The Grandma dilemma: Debunking the myths

[sirio11]

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Hi David,

I have worked some numbers as my gut says that you are way off.


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I think we're talking about different things. I clearly stated that my numbers were just for the beginning of the tournament, and I believe them to be accurate. You seem to be talking about the chances for being in the same table for the whole tournament, and I agree the cheating rate should increase for sure, I also agree with the factor of 4 you include between an advanced player and the average player, I was using that factor while doing different calculations about the odds of getting both accounts to the final table.
I deliberately didn't work these numbers since I knew there was going to be people talking about the big Sunday tournaments in Party and Stars, I challenge them to include all the variables before they say something about the cheating rate in these tourneys.

My aim was to provide an example easy to understand and pretty hard to refute.

[fiskebent]

I have another way to look at it in mathematical terms. The multi-accounters are typically good players.

Let's for arguments sake that I normally play a heads-up, winner-takes-all tournament against another player. He's better than me, so I only win 40% of the time.
That means that my EV for a tournament is -0.2 (1 - 0.4 * 2) entry fee.

Now my opponent decides to multi-account and he buys two tickets to the tournament. Now I only win 20% of the time and my EV for the tournament has dropped to -0.4 (1 - 0.2 * 3) entry fee. By entering multiple accounts into the tournament, he's decreased my EV by 0.2 entry fee. And of course increased his own EV by the same 0.2 entry fee.

I realise that in the big fields any given players EV is only decreased by a miniscule amount when good players multi-account. But it does decrease. And the multi-accounters EV probably increases by a large amount. And that's unfair, IMO.

Sirio can probably pick holes in my math if it's incorrect.

[bestcellar]

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(1 - 0.4 * 2)

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this equals +0.2 not -0.2, no?

[SumZero]

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- My friend gets deep in a tourney and says, "strass, come help me out". So I go over to his room and talk with him as he plays.

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I've done this for my brother once. He's a super lag and can always accululate chips but always flames out. So he called me this one particlular night with desparation in his voice and asked for help. I was not in the particular tourney at all and didn't think I did anything wrong by coaching him.

Btw, he won the tourney. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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I think we all have done this. It does go against the letter of the law, but compared to the point sirio makes it's like comparing jaywalking to manslaughter...

It's a matter of degrees...

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hasn't it been noted by Lee Jones (?) that the "one player to a hand" rule does NOT exist online? if i'm wrong, please correct me.

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It may varry from site to site. The site I currently play with (ub) had the clearest answer on this:

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Basically, we would apply the regular rules you would see in a live casino.

If you are playing in a casino and you are forced to leave a tournament, then no other person will be allowed to take your place, or lets say everytime you play the hands, it is not allowed for you to consult other person behind you your action in each hand, these same measures are applied in our tables. UltimateBet does not condone such actions in our tables.


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So if you play at UB and do this you are cheating. It is against the rules. Even if you are just driving to a friends house and getting someone else to cover for you.

At pokerstars one player to a hand (over the shoulder coaching) may or may not be legal. Taking over for someone because they are deep or playing their final table or double shootout is illegal.

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With trivial exceptions, a player may play on only one account during a tournament. Violation of this rule may result in penalties ranging from a warning, to disqualification from the tournament (with partial or full forfeiture of winnings), to barring from PokerStars.

Examples:

1. You get a phone call during a PokerStars tournament. You ask your husband, who has already busted out of that tournament, to play your hands for you. You are on the phone for ten minutes and then resume play. This is permitted.
2. You and a friend, who is a tournament pro, are playing in the same tournament. You agree that if he busts out before you do, he will take over playing your account. This is prohibited.
3. Your husband is out of town for the weekend, but gives you his password. You log into both his account and yours and play both accounts in the same tournament. This is prohibited.


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I haven't been able to get a clear reading of the rules on other sites yet.

[SumZero]

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Sirio,

You seem to think very clearly and present your thoughts very well when dealing with this math problem and those numbers are very telling.

I have done things like this, though:

- I'm on the bus on the way home, and I look at my watch and whoa its 4:15pm on sunday. I call a friend and ask him to log on and play the first hour of the sunday tourneys for me until I get back.

- My friend gets deep in a tourney and says, "strass, come help me out". So I go over to his room and talk with him as he plays.

- Friend calls me up: "crap I'm deep in xyz tourney and have to go, can you play for xx%?"

- This happened once: "Yo strass, I can never win a double shootout on stars, they are rigged. I want to go to the bahamas." So, with him in the room, I played a shootout and got lucky and won him a seat to the WPT.

I'm curious how terrible these things are. I always felt like I haven't crossed the line, but maybe I have.
-Jason

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Depending on site those may or may not be cheating. On UB those are all cheating. On PS the first one may or may not be cheating (I think it probably is, but if you change first hour to first 15 minutes you may be clear) but the rest all are definitely cheating.

