Regarding Poker

I analyzed my sit and go tournament games on SharkScope to see how I fair on PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. It appears as though that my recent games on these two sites have quite different results.

My recent run with PokerStars is terrible; coming in the money only two times in the last eight games (I typically have more “in-the-money” wins than loses there). Yet with Full Tilt Poker I managed to get into the money seven times in the last eight sit and go’s.

Keep in mind that these games have comparable buy-ins, they are all nine-handed games, and these games have been played in the same time-frame, I basically play a game at PokerStars and then a game on Full Tilt Poker.

So I wonder why there is such a discrepancy between the two rooms?

Here are some of my possible explanations:

1) Does Full Tilt Poker have softer competition? I just recently started to play more at Full Tilt Poker which would explain me not seeing this earlier on. I just might have to play more at Full Tilt Poker to see if this is the case.

2) Maybe it’s the Full Tilt player graphics and software? Full Tilt Poker player’s avatars can be viewed as cartoonish/childish; maybe I play more aggressive towards these players there because of that. It’s hard to take a smiling monkey seriously. I doubt it’s that though, but I have to admit that I enjoy playing the Full Tilt Poker software more than PokerStars because it offers more options and the interface is awesome. Maybe PokerStars needs a facelift?

3) Is it the Blind structures? Here is a comparison of the Blind structures between PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker (nine-handed NL Hold’em sit and go for 90 minutes of play):

PokerStars
(10 minute Blind increments)

10/20
15/30
25/50
50/100
75/150
100/200
100/200 + 25 Ante
200/400 + 25 Ante
300/600 + 50 Ante

Full Tilt Poker
(6 minute Blind increments)

15/30
20/40
25/50
30/60
40/80
50/100
60/120
80/160
100/200
120/240
150/300
200/400
250/500
300/600
400/800

After 30 minutes: PokerStars 50/100 - Full Tilt Poker 50/100
After 60 minutes: PokerStars 100/200 + 25 Ante - Full Tilt Poker - 150/300

Hmmm, I don’t think it’s the Blinds; my style of play favors the PokerStars structure more so than the Full Tilt Poker structure.

My initial conclusion is that Full Tilt Poker has softer competition than PokerStars. I’ll play there more in the next few weeks and see what happens. If indeed this is the case, I’ll be playing PokerStars for the tournaments and Full Tilt Poker for the NL Hold’em sit and go’s.

I’ll keep you posted.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 at 7:43 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, PokerStars, FullTilt Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.