PokerStars + Variance = -EV

Variance is still kicking my butt at PokerStars and, reading a multitude of other poker blogs, it looks like I am not alone. I still have another month to go before I can whine about bad beats but I was in a low buy-in 2 Table SitNGo at PokerStars and was doing well and made the money by taking out the 5th player to burst the bubble. I then managed to take out another player to put me well into the chip lead and ready to take down the whle shebang with just 3 of us left. Alas, it was not to be. My A/K gets rocked vs. A/9 when the villain hits his 9 and then my A/K goes down to K/J when the villain hits the Broadway Straight. From First to worse in just two hands. I ended up finishing 3rd.

I am still winning at Absolute Poker. If they are cheating at my level I hope they continue because I have done well there. I am still buying in as a short stack and today I happened to be playing two tables and both tables had one ATM playing that I was able to double up on before they lost all of their money and left.

There was one ATM that was reraising anyone that raised preflop and was getting quite a few to fold to his bigger raises (myself included) until a couple of players decided to call his raises and play their hands only to find that he was raising with absolute shit (no pun intended). And he didn't stop even after we had figured him out. I was fortunate to get pocket nines and raised preflop and, as I hoped, he reraised about 5 times my raise so I went all in. He didn't hesitate to call and my nines easily beat his 6/4 offsuit. Ship it!! He left soon after that when another player busted him with pocket Kings.