NerfVariance

Apologies in advance for the long post, but thank you if you read it all and have any constructive criticism!

I first started playing NLHE in 2005 when I was about 20. I logged about 1.5mil hands on Stars over 4 or 5 years... I also played on Full Tilt, Party, Absolute Bet, Betonline.ag, Bodog, and Sportsbook.ag. I quit sometime in the same year as Black Friday and didn't touch the game again until earlier this year.

A few months ago I got interested again and reddit threads pointed me in the direction of ACR and Ignition. I've logged about 30k hands on ACR and I would consider my experience there to be "normal". Most players have a Vpip in the 10-30 range and at least have some basic idea of what they're doing.

I also deposited 1k on Ignition as everyone on reddit was saying it's a super fishy site. After playing about 20k hands on there I would definitely agree. Lots of players with 40-80 Vpips at the 25 - 100NL tables.

My BB/100 at 25 & 50NL on ACR is about 6.5, but my BB/100 on Ignition is -9.8.

I understand that 20 or 40k hands isn't a huge sample, but something seems really off. I've tried to make very deliberate adjustments when playing against the high Vpip players, but the adjustments really haven't been working. I generally don't bluff, I bet large on the flop and turn to charge their draws, but no matter what I bet they seem to always hit everything.... I've experienced enough hands to have a pretty good feel for the game, and have experienced month-long downswings so I know what that's like... at least to some extent...

I want to give a hand example because maybe there's something I haven't thought of or some insight someone can provide of how to approach this differently. I think against a 75 Vpip player I'm playing this the right way, but maybe not...

This hand was at 50 NL...

I've seen about 50 of villian's hands, his Vpip was 74 and his PFR was 25. I know he raised once in early position with 97o and flat called a 3bet with it)

I have about 110BB and Villian has 76BB (he's not topping up)

Action folds around to C/O which is villian, he raises to 3BB

I'm on the button with AQo, I 3bet to 11bb (I go with a largeish 3bet because he doesn't seem to like to fold anything preflop)

Villian calls, flop comes A 3 8 rainbow

Villian bets 5 BB into 23.5BB pot

Hero raises to 21BB, Villian calls.

Turn comes a 5 (there were no flush draws so I'm not bothering with suits)

Villian shoves for his remaining 44BB, Hero calls.

Villian flips over 2 4 of clubs for the wheel and Hero breaks his mouse.

I understand there's just some hands you're going to get stacked on... I can't imagine that my call was really bad as he's probably playing all of his Ax hands in a similar way since he really hates folding and is playing 75% of hands.

I admit I'm a little bit suspicious of Ignition's algorithm... I've never once gotten this feeling about any of the other sites I've played on, but something seems "wrong". Everytime I have an overpair someone turns an Ace, or they call pot-sized bets on the flop with no pair and no draws, but they always manage to spike the card they need. Again, I don't feel like this happens on any of the other sites I've played on over the years.

Part of me thinks I should just solely play on ACR, but comparing the player pools on the two sites Ignition is obviously a heck of a lot softer, which makes me want to play there... those 75 Vpip guys are the ones I target and absolutely want to play against, but they keep crushing me day after day for the last couple of months.

I've read a lot of "Ignition is rigged" forum posts over the last few weeks and there seems to be a common theme... but then again people claim Stars and GG and every other site are also rigged, which I would vehementy disagree with.

I guess I'll stop rambling now, I'm just very torn between wanting to play the softer pool but I can't talk myself out of it even if it's kicking my ass.

I'd appreciate any thoughts from anyone that's played decent volume on multiple sites and has noticed anything

Also a side question... is there anyone on this forum that has played like 250k+ hands on Ignition and has a positive winrate? I think if there are multiple people that have a positive win-rate over a long period on Ignition then I'd be much more likely to chalk it up to extreme variance and keep trying, but if nobody's grinding the 200 or 500NL tables regularly with such a soft pool I'd really like to know why.

Thanks for reading!