For a while it was on sale. I actually paid full price for it ($999) because coming from a live background and playing $500+ games I was used to taking 1-3k swings pretty often. I was winning consistently, but my discipline with eating unhealthy, sleeping at like 5-8am (Gf waiting up for me all night), procrastinating etc. I had (Have!!!) a lot of detrimental leaks outside of poker that hold me back. "Fear of success" being a pretty big one. Grinding out micro / low stakes for years, scared to take a big swing at mid / high stakes (More so live). If I were to take a shot at deep stack and lose $5k playing $5/10 or something, it wouldn't really effect me, but i've always held myself back and stayed within my comfort zone, looking for easy money. I'm doing same thing online, was beating $1/2 six max decent rate, but only 11k hands or so, so tiny sample, scared of a big swing still, so I drop down levels.

If you have a bunch of level issues A-game master class is a "performance" program to help you build discipline on daily life task such as keeping a scheduling and planning out your day, week, month, or even year. I mean i've heard it all before and listen to the course while i'm grinding several times over. The first time though the course, did 100% focus on just listening / watching the video taking notes etc. I still feel tilted quite often, so I often have the course playing in the background. I think it's Eliot's calming voice that helps me stay focused on my session and not punt. Self talk is a big part of the course that helped me quite a bit. Pretend like i'm coaching myself and what would I tell myself in certain spots.

I would say it helped me quite a bit, but I still have almost all the same issues. I'm just more educated and aware of them. I think when the price was like $300, it was more worth it. I am not sure what the price is now actually. That would be the price tag I put on it. I was willing to pay $1k for it before because I was playing $500 games, so if it meant me saving 2 buy-in it paid for itself. Grinding 100NL online mostly, I wouldn't want to pay $1k for it today. Biggest tip I can give you is just write down everything you want to do. Similar to your blog and just keep writing things down every day that you're going to do. Hope this helps... bit of a rant.

I bought the course during the sale and it was absolutely worth it. I have seen some improvement in my ability to avoid tilt or stop playing when it creeps in.

But more surprisingly it has helped a ton elsewhere in my life. There are exercises that get you to really focus in on what you value in life and work towards living those values. Immensely helpful for me and has improved my relationship with my wife, with my friends, my performance at work, and my performance at the poker table.

Oh and I haven’t even finished the course yet!

It's not even a downswing for me really. I guess I can screen shot my graph without showing the profits, i'm very consistent with all my sessions, it's just these constant coolers eating away at what would be a ton more profit! Like this week I didn't play very much, just 3500 hands on this app and +$47. This is like my worst week i've had. The tilt is coming from the types of hands I am losing. If I get KK vs AA once in a while, ok I understand. Set vs flush draw, they catch their flush 1 out of 3 times, ok I understand. This week though, I would flop a straight or set and they have top pair drawing near dead, and get runner runner boat or back door flush etc. I have a friend who plays PLO, was crushing pokerbros for around 20k first 10 days playing 100PLO or 200PLO. Then it's just like a switch went off and hit 12k downswing. Mean while, he was still crushing other apps. I play NL on another app Pokerrrr where he plays PLO. he is crushing on there almost every day, but can't seem to win a single session on pokerbros. It's strange that it is literally the only site he struggles on. Say you have 99 and you get 3 bet, ok you end up calling, you can basically predict the flop comes 8 high or lower about 75% of the time. The site wants both players to have an over pair, so neither player can fold and the rake increases. Or the amount of times I raise KT/K9 on the button and flop comes Kxx and I check back to protect my range, only to see Ace on the turn and BB has like A7o, just so a little bit more money goes into the pot. It's sick how many turn cards bring combo draws that create a ton of action for both players. One thing that makes me lose a lot of money, where I haven't found the fold button very often is when I have like AdAh on Kd 7x 4d 2d 9c board and i'm facing 2 or 3 large bets. It's like I know they have a flush, but I have a blocker... I always ask myself, I have nut blocker, why are they betting big? It's like they know the site is rigged as well, where I have to call with my blocker and they are used to seeing it.

