Re: Cheating in Online Poker
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I am all for being educated that this problem is not as bad in scope as I was lead to believe be "he is always right" Adanthar, who made it sound like this is a massive problem but has offered nothing in the way of solution and, as far as I am aware, done nothing to address the problem. I have asked him to clarify with specifics as to what he learned in Vegas that caused him to make this statement, but he has thus far been unwilling to offer any specifics.
If the problem is in the range of a few players multiaccounting on Sundays, then perhaps Clayton is correct that it is not worth damaging the game by making into a huge deal in a mainstream publication.
However, I do want to say again this goes back to two groups of people. First, the poker sites themselves that are apparently doing little to combat cheating and seem confused and inconsistent about their own rules and their application. Second, people have specific knowledge about the cheating that is taking place and refuse to share that knowledge, turn people in, address the problem, etc.
Adanthar sounded a huge warning signal in the other thread, yet I remain completely at a loss as to what he thinks should be done about it, other then that he feels fish do not have a right to know, particularly if it effects winning player's EV, whether the games they are playing in are truly fair.
I do not want to damage online poker more then it needs to be, but if my ultimate decision is to go forward with an article that exposes cheating in online poker, then you can blame me if you want, but you ought to blame the cheaters themselves, the sites that do little to combat them, and the otherwise honest people that would rather sweep it under the rug then address it directly.
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I <3 adanthar but I agree that there is something perverse and outright contradictory about claiming there's a huge problem of unknown proportions (which adanthar did in the jeff thread):
"you guys have no idea of the magnitude of the situation. I didn't either but I learned a lot this month. listen to Jeff, because he knows what he's talking about, and it's a Big Deal."
Then claiming "everyone knows about it, so there's no reason to publicize it":
"think of it this way: the people whom it directly affects more than 99% of the rest of the poker world are the marginal winners at the 215's, most of whom are right here at 2+2/p5's/wherever and already know about it."
So which is it? Is it a 'big deal' that we're all in the dark about the magnitude of? Or is it something we're already all aware of and really doesn't effect many people?
I think it's a bit disingenuous for adanthar to make a rather alarming proclamation ("it's a big deal and no one is aware of the magnitude") to turn around and then ask not to be too alarmist about it.
I think this is clearly complicated, and I'm not sure I would make any conclusions about the wisdom of publishing such an article -- but I completely empathize with what ucla is trying to do here. It's altogether disconcerting to be told what a big, mysterious problem this is by those "in the know" while simultaneously being told to shutup about it because we already know about the extent of it (o rly?) or because it could be an EV drain. Again, I could understand the case for remaining silent about it, but then again, I question why that advice didn't apply to adanthar and jeff when they made their "it's a big problem and many are unaware" posts.
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