The Geography Nightmare Continues

This took me all the way 20 minutes of bouncing around to find four positions where the country of origin registered doesn't match the flag proudly displayed supporting the Olympic team. There was about eight tables that didn't have any such mismatch. We all know by know that despite the fact that PokerStars should know about math and things mathical (real word) like statistics that this is absurd. But here the embarrasssing facts are on display again.

Brazilian registration with the flag of Lebanon.
US registrations with the flags of Aruba, Cuba and Kyrgystan.

At this point one must wonder if it's a deliberate set up to aim people at new sites with an ad campaign that centers around the idea that they don't cheat like PokerStars does. Newsflash bumpkin. Same software, different graphics. Probably the same owners.

Major Upgrade on Pokerstars

In all these years of busting on PokerStars I'm normally focused on the obvious lack of humanity. As a commercial operation they should care about making the game fun while dragging in a rake. There's been no significant upgrades on the interface. Here's the latest upgrade:

Seats aren't OPEN anymore. Now it's an "Empty Seat." And with all the technology available today there are still people that are disconnected. Surely PokerStars will say that it's the player's fault. But you screwed up and let me buy in to a higher stakes game. There's no fucking way that anyone with 5k chips that might have a problem with Internet connectivity would even bother registering.

Oh my. I'm still busting on the lack of humanity. Any position that disconnects is bullshit AI.

PokerStars Moderators

Apparently you're not even allowed to talk to one anymore. AI just keeps chugging along.

I'm Inspired

There's no doubt that I'm not playing against real people. Flags from countries other than your origin. So I've chosen an avatar from the list that is surely weird. I'm now officially Micronesian.

I seriously doubt that Micronesia has ever fielded a winter Olympics sports team. Maybe they traveled to Burundi or Nepal to talk about their big plans on how they would one day conquer the world when the next ice age moves in and their lugers would rule the world. The only thing in there way is the Jamaican bobsled team.

If PokerStars was on the up and up they could have done a little bit of research on what countries actually are participating in the Olympics. Heaven forbid someone actually has to put in any effort to make that look realistic. Lets just throw some AI out there that never had to go through a real registration process and give them an Olympic avatar.

From past experience I know they hate the "My bike is red" scenario. Insane chat that deserves an immediate response that doesn't arrive because AI doesn't chat. Let me repost it for the newbies:

My bike is red
It's shiny
Streamers on the handlebars
Baseball card in the spokes
Banana seat
Oh yeah, it's tricked out
My bike tells me to worship Satan and kill my parents

You gotta admit that once you get to that last one if nobody has responded something really weird is going on. Usually I got through the entire list until the last before someone acknowledged my existence.

So tonight I'm going to create a new Micronesian version of this. Spinner dolphins. Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands.

You've Had Too Much to Drink - You're Flagged

You can tell it's one of those special Olympic flag avatars instead of some randomly picked image. There's a little bit of bluish shading at the top.Indeed a tiny bit of research shows that this jackwipe with country of origin of Germany has decided that his national pride makes him pick the flag of Nepal. I can understand this once or twice over the course of these Olympics. But when I can find these mismatches everyday it's really hilarious.

Thank you Mother Nature for throwing me off normal schedule by snowing like crazy and being off work to continue busting on this obvious insanity.

I can already hear the lame excuses

"Oh Xenu, people move. They moved from their country of origin which they still have national pride in." Bullshit.

If this Danish fuck moved to the US after registering as a Denmarkian Dane he should be national pridey about being a US citizen. And I really don't understand how someone with an UK style flag avatar is from Brazil. Perhaps they were a traitor in WWII, didn't want to speak Portugese and use their flag.

Now if these incidents of using a flagatar (real word) where for real it wouldn't happen every day that there's a mismatch it might happen like once every 50 years. But since this is Olympic time and porly programmed AI is there. Happens every day.

One Mystery Solved

Yesterday I had two players presenting Albanian flags that weren't from Albania. Yes, this could happen, but the odds are pretty low. But as we all know now the odds of pretty much anything happening the way it does on PokerStars is pretty low. I've been screwing with these assholes for more than two two decades and I've never sat at a table with someone from Albania. Or Burundi.

Flagitious

For when Fascinorous just isn't strong enough.

Living in the 14th best country on the planet, the US, I think I have apretty good idea what my flag looks like. There are some stars and I seem to recall a bit of blue red and white. Or maybe I'm from France and I just zoned out too much after malt liquor consumption. But I also noticed some guy from Belgium with this plain red flag with some weird heraldic symbolly thing that wasn't the Belgian flag. Maybe he waffles between what avatar he uses.