I wish this site allowed you to pull hand histories and data mine. They would be exposed like crazy. Some times i'll be playing 8 tables and have AA on 3 different tables and AK on two other tables. Just dealing a ton of action. The players are so used to just coolering people, they basically (at least the 100NL regs) are now playing I would guess 18 vpips? Just waiting for the next cooler. They don't even have to be balanced or worry about bluffing frequencies because they know both players will have something to bet or call with. At least this is how I feel about the site. Played millions of hands in my life time, i've never seen anything like it.

Anyways going on some stupid rants on this thread. I need to get some sleep. Check back in tomorrow as usual.

Good night.

It's not a variance thing that i'm bitching about. It's not a downswing or break even stretch. My bankroll is still growing. It's just the amount of coolers that happen every 5 minutes on there and it's not just me either, every player has the same issue. The amount of QQ vs AA or straight vs flush, 2 pair vs set, flush over flush, full house over full house, etc. It's not normal to have this many "coolers" / set up hands in a single session and this has been going on for months now since I joined. I am exploiting it by lowering my cbet % and bluffing way less because they always seem to have a hand / bluff catcher. I have to pot control more over pairs and basically try and wait for safe run outs. I can comfortably fold AKo preflop without even thinking twice about it because their range is basically KK+ AKs when I face a 4 bet / 5 bet.

I am saying I shouldn't have to fold AKo, QQ, sets, small flushes, etc to be a winning player on this site. The other club I am in, i've had KK vs AA only once the entire week, its just one table full ring in which I played around 2,000 hands. Not a ton of hands, but when you consider 3500 hands and the amount of coolers i've had during this small stretch, to the 1 cooler over 2000 hands, it's just absurd. Again not complaining about anything financial. Just the amount of set up hands. I've played poker since 2005 and never seen anything like it. Can beat the game because USA player pool is still relatively soft.

I don't mind "me me me" btw. Sharing your own experience is very helpful. Graph below is my graph that I tracked for each total session. There is no tracking software on this site, so you can't track by hand. So I just track by stake / hands / profit each session. A lot of people think i'm bitching about a break even stretch or a downswing, I promise you it's non of that. Between the two clubs I am in, still up around 6 buy-in on the week ($1/$2) other club. Graph is a total of 108k hands played to date since joining the club. I'm just tired of accepting "its rigged, but it's rigged for everyone" mentality. I just want to play solid poker and not have to try and exploit a software that deals set up hands for more action. I should only have to worry about exploiting players, NOT software.

It's completely fair when it's a club to think it might be rigged. Runs like those are still unlikely and it's 100% fair to assume it is rigged and not bottom 0.1% variance when the site is not regulated or audited (by regulator or player data). Might even be more likely at a certain threshold.
The problem is really no data, we as humans tend to remember the worst stuff. When you're a winner it makes it more likely that you're more aware and in turn less likely that is memory bias, but it's still possible and without solid data to examine you can never be "sure" :/

Mudkip Basically no way to prove it is rigged for action, I just have to deal with it and try and exploit it as much as possible. Hard to argue against a non regulated site and as a human I can't prove it. People say I have not provided any evidence. I could say the same thing for the site, being the site has provided no evidence that it is not rigged either. Not even sure what I am going to get out of this discussion. Whether people agree with it or disagree with me, not much is ever going to change. I can only choose to play there or not play there. For now i'll keep playing there until I am not making money and just deal with the set up hands.