Above and beyond, even if it weren't cheating at the site in question my take before all this would be that the 3rd is unethical, the 2nd and 4th is borderline unethical, and the 1st is the closest to borderline ethical (the biggest problem with the first is I think online reads should count and if people at the table are fooled because you yourself change gears than that is one thing but if they are fooled because an account changes gears because people have switched who is playing the account or are fooled because they expect a good name player to have noticed and reacted to their table image but unknown to them the person playing the account has just switched and now doesn't realize what's gone on at the table then the switching players is a real harm). After being aware of the JJ issue I think that the slippery slope exists and I think it would be better to avoid the grey area and stick to unquestionably ethical behavior and not do any of the above even at sites where it is ambiguous if the above is cheating or not. Obviously, where it is unambiguous that this is cheating, you shouldn't do it at all either.

[sirio11]

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A cheater is more likely to search for ways in which his cheating edge can be made greater. This would mean playing tournies with smaller fields

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Your post is spot on CSC, but even in the big tourneys the cheating is equally disgusting; I find disturbing some players imply things like "well, it's ok to cheat as long as you only cheat 2 or 3 times per year". Because of the multiple grandmas, even if some especific cheater is not cheating every Sunday, people is cheated every sunday.

On the issue of multiples grandmas, I find telling this entry left in my blog:




RBA said...

"I admire you standing up against these problems, they are alot more rampant than one thinks.

I have played full-time for over 2 years. I am a cash player, with only small ties into the MTT world. The amount of players I know who enter multiple accounts into high buyin tourneys online is over a dozen and I can only imagine that if everyone that plays online a large number of hours knows even half as many as I do the problem is even worse than imagined. I am not even including the teams I know that play out of multiple accounts, which I am also against in the manner it seems to be used.

The racism is just disgusting, but that too I have been accustomed to seeing since the first day I have been online. I believe that a large part of it can be attributed to the amount of very young(high school aged) players playing very heavily online at this time and talking like they do in a typical AOL chat room or online FPS/MMORPG.

They are used to playing these games with multiple accounts and used to using derogatory and racist language.

What worries me more is the amount of people I know or have played FPS games with that basically have taken the clan/guild concept over to online poker. They use Ventrilo/Teamspeak/Skype(also the IM/IRC peeps) and work as teams in tournaments, high buyin cash games and sngs. This is already out of control and it is probably going to get worse. I know of two big teams in Houston alone that play in alot of the underground rooms live and freely talk about it.

Who cares about bots when you have to beat the same player 5 times on different accounts and 7 friends at one table playing at you as a target. On top of that you get racist comments.

Sad Sad."

[El Diablo]

sirio,

Another excellent post. Just want to point out to people that (if I understood your numbers correctly) what you showed were simply the chances of the same player being at the same table TO START OFF THE TOURNAMENT. The chances that they will be at the same table either to start the tourney or at some point later in the tourney are substantially greater than the numbers you gave.

[sirio11]

To all:

Lets try now to solve the problem for the big Sunday tournaments in Party and Stars. I think the most important variable should be how many grandmas do you think are playing in a 3000 field? in a 4000 field?

It's really telling from the P5s threads the number of players condoning the JJ case and talking about "it's not a big deal". I find disturbing that almost no ranked or well known players there were in the against this practice camp.

What about teams of grandmas? For example 6-10 players playing 3-4 accounts each. Is this realistic?
Maybe this could explain the high incidence in the final table in Stars from players from some city in Europe (I'm half joking here).

I'd really appreciate some insight in the important variables to consider in this problem.

[BPA234]

David:

There is no doubt that there are teams playing online. From college students in a dorm who are cheating by happenstance to the group of hardcore players who are dedicated to the effort fulltime, online poker is easily exploited.

In order to reduce and hopefully eliminate this threat, I believe several actions need to be taken.

1. Online sites need to continue to invest, develop and implement better security measures. Stronger anti-collusion and anti-cheating programs need to be put in place to keep pace with the growing number of players.

2. When people are found to be cheating the information needs to be published on the website. In the two years I have played on Stars, I have received two refunds after players were found to be colluding in games I played in. Although I am grateful that I received the refund, I was not informed of any details.

Online cheating should not be a site's dirty little secret. We are all aware it takes place, and if we were not, we surely are now. Since we, the players, are the primary victims, we should have full knowledge of the offenses and the offenders.

Perhaps that would help drive the next action I recommend, whistleblowing.

3. Whistleblowing is not "snitching." Whistleblowing is the action of a responsible, honest player. If a player suspects others of cheating, the player should report the offenders. Players should take an active role in maintaining the ethical and finacial integrity of the game.

Further, I think the sites should put up rewards for whistleblowing with value based payouts. I would happily pay a percentage of my refund to a player who had reported the cheaters. Additionally, I think a general whistleblowing fund should be created from a neglible portion of the rake (.01%) that could be used to reward players who help catch cheaters.

For both player and site, cheating is bad for business. I think the only solution to the problem is to actively work together to reduce the exploitable aspects of the online game.

Brian

[NajdorfDefense]

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I have done things like this, though:- My friend gets deep in a tourney and says, "strass, come help me out". So I go over to his room and talk with him as he plays.

I'm curious how terrible these things are. I always felt like I haven't crossed the line, but maybe I have.
-Jason

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One player per hand, otherwise, it's unethical, if not blatant and outright cheating. If one's behavior is materially different than in a B&M tournament, like the WSOP, it is unethical as in this case. Would they let you do it in the Main Event?

Naj