.

i have ace / jack . flop comes J 3 J . it was me and one other guy . i had made a decent move pre flop . after the flop i went all in. he called .

one guess as to what he had.. thats right !!

pocket 3's .

queen high flush lose to a king high. pocket jacks lose to pocket queens .

weird shit is gonna happen no matter where you play..

steeser · Nov 16, 2005

For the love of god, it's not rigged.

To the original poster, you are playing well outside of your bankroll. Playing 1/2 with $17??? Playing 5/10 with $150??? One bad hand nearly busts you.

primetime21+ · Nov 16, 2005

Pokerstars is the pinnacle of the online poker world. They have great customer service and the software is great. The cashouts are lightning fast compared to their competition.

The games used to be pretty tight, but they have become almost as soft as party. What you usually get with soft games are tons of bad beats. But if you play solid poker you should have no problem winning on that site in the long run.

Good players make a living on sites like pokerstars and party poker, bad players that lose money think the sites are rigged.

BaseballGuy · Nov 16, 2005

steeser said:
For the love of god, it's not rigged.

To the original poster, you are playing well outside of your bankroll. Playing 1/2 with $17??? Playing 5/10 with $150??? One bad hand nearly busts you.

Instead of going on a rant why not try and answer my question?

Do you think it is normal to turn 17.00 into 800.00+ in one day?

Only online baby, only online.

BaseballGuy · Nov 16, 2005

primetime21 said:
Pokerstars is the pinnacle of the online poker world. They have great customer service and the software is great. The cashouts are lightning fast compared to their competition.

The games used to be pretty tight, but they have become almost as soft as party. What you usually get with soft games are tons of bad beats. But if you play solid poker you should have no problem winning on that site in the long run.

Good players make a living on sites like pokerstars and party poker, bad players that lose money think the sites are rigged.

I can post my cashout/cashin history for online sites to prove im a winning player if you would like.

Just because someone thinks the deal is fishy does not make them a loser.

steeser · Nov 16, 2005

BaseballGuy said:
Instead of going on a rant why not try and answer my question?

Do you think it is normal to turn 17.00 into 800.00+ in one day?

Only online baby, only online.

No, it's not normal.

Let's see, online you can play WAY more hands, with the faster speed and multi-tabling.

The fact that 17 turned into 800 is huge, but I'll bet you try that 50 more times and you will go broke all of those times.

BaseballGuy · Nov 16, 2005

steeser said:
No, it's not normal.

Let's see, online you can play WAY more hands, with the faster speed and multi-tabling.

The fact that 17 turned into 800 is huge, but I'll bet you try that 50 more times and you will go broke all of those times.

What does playing more hands have to do with turning 17.00 into 800.00 playing ring games?

steeser · Nov 16, 2005

BaseballGuy said:
What does playing more hands have to do with turning 17.00 into 800.00 playing ring games?

I guess I was implying that it can be done a lot faster. The gist of the subject seemed to be that he did it very fast.

ZZZSpeedster · Nov 16, 2005

Has anyone here ever had any luck in their tourneys?
Sounds like from my experience and at least one other so far, these tourneys there are hard hard hard.....
I get good hands in the money games, but when it comes to the tourney its BAD BEAT city....

I don't know how unnormal it is....I've had great runs at most sites....I did however get a FEW lucky hands in order to get my bankroll up that high....85% of the hands were grinding...I did get some miracle flushes, and a few flopped full houses....

primetime21+ · Nov 16, 2005

I have seen a friend turn 50 bucks into 2,000 at a blackjack table in about 2 hours. Poker is a game of chance like blackjack and if you are aggresive enough and lucky enough you can win a ton over the course of a day. That doesn't make online poker rigged

gbogo · Nov 16, 2005

i only play in the 6 player games. my experience is once you start cashing out a large payout compared to your deposit next thing you know the cards go real cold fast. like not winning one single pot in a session and no matter what cards i get someone has a better one.

progressing to tournaments - i go from 1000-1300 to 300-500 all in q-q k-k a-a

and lost 12 times to 5-5 or 6-6 with them getting a 3 of a kind and me nothing

those tournaments seem next to impossible for me anyway

ProPokerPlayer · Nov 16, 2005

There is ofcourse a very good reason why their tournys are so hard...at any level below $50 your going to be up against 1500-2000 players. it is very hard to win ANY tourny with that many players no matter how good you are. to win a tourny or even place highly you WILL HAVE TO WIN 6-7 coin flips minimum without losing even 1..take out a coin and see how many times you can call heads or tails correctly 6 straight times..that will give you some idea of the variance in these tournys...the same reason all the top pros didnt like this years WSOP and why they want to reduce the field.....if you are strictly a tourny player you should actually have a bankroll 100 times the size of the tournys you play....because even a great player ( raymer, hellmuth) can go 100 tournys without a win in todays climate....they may hit the board somewhere between 5-15% of the time but win it all??? very rare

at the 100 and over levels its more sane simply due to the smaller fields and by the natural theory that for the higher buy-in people will play much tighter and not take as many - EV risks...it not unusual at all to see people go all-in on the river needing 1 card for a flush....now thats surely not +EV but they do it...its only 10 bucks! and if they hit it their the chip leader maybe.....in $150 + tourny your not going to see this nor will you see 2000 players....

having said ill that i will say that ive always believed these sites have the ability to "excite" the games.....just what that entails im not really sure but i know someone put this question to Jay C. on here 1 time and though he didnt come out and say yes...his answer had yes written all over it....and NOBODY knows more about this buisness than Jay.....therefore i will put it like this, i want to believe we're getting an honest game but noway will i ever claim to KNOW WE ARE.....

RPM · Nov 16, 2005

never liked pokerstars. doyles room is cool though. check them out....

ZZZSpeedster · Nov 16, 2005

ProPokerPlayer said:
having said ill that i will say that ive always believed these sites have the ability to "excite" the games.....just what that entails im not really sure but i know someone put this question to Jay C. on here 1 time and though he didnt come out and say yes...his answer had yes written all over it....and NOBODY knows more about this buisness than Jay.....therefore i will put it like this, i want to believe we're getting an honest game but noway will i ever claim to KNOW WE ARE.....

I firmly believe they have some type of control where they can put how "generous" rivers/turns are....There is no doubt in my mind...After playing a lot of hands at different online sites, it leaves little doubt that they have some control....I just wonder how much/exactly what it is

CY18 · Nov 16, 2005

The river beats are unbeliveable at Poker Stars. I know many people who had the cards go cold after cashing out. It's just how they are.

Can anyone tell me anything about Doyles room and what someone like me could make of it by just depositing $25.

Is it it a good poker room for tourney variety?

Chris

ZZZSpeedster · Nov 19, 2005

Ahhhhhh!!!!

The dreaded 48 hour wait!!!!

I went from $875 to $0 in 12 hours.....

Got some BRUTAL beats

Deposited $75 tonight, and I am now up to $1175

I learnt my lesson the first time though....I am keeping it nice and warm in there until a cool 48 hours pass!