The Mystery Behind the Sit Out $0 Greeks/Cypriots and more…

Have you ever wondered why there are so many Greeks and Cypriots with similar sounding nicknames? Also, why some of them lose their stack but stubbornly just sit out with $0. This is particularly frustrating if you are playing a heads-up game and have accumulated a substantial stack and you’re forced to move to another table.

There are perfectly logical reasons to solve this mystery:

I first started wondering the above when I saw the same Cypriot /Greek player, obviously at different times, playing both low stakes and high stakes. I watched closely and the low stakes player was a fish but the high stakes was pretty decent player. This is by no means out of this world as people on the same household or friends may share the same account but…

This pattern emerged with many different nicknames, including:

Akropol01, Akropol02, Akropol03 and so on (I researched Akropol on Google and its a neighbourhood in the capital of Cyprus so that’s another clue.)

Nonos1…

Yeri73, 74, 75 and so on

Another popular one being Omonoia1… (which is a football team in Cyprus)

It turn out that some cafes do use one account for multiple users, you pay before sitting down and then the owner pays u out if you have any cash left before they withdraw it into their own accounts, they take 10% of any winnings and you get free coffee and cake whilst your playing if your winning, if and when you lose your stack you just leave the computer. The owner gets to keep all the rakeback generated, along with their 10% of winnings which seems to be how they make their living.

How can you use this information for your benefit?

Next time you come across a suspected internet cafe player:

• don’t bother to take notes or tag him;
• don’t rely on information such as notes or holdem manager or pokertracker stats;
• be aware of collusion as people who tend to play at same internet cafe sometimes collude. I wrote an article about this a few months back;

There are rumours that these types of internet establishments are commonplace in other countries such as Romania.

BrasilNut