3:28am: PokerStars has always had the reputation of being one of the tougher sites to play on, if not the toughest. However, the recent wave of player traffic on PokerStars has also brought many fish in with the tide. Don’t get me wrong, I give myself credit for being a pretty solid player, however you don’t have to be any good to play hands like the one below.

But that’s not the worst part. This is:

ipoker42: bets 690
trujm: raises 630 to 1320 and is all-in
ipoker42: folds

If you’re going to attempt a bluff, slightly over betting the pot is fine. But it’s just plain dumb to over bet the pot THAT hard in an attempt to steal the pot. There’s $300 in the pot, which means he has $150 committed. There’s a valuable concept in poker called risk to reward ratio. This guy must have missed that lesson.

If that wasn’t bad enough, he does it AGAIN. This time, it cost him the match, however.

PokerStars Game #16497956578: Tournament #83544804, $50.00+$2.50 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/04/05 - 04:04:47 (ET)
Table ‘83544804 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: ipoker42 (810 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (2190 in chips)
ipoker42: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [As Kc]
ipoker42: calls 15
trujm: raises 60 to 90
ipoker42: calls 60
*** FLOP *** [Qs 2s 7s]
trujm: bets 120
ipoker42: calls 120
*** TURN *** [Qs 2s 7s] [4s]
trujm: checks
ipoker42: bets 600 and is all-in
trujm: calls 600
*** RIVER *** [Qs 2s 7s 4s] [Kh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [As Kc] (a flush, Ace high)
ipoker42: shows [3s 4d] (a flush, Queen high)
trujm collected 1620 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1620 | Rake 0
Board [Qs 2s 7s 4s Kh]
Seat 1: ipoker42 (button) (small blind) showed [3s 4d] and lost with a flush, Queen high
Seat 2: trujm (big blind) showed [As Kc] and won (1620) with a flush, Ace high

Looking back on this hand, I disguised the hand pretty well but in his mind he had to believe he was bluffing, or else he wouldn’t have bet so much. Sometimes people struggle with decisions, so maybe he thought he would take all the thinking out of it by going all in. That being said, he’s not the only one to make strange plays the last few months. This kind of stuff has been happening on a daily basis on what used to be the “toughest online poker room”.

Or perhaps it has to do with the heads up sit n go boom. Obviously if there’s a surge of players playing a game type that previously wasn’t as popular as it is now, then there’s bound to be some inexperienced players playing the game. But THIS bad? It’s actually kind of reminiscent of PartyPoker-type-play. And you remember what that was like, don’t you?

Not that I’m complaining or anything :)

On that note, I think I’m gonna end the session. Final results: 6-2.

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