EXPOSED: Bovada Poker Review for Feb 2021 – 100% Hack

Just wanted to get this all in writing and figured Reddit may find the story interesting. If not, I'm fine with just materializing my thoughts somewhere.
I became interested in poker a little less than two years ago as the result of living with a roommate who had picked it up as more than just a hobby. I had previously seen WSOP broadcasts on ESPN, but my interest never advanced beyond anything casual and fleeting. After moving in with my friend in 2014 that changed. He had dropped out of a PhD program and was writing junk articles for a news aggregation website from home and had picked poker up on the side. I actually wasn't really privy to this at all until he started driving to downtown Detroit at night to visit the casino, sometimes not returning until the next night.
When he started to play Bovada on the side I couldn't help but notice, watch, and become interested. I hadn't really thought about online poker very much before. I knew it was illegal and wasn't aware of the options available to U.S. players. I watched my roommate play tournaments and asked him strategy questions while he played. He always obliged and I learned a lot just talking to him. Eventually, I couldn't help it and had to deposit. I threw $100 down on Bovada and started playing low stakes cash games. I still knew relatively little about strategy and virtually nothing about bank roll management or game selection. I remember playing up to .25/.50 on a $100 roll. I probably deposited $100-$150 3 or 4 times in the first few months of playing. Sometimes I'd last a few weeks, sometimes a few days. I had issues with tilt and loved to drink while playing, it just made it feel more exciting to me. During this time I mixed up my games; I played 6 max NLHE, MTTs, low stakes SnGs, and some PLO8.
I never really accumulated more than $2-300 on my account until one day I binked a tournament and then finished 2nd in a hyper the same night. I think my bankroll bounced to about $1,000 at that point. I remember being so pumped at 2:30 a.m. after the bink, high fiving my roommate and taking shots all over about $400. I can see why tournament players do what they do; the feeling of winning a tournament is incredible.
I kept experimenting with different game types and eventually learned about PLO. This was my roommate's game; he had since moved on from 1/2 and 2/5 live PLO and was playing up to 25/50 at the casino and at private game. I watched him play PLO online and was thrilled by the idea of having 4 cards. It probably took me weeks though before I had to stop asking him why he didn't have straights and flushes in certain spots.
Nevertheless, I started to play some PLO on Bovada. All this time I was finishing up my undergraduate degree in finance, and I had a ton of spare time on the side to play. I had heard about the variance of PLO and actually had a very conservative bankroll. I began playing .05/.10 and didn't take shots at .10/.25 until I had a $1,500 roll. PLO on bovada is notoriously soft, so even though I didn't know a ton, I was still beating the games at a decent clip. I had less conservative BRM as I moved up; playing .25/.50 at $2,000 at .50/$1 at $3,000. During this period, there were definitely times I tilted way more than I should have. I wasn't totally ready for the mental aspect of a game like PLO, but I was on a heater and my bankroll kept going up.
My play definitely improved over the months, but not as much as it ever should have. I learned most of what I know from strategy talks with my rooomate and having him watch my sessions. I gleaned what info I could from videos of PLO cash games on youtube which were/are few and far between.
I don't really have a clear memory of my time playing poker for the next few months. I mainly played .50/1 and sometimes .25/.50 when I was on a downswing. I do remember certain nights getting incredibly drunk and spewing, being incredibly disappointed the next morning that I had shoveled off several buyins. I was still tilted every time a session didn't result in my bankroll increasing. There were probably points where I lost $1,000-$1,500 and had to grind .25/.5 to revitalize my bankroll.
PLO is a sick game and not for the mentally weak. I remember playing against an opponent playing 100/90/90 who would pot every flop regardless of preflop action, position, or board texture. I lost probably 6 BI to him just 5 bet jamming the upper 30% of my range pre and not hitting a single flop. Maniacs like him weren't even incredibly uncommon in my games and they tilted me more than anything else. But the other side of the coin was there too; I took 12 BI back from that guy during the same session and still remember sitting on a .50/1 table with $1,300. It was an amazing feeling. For those interested, I've had a similar experience in my post history sitting in the G seat against an incredible whale one night at .10/.25. I think I ran up over $500 on that table, which is the most buyins I've ever sat.
I was running well and my BR reached a peak of $6,200. I was taking shots at 200PLO online and found the games just as soft as the 100PLO games that had become my standard. I never really broke through at this level, bouncing back and forth between $5,000 and $6,000.
