Playing Online

lolkelly

Hey ive been reading on these boards for the last while and it seems that most people play on pokerstars or vc poker. i started off playing on william hill so have never really taken a chance out to test out the other sites that are available. Is there significant advantages of some sites over the others or is it just easier to retreive winnings when needed etc.?

podgeen

Im fairly new to online play as well but from what i can see the standard of players varies from site to site.

I setup an a/c with vcpoker a couple of weeks back as they have a 25% signup bonus and most people here seem to play there.

Marq

william hill and vc are skins of the same site, so you'll find very little different playing at vc

Shortstack

Marq wrote:

william hill and vc are skins of the same site, so you'll find very little different playing at vc

I think you may be wrong there, I thought William Hill is a cryptologic site not a tribeca one.

Ease of cashing out is one of the differences between sites. Those with a sportsbook attached to them usually allow cashing out to Credit cards, whereas purely poker sites are not allowed.

Other differnces are in the structure of tournaments, standard of players, range of tournaments and limits.

Tribeca sites such as VC and Paddy Power target the lower end of the spectrum with lower buy ins to tournaments and more rebuy tournaments.

If you want higher limits and bigger tournaments with more players and slower blind structures then you should be on one of the big sites such as Pokerstars, Party Poker or Ultimate bet.

All sites have their fans and critics alike. I change sites when I feel like a different game from usual. You will find more professional players on the bigger sites but because of the large numbers of other average players you won't come across them too often. You will also cash less often on the bigger sites per entry due to the huge numbers in tournaments but when you do you will get more money. For example the $11 rebuy on pokerstars often pays over $4000 for first but gets 500+ runners.

Sit and go's again vary from site to site but if you want a quick game or to multitable you will find the bigger sites having games starting much more frequently.

The tribeca sites have the best community feel to them, apart from the odd abusive player.

Ladbrokes has a reputation as a hard site to win on due to the large numbers of Scandinavian players. So too are the Prima sites such as Gaming Club and Stan James, again they are full of scandinavians. Cash games are supposed to be easier on these sites as the scandies aggressive all in or nothing tactics don't tend to fare so well in those

A debate on the 'fishiest site' would be interesting. In my view it is Party & it's skins.

Waylander

Well I play Ladbrokes and VC alot. I have won alot more money on VC but have won the cruise and a few quid on Ladbrokes too. I do think it is tougher to win in a ladbrokes multi.

bounty

i play on pokerroom, but only for play chips

i dont trust online games, how do you know the others are not on the phone to each other?

kevthecelt

wow youre a paranoid little lad! i started playing on VC bout 3 or 4 weeks ago and ive made a lot of profit from the NL .25/.50 cash games so im defo an advocate of online poker, doubt anyone would bother their arse doing what you suggested

bounty

wow your a naive little lad!

the average pots on party poker's bigger rooms can be over $500, for this type of cash, people will cheat their ass off

all it takes is for other players to have messager app open as they play or even a voice over ip phone, and you can get cheated in the real money online games

viking

Signed up with PaddyPower Poker about 2 weeks ago, stuck a tenner in the account to see what the site was like. Played a few $3 STT's and was getting placed in all of them, I was being dealt brilliant cards and the flops were mostly very sweet for me. I was up about $25 when I remembered to put in the promotional code for my free $10 worth of chips. This promotion works on the basis that you have 100 prmotional points and as you play different stakes the points reduce by varying amounts (relative to the stakes you play) until they reach 0 and that is when you get your free tenner.

From the moment I put in my promo code my luck changed completely, suddenly I was getting very few decent hole cards, flops rarely helped and I wasn't placed once.

Then when the promo points reached 0, I got my "free" tenner and my luck returned to the way it was before and now my balance is 90-odd dollars!

The way things balanced out in order for me to get my free tenner is too much of a coincidence for my liking...

Gareth

ionapaul

I have a friend who is convinced that Paddy Power's online casino is all rigged, that dependant on end-of-the-month corporate earnings, etc, a certain % of players will be screwed no matter what that night. However, remember that without much in the way of tangible assets, the most important asset each of these online companies (or divisions) have is customer trust and loyalty - without these, they have absolutely nothing and no chance to make profit. All of the sites will make a profit running a legal, no-interfence game, the profit is built into their business model. Do you honestly believe they will risk their business, their salaries and indeed their freedom from prison to screw people out of another few bucks? Not a chance in hell I think.

I'd trust most large online companies with my CC details sooner than I'd trust an independent local company, TBH, it would be too disastrous for them to screw you .

pokertroll

viking wrote:

The way things balanced out in order for me to get my free tenner is too much of a coincidence for my liking...

I got my free tenner after playing one game so I can't see any conspiracies there.

ionapaul wrote:

I have a friend who is convinced that Paddy Power's online casino is all rigged, that dependant on end-of-the-month corporate earnings, etc, a certain % of players will be screwed no matter what that night.

I very much doubt your friend. As you say, it is not in their interest to screw players. Besides, I doubt Paddy Power would have much control of this as it it the same network used by VC, Racing Post etc.