So I joined a 2nd club on pokerrrr outside of pokerbros only a week ago. This club made me see the "light" on how rigged pokerbros was. Pokerrrr even softer, but I am seeing more legit hands take place and less set up flops. Yes, there is still some KK vs AK and KK vs AA hands, I even lost a $1200 pot ($1/$2) KK vs AA the other night, but didn't complain because the software still seems legit to me. I understand variance mostly, or to some degree at least. I would not complain about "standard variance." It's literally just the amount of coolers are around 10-15x more than any other site. I posted my graph above for the site, so i'm not some losing player bitching about variance. I'm a clearly a solid consistent winner on the site. A lot of arguments on 2p2 that were mentioned are coming from losing players. I'm actually posting this as a "crusher" who plays on the site. Don't see this happen from winning players too often. I assure you I am more than double the win rate of any player on this forum who plays on stars. With Rake back I am probably triple or quadruple the win rate of some players on this forum. End of the day poker is about making money, so maybe I just need to suck it up and exploit the software and stay away from theory. Stop 3 betting QQ, JJ, AKo and just see more flops. Probably a good exploit rather than 3 betting and flipping or being crushed. One shouldn't have to set mine with JJ though LOL. I think people just need to play on the site to see what i'm talking about for themselves. My words sound exaggerated, but there not. Maybe if I was on a break even stretch or downswing, I could see them being exaggerated, but as a crusher.... I try and being realistic as possible in order to improve on my game. Going to try a more nitty strategy this week and see how much I can $print$ just choosing to be on the right side of coolers rather than saying AK or QQ all in preflop is standard. I'll try to only get KK+ AKs in preflop and I bet my win rate sky rockets even more.

Correct, I am a winning player complaining about the site being rigged. I think my argument holds more weight because i'm not a losing player complaining. I have 108k hands tracked with pretty crushing results.

How are you tracking flops hitting correct % or number of KK vs AA being correct? Seems impossible to track, which is why I only tracked equity and record when i'm all in. Tracked 210 all ins where the equity and record matched almost perfectly. I would find it impossible to track flops hitting correctly or set over set being correct because most of the time you don't get to see the other persons hand. How are you supposed to track this?

you've offered zero point zero evidence to suggest that it is.

Pretty hard to do with a site that doesn't allow trackers or importing hands and data is closed to the public on actual numbers right? It's not like you can pay for data population tendencies on this site.

Idk if you read my post or not, I said only played 3k hands this week. I have 108k hands tracked on the site. 108k hands is not a big sample I know and people go on 100k hand break even stretches as well. I've had 1-2 of those back in the day before black Friday as well.

Except the only actual evidence you've provided (winning on the site)
doesn't support your argument.

So if I was a losing player, I would have a better argument? I think losing players arguments are quickly dismissed because of all the leaks in their strategy. Can you provide any evidence that the site is not rigged with your drive hud?

Let's look at KK vs AA. For six max it's suppose to happen 1 in 9768 hands. If I am playing roughly 1,000-2,000 hands a day, can you explain why I have KK vs AA at least once a day? Doesn't this defy the odds? Seems like way more action than there should be based on these stats. You can apply this across the board on this site for flush over flush, set over set, Set vs over pair, etc. The stats just do not hold true on this site or they would not mind it being regulated. I'll see how many hands I play this week and keep track of my KK vs AA hands, see if I actually have it 7 more times this week or not.

As far as my knowledge goes, there are none of these actual stats available, making it impossible to prove or disprove the site being rigged. If it was regulated, might be banned for the legal loop hole that is being taken advantage of.

It's not like ignition where you get to see your opponents cards the next day or data mine millions of hands to get population tendencies. I would LOVE TO BE WRONG about this post, I really would! I just can't get over the amount of set over set and KK vs AA or even AK vs QQ that happens in late position formations over and over again every day. I find it highly unlikely that I am wrong though, when myself or my friends that play for a living don't have this same issue with any other sites we play on. Again I would LOVE to be wrong about this and REALLY hope it's not rigged. I have nothing to gain by proving it is rigged. Would benefit me and give me a lot of confidence knowing the site is legit and would 100% keep playing on it, if that is true. I am not complaining about bots, I frankly do not care about bots. Usually there is a way to exploit them. But staying on topic, I just want to prove or disprove the site is "rigged for action."

