[Erasa]

Let me preface my post by saying I am not a pro; I don't play on AP - I am merely a low stakes player on PS ... Having said that, I have found this thread very interesting.

But there is something that I don't think have been addressed adequately; what exactly do we/you expect AP to do? Almost regardless of what the facts are, it seems like they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Let's assume that they have access to all hands (folded, mucked or taken to showdown) and all histories about all games (seems like a reasonable assumption) and they can indeed verify the stats that have been posted here - that still doesn't explain how it was done. If it is a bug in their code that is being exploited they obviously are not aware of it or it wouldn't be there to begin with. What are they to do while they search for it - shut the site down? And if they do find a bug, fix it and punish the players then what - to publicly even suggest that their system is written in such a way that a bug can be introduced that would allow exploits like these would most likely be the kiss of death ("if it can happen once, it can happen twice ...").

Another common theme that have been mentioned is to repay the players that have been "victimized" by this; that could be a very dangerous precedent for AP to start on if they don't understand how the cheating occurred. Imagine how many claims would be forthcoming if they starting paying out based "solely" on suspicious looking stats. Whats to prevent me and a handful of budddies to sit down; IM our hands to each other and skew the results as have been reported here. The "winners" quickly withdraw their money and the "losers" go to AP for reimbursement. Granted it would take more than 1 or 2 players to make it believable and it would take quite some effort, but I seem to recall that the losses have run well into 6 figures, so it would be worth it

Another potential problem could be blackmail (I certainly don't believe the individuals that have brought these "charges" forth are blackmailing AP, but what is to stop someone from attempting to do it this way); sure AP could state they are being blackmailed, but a) who has juridistiction - where would they take their complaints and b)just because they shut the accounts down doesn't mean the offenders can't open new accounts and be less obvious about it. Because of the current legal climate surrounding on-line poker in the US, online poker sites have to rely a favorable perception among players - if players started suspecting that some unexplained shenanigans were happening at a site and they weren't 100% sure AP could do something about it those players would take their business elsewhere ...

I apologize for the rambling on, but I guess the gist of my email is to ask the question; how should/would we/you proceed if you were Absolute Poker (and No; I am not affiliated with AP)? I think they are in an extremely tough spot with no obvious solution.

Just my 0.01 - 0.02 cents ....
Erasa