Belgian waffles - get it.

The same avatar pops up on a German player. Ad it's not Germany's flag.

This "on the fly"creation of new bogus accounts has really reached new tremendous proportions of insulting the intelligence of anyone that's paying attention. I can do this for as long as the Olympics last.

Fak

More autopilot nonsense. AI raises. AI calls. There's nobody watching and if I had a 8 year old son next to me that would be offended by the thinly disguised parody of 'fuck'it's just out there on the net for everyone to see.

More Flaggots

Is that really the flag of the Ukraine with its tridenty (real word) symbol? Do I trust Pokerstars more than a site that makes a living selling flags? Nope.

Flaggots

That's not the German flag. And what's up with the two Romanian guys where ne has just the flag and another has a symbol in the middle? Hmmmm.

National Pride Con Continued

I really hate being right all the time. It's too much pressure to live with. I guess if I move to Burundi things will be better.

Newest marketing campaign is to change your avatar to your country of origin. Some jack wipe has managed to register from the United Kingdom and chose the Burundi flag as his/her/it avatar. Thanks for the ammunition.

Au to Pilo t

Did you kn ow th at you are no t allow ed to call a mode rator an ymore? No bi g deal since the y were pretty us eless anyw ay. Just saw someone posting about a tablemate as a fuc king luckbox. Not personally offended, but there are some general rules that people should hold to on an Internet site. 4 in the morning for me, gut somewhere out there are ten year olds that still need a little nurturing to learn to avoid nasty porn sites and, well, PokerStars.

I've abused calling the useless moderators often. Bit it still should be an option. Otherwise it just exposes you as an uncaring fraud site running AI 24-7 on autopilot.

The PokerStars National Pride Con

And there you have it. These "flag" avatars are starting to pop up more frequently. Yet for now far less than half a table has them. It's no coincidence that this happens as the Olympics begin. You see, you're supposed to get all national pridey (real word) and want to represent your country. The genius that thought up this marketing campaign forgot a couple of things or was excluded from some key memos.

First off, national pridey people don't want to play some fucked up bizarre variation of poker that nobody but their close circle of friends might get to see they are pridey.

Next - It's not like I ever got a friendly email or a post log in message that asked me if I wanted my avatar to be changed to m country's flag. I have no choice.

And finally and most obviously. Or maybe not. Since AI has no real country of origin it will take a lot of effort to change all the non-avatar players to show their flag. Hell, there's eve a Bronze Star player here that when they registered never put in a country of origin. For you newbies out there, Bronze Star may be the lowest class of starred player, but it still implies, if a real human, talent and time commitment.

If this degenerates to the point where every single table I sit at has a flag avatar I'm going to laugh my ass off. I've already called my ass replacement doctor because this is a serious possibility.

Pokerstars Avatar Madness

I really don't know why they bother and try anymore. Maybe I'm the most fun the bored admins have in their surely dwindling base of real players to fuck with. Some things are subtle. Some things scream out, "What the Fuck??!?" This is one of the latter.

Remember, I've been poking around here for two decades and I've seen a lot of really weird shit beyond the obvious non-random cards. I really would like to change my avatar from an empty table screenshot to something a bit more personal. Like maybe my beloved pit bull. Or a hot Asian chick. Or a photo of that microwaved Dinty Moore beef stew that I enjoyed for dinner. Or Miranda Kerr, despite my displeasure that her divorce ruined the best celebrity couple nickname ever - Kerrbloom.

So why is it that I log in and my avatar is a US flag? I didn't change it. Perhaps someone hacked me and my non-existent constantly cheated free money chip stack was important and PokerStars changed it?

The last times previous to tonight I tried to change my avatar I was always met with a friendly message about how I already changed it once and I couldn't do it. So the hacker theory is blown to hell to just change my avatar. Totally pointless.

It's also not like this is one of those civic pride moments where players avatars are shown as their country during the World Cup. You changed my avatar for the Olympics? And you didn't change all the other US players for the Olympics? I'll tell you why. Because the dwindling base of real players doesn't play against AI that hasn't properly declared a country of origin, yet. Expect to see lots of flags during the duration of the Olympics.

The 50-50 Game on Pokerstars Obituary

The Internet poker community is mourning the passing of the 50-50 game on PokerStars. Affectionately called "Fiddy," the game passed away quietly in the night after a long illness of not being realistic. Fiddy is survived by his wife, Badugi and daughters 8 game and a yet unnamed bastard child that will surely be something else that can hardly be called real poker.


Instead of flowers the family is asking that you make a donation to AINT. The AI National Trust.

The memorial service will be held next weekend. No chat allowed.