Quoting a poster about Mike Paulle's claim that he saw open hole cards on PokerStars at the WSOP...
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saw the open client in Poker Stars. I don't know anything about Absolute software or any of the principals involved.
If this is true it would mean that Stars is lying because they claim this is totally impossible. I think he is probably mistaken and was probably just watching a final table replay or something.
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Hi folks -
I've been staying out of this because I've had nothing useful to add. Suddenly, I do.
Nobody at PokerStars can see the players' hole cards during a hand. They can't now and they never could. Not me (when I worked for PokerStars), not the owner, not the programmers. [1]
I was at the WSOP when Mike Paulle was there working for PokerStars. I can think of two possible things that Mike saw that he might mistake for an "open cards" client:
1. PokerStars staff use a hand history replayer called
Poker Villain. Of course, everybody's Aunt Susie has one of those now, but back then (2004, I believe) it was a big deal. It's possible that he saw such a display on somebody's laptop screen and thought he was seeing live hole cards.
2. PokerStars simulcast the final table of the main event onto its client that year. [2] We had set up special software for this purpose. We were not able to see the players' hands, of course, but again, Mike might have seen a table image with hands displayed that could have confused him to think he was seeing live hole cards from the PokerStars client.
That's it. In short, I'm not sure what Mike Paulle saw, but what I know he
didn't see was open hole cards on the PokerStars client during live play.
I will bet my professional reputation on that.
Regards, Lee
P.S. Just as I was getting ready to post this, PokerStars got an email back from Mike Paulle with a retraction of sorts, and they asked me to include that here. The exact text of Mike's email, unedited, is included here:
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If i say areplay and not live action, I wouldn't know
the difference. Feel free to use that as a retraction.
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[1] It is, of course,
possible in theory that PokerStars has written such software since I left its employ in April. I'm prepared to bet 100% of my bankroll that they didn't do that.
[2] I know that seems impossible to believe now, with the carefully choreographed and paid-for press coverage. But those three years ago are a lifetime before now. Back then, it was the wild west and PokerStars' influence on the field gave us an important entry into the main event final table milieu.