How many hands are needed to verify the number of KK vs AA occurrences are true? I am guessing the number of hands needed is probably in the millions, a number I frankly won't reach playing regular tables for quite some time. Factor that in with which position each player is in. How many top 5% of hands BvB occurrences are there? Over the 108k hands played on this site, I have a strong feeling the site is still rigged. Not against any particular player, just rigged, so there is enough action and pots are bigger for more rake. Tracking number of times you dealt AA being 1:220 doesn't actually mean anything. Knowing you get KK vs AA once every two thousand hands in a six max game compared to actual number being closer to once every ten thousand hands, now that is saying something is off on the site. Again we need actual data to prove this.

Until the site allows people to pull millions of hands into a tracker to analyze this, it is just he said she said argument. Could this be a reason why THEY DON'T ALLOW THIS? I would think if the site knew they were legit, they would be more than happy to share this info. The fact that is hidden or not allowed, screams alarm bells!!!!

With all of that said, the site is still very profitable. It's just more about exploitation and knowing 4 bet and 5 bet ranges are like top 2-3% of hands. Can't be comfortable getting AKo or QQ in preflop very often, even in late position. There was a post, maybe a month ago where a guy playing 25NL on pokerstars I believe, showed he was losing with AK and QQ over like 200k hands when money went in preflop. Doesn't mean it's rigged, just means 4 bet ranges and calling off 5 bets are extremely narrow in this pool.

My point being I should be asking the appropriate questions to find the appropriate answers. I'll try and "tone down" the complaining and ask professional questions or answers going forward.

Still have a couple hundred bucks on there. Only played a few times since posting this thread. I am up a bunch on there as well. Once I toned down my aggression because of the "rigged for action" meaning less FE than normal poker, my win rate increased. Can value bet larger and expect people to have combo draws at a higher frequency. Still have a friend who plays on there for a living. Doing well, but it is very stressful dealing with it, especially when you multi table. It is still very beatable, that is not the reason we "complain" about the site. I have been playing on ignition and seems to be way more legit than BROS. Idk how Legit as I don't have a big enough sample. Also playing on poker2, some juicy clubs on there, but I think same RNG as pokerbros. Just gotta play a slightly different strategy. I think it's good for 100NL and below. I think rake is too high 200NL and above. Seems a bit greedy for the site to have high rake + rigged for action LOL.

My theory is both sites Poker2 and PokerBros were designed to be play money site and play money is supposed to be fun, so having an increase in action makes sense.

Luckily Pstars is launching here in MI in a few weeks so i can take my
passion elsewhere.

Heard some of these stats like NJ / NEV have small pools, but decent action. I really hope PS comes back to USA nationwide. Would love to play in these zoom pools.

you just gotta treat it more like live

It's 100% rigged, no question about that. But just because it's rigged for action, doesn't mean it is not profitable. The adjustments I've made as you said it's like playing against live players. Where 3 bets are basically QQ+ and AKs and they are not stealing blinds as much as they do in normal online games or people over folding BB because they don't have 2 broadways or whatever or over defending because they are suited etc etc. all these live dynamics on how live players think are all very true. I just know for a fact in late positions you can't profitably get in JJ like BTN vs BB or even AKo doesn't ever appear to be ahead when money goes in. This is because of the pools overall 3 bet frequency, since they have a flatting range from all positions, maybe they 3 bet like 5% or something on avg. So strategy has to change based on these tendencies. However, the rigged part is how often you have like top pair + FD vs a set, flush over flush, straight over straight, KK vs AA, etc etc. I think the site even changed the bad beat from AAAJJ being beat to having to use two cards and also beaten by quads because it was hitting too often.

