The Grandma dilemma: Debunking the myths

[sirio11]

The Grandma dilemma: Debunking the myths

One of the arguments of the cheaters (the word is used just for description, no offense intended) and the apologists is that the likelihood of a player with two accounts playing the same tourney and ending in the same table is pretty small, insignificant they say, “don’t worry about it”

Well, let’s take a look to see if you should worry:

________

Tournament: Daily PS $100 Rebuys
Number of players: 108
Starting tables: 12

Lets say Grandma has two accounts; lets call the accounts (just for description purposes); “supercheater” and “megagreedy”

What are the odds of cheater and greedy ending up in the same table at the beginning of the tournament?

Well, the answer is pretty simple; 1 in 12. Every 12 tournaments cheater and greedy will start the tournament in the same table, and 7 people in that table will be screwed. If grandma decided to play this tournament 4 times a week then she’s going to be cheating 7 people every 3 weeks. If she plays 6 of these tournaments a week; then every 2 weeks she’s cheating 7 people; and of course this is just at the beginning of the tournament.
Just looking at some information from the tournament results of some of the good players, we know that they usually bust after 60% of the field do it. So a good player is usually around with 50% of the people left; for our tournament this is 6 tables. Do you want to calculate the number of people cheated now per week by Grandma? You may want to calculate also how this number increases if Grandma has 3 accounts instead of 2.

_________

Tournament: $20 180 players S & G
Number of players: 180
Starting tables: 20

Now, just for fun, let's say Grandma has 3 accounts, “supercheater”, “megagreedy” and “IownFThaters”

Given 20 tables to accommodate 3 people, this can be done of 20*20*20 ways = 8000

Since we don’t want the 3 of them to be together then we have 20*19*18 = 6840 ways to do this. This means 8000-6840 = 1160 times at least two of the accounts will start together; this is about 1 in 7. So every 7 tournaments Grandma should be cheating 7 people in the table. If Grandma is healthy I think she can be doing this …… mmmmm ….. daily?

___________

Tournament: $150+12 Party Super
Number of players: 1000
Starting tables: 100

Granny playing 3 accounts gives us numbers of 29800 out of 1000000 starting at least 2 in the same table. This is 1 every 33 times. If Grandma can play 4 of this weekly (could be easily more than that with the Friday and Saturday); then even in this “big” tournament; Granny is cheating once every two months just at the beginning of the tournament. I guess that’s ok for some people standards.

___________

Tournament: $100+9 Party Midnight
Number of players: 450
Starting tables: 45

Here the numbers with 3 accounts are 5985 out of 91125. This is once every 15.23 tournaments. Playing 5 of this a week, she’s cheating every 3 weeks.

________

Summary:

Let’s suppose Grandma Schedule for the next 2 months is the following tourneys per week and she will be playing 3 accounts:

4 times the Stars $100 Rebuys (cheating rate: 1 in 4.24)
4 Party Supers (cheating rate: 1 in 33.56)
5 $100 Party Midnight (cheating rate: 1 in 15.23)

So she will cheat, 8 times in the $100R, 1 time in the Party Supers and about 9 times in the Party $100; and remember this is just at the beginning of the tournament. So with this schedule she’ll cheat about 18 times in the 2 months, about 9 per month, about twice a week.

Twice a week Grandma will be seated with 2 of her accounts at the same table at the beginning of the tournament; and for the poor 14 or 16 players in the table, well, it’s just bad luck.

I let others elaborate with corrections to my numbers (I’m not spending any time to check all the numbers), results changing some of the variables, like number of entrants, Grandma’s schedule, number of accounts; Grandma’s accounts in the middle of the tournament, Grandma’s accounts in the final table and of course dealing with multiple Grandma’s in the same tourney.



To the apologists : I’d really appreciated if instead of wasting your valuable time with insults to people like me and others in the “we care about this issue” camp or trying to generate sophisticated arguments why we shouldn’t care and why nothing can be done ever to solve this problem or even with disingenuous calls to moderation; you spend more of your time thinking about solutions; if you don’t want to do it, that’s ok; just don’t make our efforts harder.


To the multi-accounting people : I hope some of you look at these numbers and realize that this is not ok. And you don’t need to do it. You are a good player, there are tons of tournaments these days, and you can win tons of money without the need of multiaccounting.
I’m not calling you a cheater; maybe you just make a mistake like most of us have done at some time or another in the past with wrong assumptions. It’s time to realize this was a mistake and move on.

David

[FakeKramer]

Nh

[ZBTHorton]

Post..of..the...year...

[itslog1]

can someone estimate how frequently the guy sitting next to me at a mtt has clone account or can this not be determined yet?

[Jurollo]

Very well written, informative and spot on as usual David.
~Justin

[MLG]

This is an incredibly important post.

The cry of most people who multiplayer is that the chances of winding up at the same table are so small is to render them moot. Obviously thats not true. Lets see some justifications now.


That said, I think that multiplayering is much more rare in these smaller events than in the massive sunday fields. The party super argument is the one that for me carries the most weight.

[Clayton]

David,

Very well thought out and presented but a big argument for the "who gives" side is that a lot of these multi-accounters are only playing the really big field events. You laid out a very strong argument, but an argument that leaves out some important stuff.

[runout_mick]

I apologize Sirio. I was of the indifferent camp. I just couldn't see how, in the very large mtt fields we get, how running more than one account would help that much unless both accounts reached the final table.

I now see your point, and agree that this is much more serious than I had initially assumed.

Very good post.

[Chrisman886]

I understand your argument and I appreciate your time put into quantifying the situation. It seems that even just one pair of offenders could make a significant impact.

However, how often is this really happening? I don't want to start going on some McCarthyistic witch-hunt based on some sweeping generalizations that have little or no merit. It may be difficult to quantify, but I think we need to somehow reach a conclusion if we are to make this argument. On the other side of the spectrum, is is happening too often to even bother playing large field/buyin online events? And is this even worth wasting our time with as we really can't do anything about it (I'm assuming)?

[sirio11]

[ QUOTE ]
You laid out a very strong argument, but an argument that leaves out some important stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

I left it out on purpose, so you can work it out and find out by yourself. Don't forget to add more than multiple grandmas in the formula when talking about big fields like the Sunday Party and Stars. And also remember this is just at the beggining of the tourney.