This article about IDN Network and more specifically Shenpoker, I will cover my personal experiences while playing at Shenpoker for 12 months. Explain the type of players and game style, but also share some negative insights about  some problems.  Update: I dont play in Shenpoker anymore, instead I moved to GGNetwork and they accept Malaysian poker players.

How have I done during my 12 months at Shenpoker? (Updated on March 18, 2019)

Because the site does not allow playing in several tables at the same time, I use 4 different accounts and iPads to play.  To open an account on ShenPoker is very easy and convenient ( If you are not Malaysian you cant deposit as they only accept Malaysian bank). If you are from abroad and still want to try join my FB group and I can help you with deposits and also higher rakeback. Regular rakeback % is 25 and everyone gets this automatically.
The Facebook group is originally for players in Malaysia but everyone can join ( just started the group so still very small. I would like to grow it and sometimes play together) Here is link to the Facebook poker group, currently only me in it 😀

I have to say the live support is really good and always online – all deposits/withdrawals happen almost instantly. Overall I have been winning about 1200 us dollar per month playing nl500000 and nl1000000, I buyin with minimum buyin (20 big blinds) like most of the players and try to play a tight game style meaning I only play good hands. In a month I usually play about 200hrs so my hourly earnings are not that good.

The players you find at shenpoker mostly play for fun, you will see alot of limping and going allin with marginal hands like A4, 22 and other garbage, the fact that most players buy in with 20 bigblinds makes it a little more lottery type of poker.

Does Shenpoker offer rakeback?

The site offers a good rakeback %, on average I get additional 500 US per month from rakeback.
Most of the players are from Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia. You will also see some Russians and Chinese but most of the players are from Asia. The playing
experience on computer is very bad because it is browser based, on a tablet or smartphone it is little bit better, but sometimes the tables freeze.

Why you should play poker at IDN Networks Shenpoker

With over 100 million registered users IDN network seems like the perfect place to find good online poker action and easy games against recreational players. The limits
start from very small but go upto nl4000 US dollars.
Because the network does not support playing in several tables under one account or the use of Holdem Manager software few professional players are present.

Is IDN Network hands perfomance checked by a trustable third party?

The answer is no, unlike worlds biggest online poker website Pokerstars, who allows you to ask history of every real money hand that you’ve ever played, so that you can check if in the long run your
win % correlates with mathematics of the game. Shenpoker does not offer such option. The only indication about any kind of third party audit about their poker software can be found at IDN networks official website idnplay.com. The audit only includes the basic check that the jackpot system works correctly and that hands are ranked properly, 2 pair beats 1 pair and so on. You can check the report here

So what are the problems with Shenpoker?

The most obvious reason is team play in tables. Shenpoker does listen to reports of team play through live chat and this does get passed on to the fraud team, but there should be automatical systems in place that prevent team play. Blocking same IP from 1 table is not enough. There are much more advanced systems available for poker sites that study how often accounts play in same tables, how often do they collude in pots, raise and fold % with eachother.

I do hope that Shen will implement these systems in the future because playing against team players is annoying and kills all fun of playing poker. Spotting tables with team players is not difficult. Let´s use the simplest example and say that 1 player is using 2 accounts.
You will see him limping with the first account, getting many calls and then doing minimum reraise with the second account. Table players call the min raise and now the 1st account goes allin,
followed by fold from 2nd account. If you have played medium limits in shenpoker you will see this kind of cheating everyday, often people realise
that there is cheating in the table and write “team” in the chat, even then the scammers of shenpoker do not leave – they feel safe their accounts will not be closed even though they are scamming
and this is against shenpoker rules. Now it seems that chat option is turned off in Holdem to prevent team play but in reality this tells me that the security team does not undrestand what these accounts are doing, it is not 2 different players sharing information through chat or wechat, it is 1 player playing with 2 accounts. Disabling chat does very little to help, infact it makes it worse because now you cant even write “team” when you spot these accounts.

The second reason ( This is likely to be a myth as there is no real evidence) are superusers, players who know what cards are coming and are emptying players in the higher levels. This has been discussed 2plustwo poker forum that you can read here.
There is little proof, but some players seem to be luckier than others. In heads up play against the best European professional players some accounts are magically winning with the strangest hands, and the amounts are not small, one such account won 30 000 US dollars in a single day.
There are many usernames that have been associated with cheating, but the most talked about is about player Anjing88 who makes calls with ridiculous hands and manages to win alot, in this 40 minute video he gets full house 5 times and often makes plays that do not make sense.

Another player I know shared statistics abour username TUNGTANG
Player with nickname TUNGTANG: All his preflop and 1 FLOP AlIns in a row.
A4s (31%) > AJs (straight)
A4s (27%) > AQo + KQs (Top 2 pairs)
TT (80%) > 68s (Top set)
A7s (57%) > QJs (Top Pair)
9Js (23%) > AA FLOP alin (desk J42r) – two pairs
A5o (29%) = AQo (Full house)
A2s (???) > xxx (FLUSH)
A2s (29%) > AKs (FLUSH)
Q9s (51%) > 22 (two pairs)
A2o (20%) > A9o + QTo
99 (50+%) > ??? (desk 75473)
ATo (7%) > AKo + AJo + QQ (desk 5T6TJ) – tree of a kind
TOTAL ALLINS: 12, WINS:12 (1 split) Loses 0.
Calculator says that the probability of such event = 0.0022% = 1 : 50000

TUNGTANG played in small level of 100 000 chips minimum buy in, so no matter what limit you are playing you are not safe.

Why is IDN Network allowing this?

That is the hardest question to answer, they  have over 15000 players online during peak hours. How many players are online and playing poker right now? You can check by visiting Shenpoker homepage ,  the number is visible on the top right.

I think most of the problems can only be that the technical solutions are outdated. When updates to playing app are coming out they are often filled with bugs, I told chat 3 months ago that in Omaha the checkfold button actually acts like “call any” button, I see often people screaming in chat that they had “checkfold” chosen and they are called allin. This has happened to me but now I just dont use that button.

So where should you play If you want to play in easy and fun poker games? If you want to play online, I still say that shenpoker is the best option because the players are there to have fun and you will have fun. The tables are very active and you don not have to wait AA all day long, chances are when you do get a premium hand like AA or KK you will get called allin and have a chance to win a big pot.

But the most fun option in my opinion is to organize a home game with your friends, grab some beers,have a barbeque and talk face to face
and have some fun while also playing poker with small amounts of money. And do not think that asking your wives/girlfriends to join the game is a bad idea, women can be
very clever poker players and they also love the game. For some reason men just never ask them to play.

If you have any additional questions please ask them in the comments below and I will do my best to answer them. If you have a fun poker story about the network please share it with us!