With that said, I know the equity holds true when the money goes in. I took hundreds of screen shots through a couple weeks of play and tracked my equity vs opponents equity a long with win rate and equity held true to math. However, not able to all hole cards, so impossible to track how often people actually have KK vs AA or set over set etc and what frequency this happens at. Basically just make money on this site, but playing nitty and accepting the fact "standard coolers" are not actually standard, so tighten up on your JJ QQ AKo region when money goes in preflop, even in late positions, don't go crazy when you make small flush or bottom set. Can tend to mostly fold 22-55, and low SCs to avoid some of these coolers. Can probably play something like 15/13/5 style and just print money from coolering people over and over again, then rake back is always nice on top of that. It's definitely an adjustment to the player's tendencies more than the actual site, but doesn't mean it is not rigged and just because a player is winning, doesn't mean it's not rigged. We are not saying it's rigged because of bad beats. As most people say, just have to play on there to see for yourself. Idk anyone who plays on there who says it's not rigged. They just accept the fact they can make money on there and that is the whole point of poker.

Anyways most of my volume these days is on ignition. Pokerbros became pretty stressful despite winning at a high rate.

It sounds like maybe your just stacking off too light against passive players and are blaming the site for being rigged. It's kinda standard to not stack off with AKo/JJ and even QQ quite often in live dynamics because people are so passive(even SB vs Bttn;
I would fold QQ to a 4B very often and no sweat against many players in my pool, just because they only 4b me with KK+). I find live spots very often where I am even folding AKo to a 3b, and confident it is correct just given the dynamics of live poker. I'm not trying to be an asshole here. That just seems more likely to me than the site being rigged. I know a couple people here in Florida who are doing quite well on it, and never mention of it being rigged. They got me curious about starting to play on it as well. I may be wrong, it might be rigged, I just don't see the incentive to do that. Maybe it could generate action, sure. But there's already quite alot of action in poker as it is. And the downside of running a rigged site is losing trust and losing it all. Just don't think it's likely. But of course it could be possible. If I thought something was rigged, I just wouldn't play on it, unless of course it was a proveable thing that I could take advantage of. Just sounds very unlikely, and maybe more likely you are struggling with results oriented thinking, which is something that can be very hard to see through at times, especially during times of variance or other things going on in life.

Well said Ryan You argument is basically the best one. All of the above could be true with result oriented thinking, over playing hands vs passive players, out side life factors etc etc. I have great results, so people say things like "Winning players shouldn't be complaining." Then when a losing player complains "you are just complaining because you play bad." Either way, not going to touch this thread in 2021. Will accept what I can control and focus on ignition mostly. Probably still play some on pokerbros, it is still plenty fishy without HUDs. It is possible to use a HUD, but limited to one table as far as I know.

Is live poker still not an option in Cali?

Ryan I moved out of Cali in October actually, but the casinos I was playing at is not open still. It opened up for like a week, then shut back down. Would have to go north, about an hour or so to play live. Currently live little under 2 hours from vegas, so next year will make some trips to vegas to play live, but 95% of my play will be focused online at the moment. Maybe if I do really well live again I'll start making weekend trips, but hotels and stuff can add up pretty quick. Heard live action is insane right now as well.

I agree with focus on what you can control, but just because many people believe it is rigged, doesn't mean you shouldn't play there if your objective is to make money. Just figure out how it's rigged and players tendency and exploit it to the maximum.

RunItTw1ce

What stakes do you play there?

HeavyMask In the past I was playing mostly 100NL, started at 20NL, moved to 40Nl, then 100NL pretty quickly. Most of my volume was on 100NL. Then some 200NL. I didn't go higher than this mostly because I was "afraid" of dealing with some big swings at the higher levels, but also because it's 5% with 2bb cap rake at each level higher. Where 100NL rake is capped at $4 (4bb), then $200NL capped at $6 (3bb), then $2/4 ($8 / 2bb), $3/6 ($12 (2bb), and $5/10 ($20 /2bb) so rake is kind of ridiculous at higher levels than 200NL. If i'm being honest with myself though, mostly didn't want to deal with $2k+ swings playing 400NL and higher every day. Lastly less tables available on higher levels.

Since I cashed out though, Only have $400-$500 on there for 20NL / 40NL until I build back up. Playing 100NL on ignition now and hopefully 200NL by end of January or February? Off topic but that's the plan.

