[prophet73]

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I see it as a different form of poker with it's own unique twists. Just like the difference between 7 stud, hold'em, and omaha. Or even better the differences between hold'em as a ring game or in a tournament.

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But the problem with that argument is that you ignore the constants and the variables in those different games.

They all use the same 52-card deck. They all have the same hand rankings. And most relevant to this discussion, they ALL PLAY INDIVIDUALLY hand-by-hand.

For online poker to allow more than one person to a hand, it is no longer a variation, but rather a completely different game. It gives people an unfair advantage that no other live poker game in existence allows.

Again, refer to my hypothetical example of Phil Ivey in my earlier post. Is it fair for me to play against someone who receives advice from him simply because he is fortunate or something to know him?

If you knew this going in, fine, that's your decision. But I'm sure the general online poker community (call us fish, if you will), do NOT know this is going on. And IMHO, it gives online poker a pretty negative image--especially if "top players" or even "friends of top players" are doing this. They are already supposedly "skilled" and they are gaining an unfair edge based on something that would never be allowed in any other circumstance.

EDIT: BTW, I'm not saying online poker can't be more like real poker. However, with the accusations and suspicions of multi-accounting and more than one person per hand during action is just simply giving online poker a black eye, IMO. It's true, it's almost impossible to be enforced, but if those among the community refused to casually let this happen, that would go a long way to fixing the system.