Anyways, fast forward a couple months ago. I am house sitting for my parents for the weekend and have nothing better to do than grind out a ton of 100PLO sessions. My first night I went on an incredible heater. I was winning every flip and getting in set-over-set situations on the regular. I was probably up about $1,000 on the night, including sitting at one table with $1,200 again. Then, it happened. It was probably 2 or 3 am and a huge fish sat at one of my tables. He called a river jam on a straight-y board with bottom pair or something for 100BB. For those who play/know PLO, it's an extremely light call. I don't remember the exact situation, but the board was probably something like KT567 and he called the river with a lone 5. I don't know what happened to me right then, but I snapped. I had tilted before, but always kept it somewhat under control. This time I had no control and began spewing on that table. It soon spilled over to my other tables. I went from up 10 BI to down 8BI on the session in about 2 hours.
To make matters worse, I did something I had never previously done playing poker before; attempt to recoup my losses by playing higher stakes. I figured I would just short stack a 5/10 game, try to win one flip, and go to sleep even on the day and try to shake it off tomorrow. Well, as these stories tend to end, it didn't quite work out that way. I initially sat at a 5/10 table and lost a flip playing about 30 BB or whatever the minimum is. Now being down ~11-12 "BI" on the day I sat at a FR 10/20 game. I will say, there actually was a huge adrenaline factor and I temporarily gained my composure playing such high stakes. I eventually was dealt AAxx and had a chance to 3bet pre short stacked and my SPR was under 1. I jammed the flop and got snap called by a pair with tons of 2 pair outs and lost the flip. I wasn't tilted, but my BR was eviscerated at this point. Still, I was drunk and wanted to recoup. I moved back to 5/10.
Shortly after moving back to a FR 5/10 game, my luck turned around. I won 2 flips and was sitting with $1,500. I had regained what I lost at 10/20 with a chance to even out my session overall. The game had broken down and we were playing 3 handed. There was another clearly drunk player at the table that I tanlged with in my final pot at the table; I flatted a 3b in position and called two streets with top 2. The river paired an undercard and the board must have looked something like 4779T. I decided to bluff the river IP and got X/R'd but not huge. I had the blockers to top boat and decided to 3bet the river just a click above minimum as a bluff. Somehow he didn't have quads and this worked. After using his full timebank, the anon V folded and I was somehow back to within $4-500 of being even on the day.
This is probably where my high stakes adventure should have ended, but you and I both know these stories never end like that. I short stacked a 5/10 6 max game, and told a friend over skype that I just needed to win one flip and I would literally be done. That was my full intention too as I had started to sober up around 6 am. Nobody might believe me, but I had every intention to sit out the table after winning one flip, sleep, and try to rethink everything the next day.
I had my chance when I was dealt KKxx with hearts. I opened in MP and was 3b by another short stack on the button; the absolute perfect situation. I 4b and he called with and SPR of about .4-.5. I would have called off the jam, but his flat is even better as it means he never has aces. the flop came 335 with 2 hearts, one of the best possible non-K flops. I jammed and he snapped, turned over QQTJ with no flush draw. He was literally drawing near dead. Then, the turn was the 2 out Q. Fate decided to rub it in by giving me a flush on the river, too.
I won't go into too much detail about what happened next. I went back to 10/20, lost another hand, and decided to go to bed. At this point I still had probably $1,700 in my roll but I was crushed. I actually went and slept for a few hours, woke up, sat another 5/10 games and lost all but $300. I felt like absolute shit, almost like my girlfriend had broken up with me. For a week or so I used poker points and tried to play small stakes to grind back up, but I just didn't have the discipline to play solid and busted everything.
That might have been where the story ended, but I decided to clear my head for a week or two and re-evaluate. I thought about the mental game a lot and what I could do to improve. It was actually Doug Polk's stream that really helped me come to some realizations about the game. I watched him play such high stakes hand virtually immune to tilt. He shrugged off five-figure losses and literally laughed. I saw his success and really began to start thinking in the right mindset; ignore short term results, play well, and most of all, don't get mad at incompetent opponents. Laugh at their idiocy, their minus EV decision, and focus on your play.
After a few weeks elapsed I loaded $300 onto Bovada. This is the most I had ever deposited and the first time I had deposited in over a year. My BRM was very aggressive as I didn't really have a ton of patience for .02 and .05. I played .25 zone poker mostly with about 10-12 BI. I struggled with incredibly runbad during this time and after a few weeks, couldn't bust through. I peaked at around $500 but ended at about $50. NLHE just wasn't fun for me after playing PLO.
It was then I made another horrible decision; I took everything to Bovada's virual casino and asked my friend for red or black. I put my last $50 and somehow my personal Nostradamus gave me 3 correct colors in a row and I was back up to $300. I was so thrilled at not having to deposit again that I approached zone with an even fresher mindset (although still the same incredibly poor BRM.) I finally started to run well and played my way to $500, when I jumped into .25/50 PLO (even better BRM right?)