There are many apps (more than 10) and many clubs on each app. I don't think app poker is going anywhere. It has come to stay.

For NL I will say a lot of the "riggedness" I seen in the past was just due to player tendency having super tight 3betting ranges. Where I would try and memorize charts for which hands to 3bet + 4bet and stack off with, but I wasn't really adjusting well when the player only 3 bets QQ+ and flats everything else. So I would treat JJ btn vs SB as a cooler when I'm just like 18% every time the money goes in.

With that said I haven't played on bros in years now. But from Bros, pokerrrr, and ignition they all seem like they are "rigged" for action to a certain degree. I don't think its against any particular players like losing players or rigged against winning players etc. Could be! Being designed as a "play money" app really changes things IMO though. I have seen a club run $1/$2 and then because its a Friday they run a $2/$5 game. And literally the worst player on the table wipes out entire table in about 2hours time for $8k or so.

I did have screen shots in the past where I checked the equities when all in for 300 hands or so and the equities hold true. But the # of times I get AK vs TT on KTX is quite amazing. Or the late position battles being JJ+ AK vs JJ+ AK type ranges seem to happen at a pretty high frequency as well. I switched to ignition for the last couple of years and I have to say even with hole card access I am still seeing a lot of suspicious play. From players playing 63/37 limp calling with KK and simply folding on the flop when I have AA. Other times they flat AA MW in their BB instead of squeezing. It could just be people who honestly don't know how to play clicking buttons. I have checked all the stats on distribution though for # of times you get AA vs KK or just being dealt premiums in general. All of the stats come out normal. I will say for the first 700k hands or so I played I did have a AA vs KK ratio that was unfair, but evened out closer to a million hands.

I think the best approach is just to know humans don't understand variance or sample sizes really needed. Have to ignore all the GTO / PIO solver outputs and really just focus on player tendencies. I have spent numerous hours and wasted time and energy on this stuff over the years with my only results showing its less rigged than I thought it was. You can still tell it feels a little off, probably to increase the rake and make the game more fun being a "play money" site. Poker itself can be boring at times, so the increase in action to keep the fish coming back makes a lot of sense as a business. Also would probably lose to the rake if it wasn't as action packed as it is. I would ignore your personal stats and step away from GTO strategy completely.

I still have a friend who plays on these sites because they are crazy soft and the rake back is always a big bonus. He has made a killing on these sites. Many clubs have banned him from people complaining he wins too much. Its really about adjusting to the player tendencies and understanding how to fry the fish with big bets and make big folds against players who don't bluff enough. Ignore the GTO charts that say to stack off with AK preflop in certain spots and stop treating TPTK as a cooler when you get 3bet on the flop. Just know they "just have it." Once you learn to accept the site for being action packed and players making big hands pretty often, some big lay downs will become easier to make. Then you just focus on making money and ignore all the stats. I am still working on all of this stuff myself. Transitioned back to live games just yesterday because I was tired of all the online stuff. When you don't have a choice in your shoes though you just have to accept it for what it is and make the correct adjustments.

I listen to the S4Y podcast and Berkey just talks about bots and collusion on these sites. The rake is insane, but a lot more better opportunities available these days. I haven't played on there in years, so I can't comment personally about the action. Had a friend who was grinding PLO on pokerrrr and there were a bunch of accounts that got banned after some IT person came in and analyzed a bunch of stuff. I'm sure BROS is the same.

I play for a living, so you are just making wild assumptions.

Don't get me wrong. I was still winning on the site, but you can tell at the time there were far too many coolers than normal. A lot of JJ+ AK+ type of range in late position battles happening at a high frequency. Two players having AK vs AQ and being ace high flop. Person flopping OESD vs a set and picking up a FD on the turn. Not rigged vs any particular player, it was just my opinion that the site was rigged for action to increase the rake and make it a more "fun" experience with so many big hands being dealt.