Does the day of week or time of day affect player pools?
Posted by Lewis Harkes
Posted by
Lewis Harkes
posted in
Low Stakes
Does the day of week or time of day affect player pools?
Basically wondering if playing during standard workday hours means we're playing tougher opponents. Carroters made a comment about this in one of his videos and, anecdotally, it does feel like there are many more fish on weekends and late-in-the-week evenings.
Fwiw, I play NL25 on GG Poker at the moment...(I was drawn in by the "soft pool and nice bonuses" although the rake seems insane so i'll likely be moving). But, I'd imagine if there's an effect here, it would applies somewhat generally.
Obvious counter-strategy = spend much more time off the tables and on non-poker things during traditional banking hours...
Love to hear what everyone else has noticed!
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I play on Ignition and it's a fish tank everyday, but for some reason, Friday nights are some of the craziest s**t I have ever seen.
If i would somewhere in my life (doubtful) achieve to become a pokerpro, my workshifts would look like this:
Starting with 2 days off (Mo/Tu)
Sleeping til noon on wednesday and then start grinding from wednesday to Sunday 5pm to midnight.
Im playing during the morning hours often under the week and it seems a lot tougher than some sunday afternoon. Playing on stars for the most part
Thanks for the tip Hawks, i might have to join you there this friday!! (can Canadians play there? Would you get a bonus for referring me?)
You said fishtank - do you play at other sites in particular?
I am in USA so my options are limited. I am not affiliated with any poker site. I would say 95% of my time is spent at Ignition. America's Cardroom or ACR is another option but the anonymous nature of Ignition makes it difficult for regs to counter-exploit since they are playing against "pool" stats.
Raoul - that would be the dream! Work early in week and mornings and play/win on weekends!
Interesting, but logical, that the games deviate so much. Good for learning, but $$ and moving up is nice too!
interesting, thanks Hawks!
As an aside, there was a weird / interesting youtbue video by "Alvinteachespoker" about crushing the "zone" using some hyper-lag strategy to exploit the anonymous nature, and he claimed some massive 20bb/100 + winrates (basically overplaying so many hands at weakness). Not sure if you saw it, but I'd be curious about your thoughts on the strategy (it felt sort of infomercial-ly so i discounted it somewhat)...
Also, if that works, might "going extreme the other way" and being a super nit also work? Idea is the same: to play so differently from your pool that the typical exploits fail against you...
So the nice thing about anon tables is that you can get a bit out of line and no one will ever know. I play 2 zone tables and then 2 regular speed tables at the same time. Regular speed tables allow a HUD (PokerTracker4 has a Ignition/Bovada Hand Grabber). vs. Regish appearing players, I get out of line somewhat. BTN regs will figure SB 3b about 8-9% as a pool, so I counter this by 3 betting more and they just keep folding. Can do it out of BB but less often. Overall 4b range on Ignition is less than 3% in aggregate, so regs are going to respond vs that perceived range, so I call less and 4b more.
However, c-betting out of position is by far the most glaring leak that pool has. (Especially out of the SB). You can just destroy them by floating and betting vs their checks.
Two heuristics you can try on that site are this:
1) Float BB vs SB and any other time you are IP and just close eyes and bet vs checks. Also, when OOP and you check and they check back, try betting turns ALOT.
2) Bet/Fold a lot. The bluff rate is quite low there on the later streets so you can be confident that when they raise, they have it. If you get bluffed once in a while, so be it.
I think what HawksWin mentioned can be applied even at non anonymous table and most micro regs are leaking in this scenario.. And even if someone would notice that you are exploiting them.. at that time you will be probably playing higher:)
MatoStar Amen to this.
I think you really need to consider your time zone and where the most of your pool is playing from. Since I play mostly on ACR, about 95% of the player pool is from the US, and so it pays to play at hours when US players are off work ie evenings and weekends (most rec players) - which luckily for me in AUS is our morning hours.
I can't say with any certainty as I've never played on GG, but from what I can guess, a lot of the rec/weaker players on that site might be playing from Asia? In which case, your best hours are probably going to be super early in the morning.
Thanks for the comments Dan!
Yes, I thought about this as well. There are a lot of far-East Asian players, but also seems like slightly more European players (Germany and Ireland seem over-represented for some reason) and Israelis (+7hrs vs EST) as well as Canadians. So 10amish Eastern is still going to have lots of reggy-Europeans and Israelis.
Also noticed that the games FEEL fairly different, like lower frequencies and often running into nutted hands, etc.
Great points about ACR, especially living in AUS! Hope it's going well.
I play regularly on PartyPoker. Especially in the morning on working days (Central European Time) the games are tougher. Although PartyPoker hides the nationalities of the players, it seems to me that many guys from Eastern Europe are grinding it out for a living the whole day long. So in the morning, the tables are packed with regulars. However, from late afternoon on (when companies close and the fish come home), games are becoming easier.
The best times to find as many fish as possible, in my opinion, are Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evening, where a bulk of recreational players hit the tables.
Another strategy to find some really fishy players could be to look out for drunk people. Check out where most of the players from the pool on your site are coming from. When party time in these areas is over (early Saturday and Sunday morning), some guys will continue their party at the online poker tables. You will find some of the most ridiculous plays then.
Great points, thanks Karsten!
Glad to know i'm not alone in this. Good insight on post bar / party timing (pre/post lock-down especially!). At my site, i can see how many tables an opponent is playing - reg or fast version. This is a trick i learned from Carroters and seems to apply...
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