From there, I managed to run well enough to not have to consider moving down to .10/.25. Over the course of the last several months I have used my spare time to grind and actually study outside of the game for some of the first times ever. Mentally, I feel like I have overcome a hurdle after putting myself through what I did. I shrugged off two 1-outers a month ago during a 20BI downsing and never lost track of my goals. All this time, more than anything I just wanted to get back to my regular stakes and enjoy the game. I truly do enjoy poker. I love firing up 4 tables on a Friday night at a stake I am well rolled for.
The end of my story, for now, is last night. I played a quick 1 hour session and won 5 BI at 100PLO, bringing my roll to a peak of $3,500 after my second deposit. Hah! I'm sure you thought this is where I would degen and bust again, but it isn't. I've been balancing my life with work, routine time at the gym, poker, and going out with friends. Playing shorter sessions and not playing while drunk. I've been having a lot of fun and am hoping I can take a shot at those 200PLO games again soon.
TL;DR: Started playing poker, was good at it and with the help of rungood played decent stakes. Tilted like a ding dong and lost my roll. Re-deposited for the first time in over a year and had to save that roll with a couple trips to the roulette table, BR is currently back to near the level it was when I peaked.
Props and thanks to you if you decided to read all that.

Playing Zone on Bovada tonight, I noticed that pocket pairs seemed particularly rare. Subjectively, whenever a pocket pair jump out at me, like, "Whoa, there's a pocket pair, cool!" it makes me reflect on how rare they have been (when they're not rare, they don't jump out at me so much).
Of course, you expect to see a pocket pair every 17 hands. Sometimes, when I feel like I've been having a bad run (whoa, I've been playing Zone for hours and haven't flopped a single set), I count the gaps between pocket pairs as a kind of reality check. Usually, they're coming more frequently than expectation would predict, and it's just me being impatient (17 hands is a lot of hands).
So, I started counting tonight, and sure enough, I saw a pocket pair in 13 hands. It was 6-6. No flopped set, but there it was. So I started counting again. The next gap just kept growing, way past 17, way past 34.... all the way up to 117 hands with no pocket pairs.
There were a few other playable hands mixed in there, but no pocket pairs. The funny thing about expectation and independent events is that after seeing 116 hands with no pocket pairs, you expect to see 17 more hands with no pocket pairs beyond that. Even if you've seen a gap of 1000, you expect 17 more pair-free hands. So when you're in the middle of it, it really feels like there's no end in sight. Even the math tells you not to expect an end, in a way.
This led me to wonder how this "record" of 117 compares to the experience of others. In Zone, it actually went by pretty quickly, but live, this would be pretty much an entire session. I did some probability analysis of card death and posted the results here last month. But those of you who have databases full of every hand you've ever played online, is there a way to quickly look for large pair-free gaps in your hand history? Can anyone else beat 117?
And if you're wondering about the pair that finally broke my 117 pair-free streak... it was A-A.
23 hands later, I got 3-3, and then 13 hands after that, I got T-T.
I quit for the night after 4.5 hours of zone having never flopped a set.
(Note: the original post got blocked by the new flair-cop bot, so I'm reposting with proper flair).

Playing Zone on Bovada tonight, I noticed that pocket pairs seemed particularly rare. Subjectively, whenever a pocket pair jump out at me, like, "Whoa, there's a pocket pair, cool!" it makes me reflect on how rare they have been (when they're not rare, they don't jump out at me so much).
Of course, you expect to see a pocket pair every 17 hands. Sometimes, when I feel like I've been having a bad run (whoa, I've been playing Zone for hours and haven't flopped a single set), I count the gaps between pocket pairs as a kind of reality check. Usually, they're coming more frequently than expectation would predict, and it's just me being impatient (17 hands is a lot of hands).
So, I started counting tonight, and sure enough, I saw a pocket pair in 13 hands. It was 6-6. No flopped set, but there it was. So I started counting again. The next gap just kept growing, way past 17, way past 34.... all the way up to 117 hands with no pocket pairs.
There were a few other playable hands mixed in there, but no pocket pairs. The funny thing about expectation and independent events is that after seeing 116 hands with no pocket pairs, you expect to see 17 more hands with no pocket pairs beyond that. Even if you've seen a gap of 1000, you expect 17 more pair-free hands. So when you're in the middle of it, it really feels like there's no end in sight. Even the math tells you not to expect an end, in a way.
This led me to wonder how this "record" of 117 compares to the experience of others. In Zone, it actually went by pretty quickly, but live, this would be pretty much an entire session. I did some probability analysis of card death and posted the results here last month. But those of you who have databases full of every hand you've ever played online, is there a way to quickly look for large pair-free gaps in your hand history? Can anyone else beat 117?
And if you're wondering about the pair that finally broke my 117 pair-free streak... it was A-A.
23 hands later, I got 3-3, and then 13 hands after that, I got T-T.
I quit for the night after 4.5 hours of zone having never flopped a set.