Generally it is losing players who think these sites are rigged - I have seen as many bad beats in live games as I have seen on the internet

Shortstack

Most of the sites have software to spot collusion. If you play at the same table as another player too often they will look into your hand histories. In a tournament with over 200 runners how you can guarantee to be sat at the same table as a mate ? And also to be in the right positions on the table to make phoning each other worthwhile ? You are more likely to be cheated out of your money in a live tournament where locals softplay each other, although I haven't seen it in the Fitz or Merrion, it does happen and much more often than online.

Ionapaul is right that there is far too much money to be made from a genuine game to risk messing about with it for a few extra bucks.

Krusty_Clown

ionapaul wrote:

I have a friend who is convinced that Paddy Power's online casino is all rigged, that dependant on end-of-the-month corporate earnings, etc, a certain % of players will be screwed no matter what that night.

In an online poker game, when you lose, another poker player wins, so unless the corporation is just forcing people to lose because they've had a bad month and want to share the pain ( ) I can't really see this as a reasonable argument.

That is of course unless you're talking about On-line BlackJack, Roulette etc. where you deserve to be screwed just for playing these games on-line.. (and that's screwed in the bad way, not the good way. )

Drakar

bounty wrote:

wow your a naive little lad!

the average pots on party poker's bigger rooms can be over $500, for this type of cash, people will cheat their ass off

all it takes is for other players to have messager app open as they play or even a voice over ip phone, and you can get cheated in the real money online games

Definately at the top level there is an incentive to do that. I can't imagine people would be bothered at $1/$2 tables heh. Also bear in mind that people can signal each other in real life too, yet no one seems to be overly concerned that people are colluding there...

peeko

I've just about given up on online poker! Maybe I'm playing on too low a level! Just can't seem to place anymore, no matter what style of play I use!

PADDYPOKER

Most Poker rooms would NOT be rigged for the simple reason they make their money from the rake so the more players they have, the bigger the rake, the bigger the profits.
If they start to piss off their customers, they will walk away and go to another Poker room and there's enough of a choice nowadays.
Having said that, I never liked Party Poker when I started up, there was just something about the site I didn't like/trust and never went back.
Read some bad reports about them on www.recpoker.com but a lot of the reports there are hacked off ex-employees bad mouthing the company.

viking

pokertroll wrote:

I got my free tenner after playing one game so I can't see any conspiracies there.

Ok, I got it the setup arse-about-face. Paddypower says "Once you have accumulated 100 Paddy Points the $10 of chips will be yours." So play x number of games at a certain stake to get 100 points and a tenner is yours so you must have played one $10 STT/MTT in order to get your money after one game. As I said, I was winning up to the point of putting in the promo code, then I lost a tenner of my own money on three $3 STT games and one $1 STT game and was then credited a tenner by paddy power, thereby not making any particular gain.

pokertroll wrote:

Generally it is losing players who think these sites are rigged...

Thats true, but I'm winning and I still think its rigged. Not complaining about that though just that it appears that the free tenner isn't actually free. If other people have experienced this then it may go some way to proving that the poker sites can influence the cards you get, especially when they are putting up their own money in promotions.

Gareth

henbane

viking wrote:

Thats true, but I'm winning and I still think its rigged. Not complaining about that though just that it appears that the free tenner isn't actually free.

It's a lot easier to think paddy power might be rigged than that you played badly working off a bonus. They make their money from the rake and not the money you lose to other players so it really makes no difference to them whether you're up or down. This article discusses a similar myth.

If other people have experienced this then it may go some way to proving that the poker sites can influence the cards you get, especially when they are putting up their own money in promotions.

As we all know anecdotal evidence is as good as proof.

You do realise that the "free" tenner is just a proportion of the what they have taken from the raked pots you were involved in? The bonus just reduces their initial profit from your play - they don't "put up their own money".

ionapaul

Krusty_Clown wrote:

In an online poker game, when you lose, another poker player wins, so unless the corporation is just forcing people to lose because they've had a bad month and want to share the pain ( ) I can't really see this as a reasonable argument.

That is of course unless you're talking about On-line BlackJack, Roulette etc. where you deserve to be screwed just for playing these games on-line.. (and that's screwed in the bad way, not the good way. )

Yeah, he was talking about the online games, Blackjack, Poker Reels, that sort of thing. As the casinos % edge is built into all of these games, like online Poker, the companies would have everything to lose and little to win by manipulating results and screwing customers. I just can't get over people handing over their CC to a minimum wage, disgruntled employee in their local without hesitation, then being too suspicious to buy something from Amazon or a large internet retailer.
Anyone have any idea how much Party or PokerStars make from interest on their customer deposits? It must be a large part of their annual turnover.

mewso

I think from now on anyone who wants to suggest online sites are cheating them should give a reason as to why they would do it. It's all very well saying I have a feeling I am being cheated but it's been well established that they cannot benefit in any way from cheating you. So folks make your accusations with good arguements other than feelling a disturbance in the force.