Tight games on FT and PStars

Does anybody have any idea why the games on Full Tilt and Stars are so much tighter than sites like UB? I always figured that if a site has more players, there would be more bad players (by proportion). On UB, you find many limit games with high pot sizes and 30%-40% players seeing the flop in FR, while at stars the pots are small with 15%-25% players/flop. Do bad players simply find their way to less advertised sites? This doesn't make much sense to me.

My experience with Full Tilt, and to a lesser extent Stars, is that you can learn to play a tighter preflop game just by watching the chatbox. At the lower stakes, the players spend way to much time berating fish and arguing the finer points of hand selection with the fish. Guys ramble on about PT, Sharkscope and or are constantly telling guys to read books, learn to play or just plain what they do wrong. They don't understand that they are "tapping the tank" and are ego driven to be right more than they want to make money. Although these sites have players learning to play tighter preflop, that is not where we play "poker". Learning to beat tight players that can't play postflop is just another adjustment to the table, not the end of the world.

Tightening is also due to the U.S. fish pool drying up.

Then why does AP, UB and cake still have tables in the 40+% range as the norm?

Because most U.S. players played on Party and Stars before the government made it harder to deposit.

That does not explain why FT and Stars has tighter tables by close to 15% VPIP differences on average than the others.

Just need to make different adjustments.

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

That does not explain why FT and Stars has tighter tables by close to 15% VPIP differences on average than the others.

Sure it does. Less fish equals tighter tables.

Eurodonks play drunk more.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

That does not explain why FT and Stars has tighter tables by close to 15% VPIP differences on average than the others.

Sure it does. Less fish equals tighter tables.

How does a site with 25000+ players at any one time ( Stars) have less fish than AP or UB with less than 4000+ players? They are all open to Americans, they all accept the same deposit methods and have all the same games and rules. OP's question is why does Stars and Tilt have tighter tables than UB or AP? So give a reason that has to do with what is different between the sites. If they have more players, does that not equal more fish?

Its more like 100,000 players on average at stars if you're in a north american time zone. There are tons of fish playing on stars you just have to be a little diligent with table selection as there are lots of tight tables. But there are also a ton of loose tables.
There are more regs on stars and tilt because a lot of sites don't allow americans and its hard to move money on the fishier sites. That doesn't mean there are less fish though.

What data are you basing this observation on? Right now, I'm looking at a whack of FTP 6-max tables with 30- 45% plyrs/flop and that's pretty common.

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

That does not explain why FT and Stars has tighter tables by close to 15% VPIP differences on average than the others.

Sure it does. Less fish equals tighter tables.

How does a site with 25000+ players at any one time ( Stars) have less fish than AP or UB with less than 4000+ players? They are all open to Americans, they all accept the same deposit methods and have all the same games and rules. OP's question is why does Stars and Tilt have tighter tables than UB or AP? So give a reason that has to do with what is different between the sites. If they have more players, does that not equal more fish?

Your not understanding me here. Before the government stepped in yes there were tons of poor Americans playing at PS and the vpip was way high but since the U.S. has made it harder to desposit it is dropping because less and less of those people can deposit anymore. There are far more regulars on Stars now because the fish that learned and got a little better and don't deposit as much anymore. Most of the "new money" now is coming from countries other than the U.S. but there is less "new money" than before the law was passed. Also, most americans played at Stars vs the other sites.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Your not understanding me here. Before the government stepped in yes there were tons of poor Americans playing and the vpip was way high but since the U.S. has made it harder to desposit it is dropping because less and less of those people can deposit anymore. There are far more regulars on there now because the fish that learned got a little better and don't deposit as much anymore. Most of the "new money" now is coming from countries other than the U.S. but there is less "new money" than before the law was passed.

I think what he's trying to point out is that getting money to/from pokerstars/fulltilt no more difficult than getting money to/from UB and AP for US players.

That takes the money transfer issues out of the equation. And obviously they all have the same legality issues to deal with.

There must be some other reason for the differences.

My guess would be that the more serious players are going to stars and FT because there is so much more overall traffic, while the bad players who play at UB/AP don't think that deep.

What he said ^^^^^^^^

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Your not understanding me here. Before the government stepped in yes there were tons of poor Americans playing at PS and the vpip was way high but since the U.S. has made it harder to desposit it is dropping because less and less of those people can deposit anymore. There are far more regulars on Stars now because the fish that learned and got a little better and don't deposit as much anymore. Most of the "new money" now is coming from countries other than the U.S. but there is less "new money" than before the law was passed. Also, most americans played at Stars vs the other sites.

I will say this one more time, try to read my words carefully. WHY IS UB AND AP SO MUCH LOOSER AND SOFTER THAN STARS AND FULL TILT?

Stop talking about Americans, deposits and pre Frist. All these sites have the same thing, NLHE, Americans, the ability to deposit and anything else you have pointed out. What makes these two sites so much softer and looser?


P.S. There is another reason that has not been brought up yet.

Why are the majority of HHs on 2+2 etc Stars (and to a lesser extent FT) histories?

BBJ?

Remember Absolute's October massacre, when they had a thief on the inside with a superuser account seeing everyone's hole cards? I believe a lot of regs packed up and left Absolute. I know several FTR folks did, and many of them left UB as well since Absolute bought out UB last year.

BTW, I just played 2k hands at UB in FR NL25 with NONE of my 7 tables having > 20% VP$P according to PT/HUD stats. +3 BI. Like fnord says - different adjustments. I actually prefer tighter tables in some ways - low variance, low risk $$.

Originally Posted by Pythonic

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

That does not explain why FT and Stars has tighter tables by close to 15% VPIP differences on average than the others.

Sure it does. Less fish equals tighter tables.

Not necessarily. People need to stop associating tighter play with good players. It's a horrible assumption.

Originally Posted by Fnord

Just need to make different adjustments.

Sometimes I wonder if we should even try to help people or just say fuck it and take their money.

Originally Posted by spoonitnow

Originally Posted by Fnord

Just need to make different adjustments.

Sometimes I wonder if we should even try to help people or just say fuck it and take their money.

Make a different adjustment.

Originally Posted by pankfish

BBJ?

Originally Posted by Ash256

Why are the majority of HHs on 2+2 etc Stars (and to a lesser extent FT) histories?

Now were getting closer.

Originally Posted by Spoonitnow

Not necessarily. People need to stop associating tighter play with good players. It's a horrible assumption.

This was my point at the beginning of the thread when I said

My experience with Full Tilt, and to a lesser extent Stars, is that you can learn to play a tighter preflop game just by watching the chatbox. At the lower stakes, the players spend way to much time berating fish and arguing the finer points of hand selection with the fish. Guys ramble on about PT, Sharkscope and or are constantly telling guys to read books, learn to play or just plain what they do wrong. They don't understand that they are "tapping the tank" and are ego driven to be right more than they want to make money. Although these sites have players learning to play tighter preflop, that is not where we play "poker". Learning to beat tight players that can't play postflop is just another adjustment to the table, not the end of the world.