Hand History Full Tilt Poker
Placing an opponent on tilt or dealing with being on tilt oneself is an important aspect of poker. It is a relatively frequent occurrence due to frustration, animosity against other players, or simply bad luck. One possible origin of the word 'tilt' is as a reference to tilting a pinball machine. The frustration from seeing the ball follow a. Full Tilt Poker was not one of the early sites to market, dealing its first virtual cards in 2004. The company had $60 million cash on hand but player balances amounted to.
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One of the most iconic — and perhaps most infamous — brands in poker will become a thing of the past on Feb. 25.
Hand History Download; Poker Sites. 888 Absolute Poker Entraction Full Tilt Poker IGT Poker iPoker Merge Network Ongame PartyPoker Pokerstars Ultimate Bet. Hand History Download. Show 1 to 13 (of in total 13 products) Sites: 1: Pokerstars Hand Histories. From only $5.00 per month. 4 customer reviews. A hand history is a small text document that contains information about a hand you have played at an online poker room. They come in many forms, and while some of them can be quite difficult to understand, you will always be able to recreate everything that happened in the hand if you have the hand history. You can see an example from Full Tilt Poker (an online poker room) below. Full Tilt Poker Hand. 301 Moved Permanently.
That's the reported date on which PokerStars will shelve Full Tilt Poker, its former arch rival, for good. The news was first released by Pokerfuse and is confirmed by a FAQ page on PokerStars' website detailing some of the minutiae of the move for its remaining FTP players.
Those players will essentially just be migrating over to the main skin of the network, so there won't be much meaningful change in their playing experience.
'Our commitment to improving PokerStars software and the PokerStars customer experience in recent years has limited the amount of focus and resources we could apply to the evolution of Full Tilt,' the company stated. 'We feel it is time to consolidate brands so that everyone has access to the newest features and most innovative games which are available exclusively on PokerStars.'
A Rich History...
Full Tilt Poker was not one of the early sites to market, dealing its first virtual cards in 2004.
However, co-founder Ray Bitar teamed up with some of the biggest names in the industry. The likes of Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Mike Matusow were behind the brand, and their celebrity, combined with an aggressive marketing push, led to huge success for the site.
'Learn, chat and play with the pros.'
That ubiquitous slogan, along with the trademark black and white commercials creatively utilizing the site's immense roster of sponsored pros, beckoned countless thousands of players to give Full Tilt a try. The brand became a world leader, trailing only PokerStars in a raw numbers.
But where PokerStars laid claim to the biggest quantity, Full Tilt could credibly claim to house the best quality of poker in the world.
The highest stakes games in the world usually ran there, including monstrous and legendary games as high as $500/$1,000 blinds on the famed Rail Heaven table. Patrik Antonius, Viktor Blom, Hac and Di Dang, Gus Hansen, Ivey and more made Rail Heaven their favored battleground, which in turn made it the greatest place for fans to watch six-figure pots trading hands on the regular.
Correspondingly large pot-limit Omaha tables eventually produced the biggest pots in online poker history.
The software, too, was almost as celebrated as the quality of the games. Colorful avatars and lively animations made for an entertaining experience for the casual player. A fun MTT schedule gave tournament grinders tons of options at every price point and let players aspire to one day earn a custom avatar by virtue of winning a Full Tilt Online Poker Series event.
Considered industry leaders in many respects, the FTP team birthed innovations like fast-fold poker — now a mainstay almost everywhere — and rolled out creative ideas like Irish poker that were later adapted in some fashion by PokerStars.
Hand History Full Tilt Poker Download
It all made for a high-quality and incredibly popular product. And it all came to a crashing halt in 2011.
...But a Marred One, Too
The machinations of Black Friday dealt harsh blows at many levels of the poker industry, with the ripple effects being felt to this day.
However, perhaps the most shocking development in the aftermath was the revelation that Full Tilt's accounts were more than $300 million underwater. The company had $60 million cash on hand but player balances amounted to $390 million, with $150 million of that owed to U.S. players.
After repeated assurances from company reps that players would be paid, the fact of the matter was the company simply didn't have the money to make good on that promise.
Luckily for everyone involved, PokerStars stepped in and acquired Full Tilt's assets, with part of the deal stipulating they'd make the players whole in the process.
Entire books could be written about the ordeal and the fallout thereafter, all of which is to say the whole thing is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say some former FTP brass paid millions in penalties, others became pariahs, friends became enemies and countless poker players everywhere were left with sour tastes in their mouths regarding a once beloved company.
Relaunch and Merger
Full Tilt Poker relaunched in November 2012, but it quickly became a shell of its former self. FTOPS returned, and high-stakes action even got rolling, but the site predictably failed to regain its former glory.
As the operator slid in the worldwide rankings, company brass attempted some moves that left many in the industry scratching their heads. Rake was bumped up in many spots, rewards were cut in others, table maxes were changed from six to five players in some games and many high-stakes offerings were removed from the client altogether.
The result?
A dive in traffic as unhappy players left the site. That was in August 2015.
Early the next year, decision-makers at parent company Amaya opted to pull the plug on Full Tilt being a standalone operator, migrating the players into the same pool with PokerStars. What would have once been monumental, industry-shaking news, barely registered as a blip on the poker radar, the surest sign of all that the glory days of Full Tilt were far in the past and never likely to rekindle.
Seemingly Little Chance of Return
After the merger, PokerNews spoke to industry expert Chris Grove to get his take on the functional end of the once-proud brand. He pointed to the decline of the international online poker market as a whole as a big reason for the decision to migrate the players to PokerStars.
'In a world where Full Tilt found a unique niche or footing, or in a world where online poker continued to expand, I think we certainly could have seen the two sites continue on separately,' he said. 'Only when it became clear that Full Tilt wasn't finding that footing did a merger start to seem like a matter of 'when' more than 'if.'
With online poker moving toward a regulated future in the U.S., that meant there could have been buyers interested in acquiring Full Tilt. They'd get to avoid the headache of constructing software from scratch, to say nothing of the brand's name recognition stateside. Grove estimated PokerStars could rake in between $10 million and $50 million with such a move.
Of course, that would require interest by the selling party as well, and that never seemed much of a possibility. Poker Industry PRO reported being told by a company rep the software wasn't for sale ($), and nothing that happened in the intervening years has made that appear to be mere lip service.
The most likely case going forward would appear to be Full Tilt Poker simply collects dust in a virtual PokerStars storage room. In one sense, having your once-chief rival neatly tucked away on some backup storage drive is the ultimate power move.
In another, though, it's the most sad, meek ending imaginable to a company that took the poker world by storm more than 15 years ago.
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Online PokerFull Tilt
Tilt originated as a poker term for a state of mental or emotional confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy, usually resulting in the player becoming over-aggressive. Tilting is closely associated with another poker term, 'steam'.
Placing an opponent on tilt or dealing with being on tilt oneself is an important aspect of poker. It is a relatively frequent occurrence due to frustration, animosity against other players, or simply bad luck.
One possible origin of the word 'tilt' is as a reference to tilting a pinball machine. The frustration from seeing the ball follow a path towards the gap between the flippers can lead to the player physically tilting the machine in an attempt to guide the ball towards the flippers. However, in doing so, some games will flash the word 'TILT' and freeze the flippers, causing the ball to be lost for certain; as in poker, this suggests that over-aggression due to frustration leads to severely detrimental playing techniques.[1]
While 'tilting' originally applied to poker, it has recently become a common term when talking about other games, especially chess and esports titles. Tilting in esports causes players to 'lose control due to anger'.[2]
Common Causes of Tilt[edit]
The most common cause of tilt is losing, especially being defeated in a particularly public and humiliating fashion. In poker, a bad beat can upset the mental equilibrium essential for optimal poker judgment, causing frustration. Another common cause of tilt is bad manners from other players causing frustration which eventually leads to tilting.
Though not as commonly acknowledged or discussed, it is also quite possible to go on 'winner's tilt' as a result of a positive trigger: such as winning unexpectedly, or going on a string of good luck. Strong positive emotions can be just as dizzying and detrimental to one's play as negative ones. Tilting and winner's tilt can both lead to the same habits.
Advice when tilted[edit]
For the beginning player, the elimination or minimization of tilt is considered an essential improvement that can be made in play (for instance in the strategic advice of Mike Caro). Many advanced players (after logging thousands of table-hours) claim to have outgrown 'tilt' and frustration, although other poker professionals admit it is still a 'leak' in their game.
One commonly suggested way to fight tilt is to disregard the outcomes of pots, particularly those that are statistically uncommon. So-called 'bad beats,' when one puts a lot of chips in the pot with the best hand and still loses, deserve little thought; they are the product of variance, not bad strategy. This mindset calls for the player to understand poker is a game of decisions and correct play in making the right bets over a long period of time.
Another method for avoiding tilt is to try lowering one's variance, even if that means winning fewer chips overall. Therefore, one may play passively and fold marginal hands, even though that may mean folding the winning hand. This may also imply that one plays tightly— and looks for advantageous situations.
Once tilt begins, players are well-advised to leave the table and return when emotions have subsided. When away from the table, players are advised to take time to refresh themselves, eat and drink (non-alcoholic) if necessary, and take a break outside in the fresh air.
If none of these work in lessening tilt, players are advised to leave the game and not return to playing until they have shaken off the results that led to the tilt.
The intent of the advice is to prevent the upset person from letting negative emotions lead to bigger losses that can seriously hurt one's bankroll.
Tilt must be taken seriously, requiring immediate attention following its presence. The progression in poker for chronically tilted players may be significantly hindered as their judgement becomes progressively impaired as agitation becomes more prominent. Paying close attention to playing statistics can assist in preventing this, as a statistical overview of recent hands can reduce the players likelihood to play impulsive hands habitually.[3]
Tilting others[edit]
The act of putting an opponent on tilt may not pay off in the short run, but if some time is put into practicing it, a player can quickly become an expert at 'tilting' other players (with or without using bad manners). In theory, the long-run payoff of this tactic is a monetarily positive expectation.
Common methods of putting a table on tilt include:
- Playing junk hands that have a lower chance of winning in the hope of either sucking out and delivering a bad beat (which can be an enjoyable occasional style which will make the table's play 'looser') or bluffing the opponent off a better hand (with the option of showing the bluff for maximum tilting effect).
- Victimising individuals at the table, (which is often considered a more old-fashioned tactic, identified with 1970s 'verbal' experts such as Amarillo Slim.)
- Pretending intoxication, i.e. hustling, excellently demonstrated by Paul Newman against Robert Shaw in The Sting (although his technique included cheating).
- Constant chattering, making weird noises and motions whenever you win a hand, or other erratic behavior is a 'tilting' or 'loosening' approach first discussed by Mike Caro.
- Taking an inordinate or otherwise inappropriate amount of time to announce and show your hand (also called 'slow-rolling') at the showdown. (Such deliberate breaches of etiquette have the side effect of slowing play and risking barring, thereby limiting the earnings of the expert player. For this, and other social reasons, such tactics are mostly associated with novices.)
These antics can upset the other players at the table with the intention of getting them to play poorly.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Gambling with the Myth of the American Dream by Aaron M. Duncan
- ^What to pay attention to in the OpenAI Five Benchmark
- ^'HowToLearnPoker.net: Being on tilt can ruin your poker bankroll'. howtolearnpoker.net. Retrieved 2011-08-24.