Absolute poker...??

[Machmood]

I have heard many people say absolute poker is not a safe site and to never play on it, is ne of this true,and if o why?

[Ironic]

A few accounts won loads and loads and loads of money over a very small number of hands. The style of play was extremely unorthodox which led many high stakes players to suggest something dodgy was going on.

However nothing has been proven.

I am in the very small minority which believes nothing dodgy was going on and it was just luck (I have seen donks at micro limits play the same and get very very lucky and I haven't even played millions of hands of poker). Although I don't rule out the possibility something dodgy has occured I don't in my opinion believe it to be likely. When the donks carried on playing their same style of poker and their luck ran out and they started losing loads people said oh they are just covering their tracks etc. Make of that what you will.

To be on the safe side just play on a bigger site.

[pzhon]

There are several reasons to distrust Absolute Poker.

There are allegations that Absolute has cheated affiliates. As a player, that might not affect you directly, but it is a reason to question their general level of integrity.

There are allegations that Absolute has been spamming and shilling many poker discussion forums, including the 2+2 forums, and has requested the removal of threads which were not flattering.

There are allegations that Absolute has reneged on deposit bonuses offered to players.

There are allegations that Absolute failed to implement the rules of razz correctly, and sometimes awards the pot to the wrong player.

There are recent allegations (in the past 2 weeks) that Absolute has allowed a group of hackers to cheat high stakes limit, NL, and tournament players out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Unlike most of the complaints about crazy losses on poker sites, these accusations were made by well-known winning high stakes players who gathered a substantial amount of evidence indicating that several players were able to see the hole cards of their opponents. See this thread.

While there are disagreements about the extent to which each of these allegations have been proved (and at what level of certainty), Absolute Poker's reputation is far below that of some other sites such as PokerStars, for example.

[Repsychler]

I took my money out of Absolutely rigged poker, I'm done with them.

[JanelleBB7]

Stick with a site which doesn't have the blemish of being untrustworthy... at least thats what I think.

Pick either Poker stars or FTP... I prefer FTP by far. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
A few accounts won loads and loads and loads of money over a very small number of hands. The style of play was extremely unorthodox which led many high stakes players to suggest something dodgy was going on.

However nothing has been proven.

[/ QUOTE ]
Nothing in real life can be proven at a mathematical standard. People have been convicted on much less evidence.

[ QUOTE ]
I am in the very small minority which believes nothing dodgy was going on and it was just luck (I have seen donks at micro limits play the same and get very very lucky and I haven't even played millions of hands of poker). Although I don't rule out the possibility something dodgy has occured I don't in my opinion believe it to be likely. When the donks carried on playing their same style of poker and their luck ran out and they started losing loads people said oh they are just covering their tracks etc. Make of that what you will.


[/ QUOTE ]
I respect your right to look at the evidence and come up with a different conclusion than mine, but would you care to bet on it? You say, "I don't in my opinion believe it to be likely"... would you still feel like you need odds? How much would you be willing to bet getting 2:1? 10:1?

By the way, it wasn't just that the accused players were very aggressive with weak cards and won a lot. They also made amazing folds when their opponents had strong hands, e.g., after capping preflop 3-handed, they check-folded on a 522 flop getting 13:1... just when an opponent had 55. Normal maniacs pay off good hands because they suspect others are bluffing, too, but these accounts almost never paid anyone off. The few hands they didn't play preflop seemed to correspond to the times someone had QQ+. They almost never acted as though they were in doubt by calling on the river instead of raising (when possible) or folding. With a 0-24 record (failing to cash 24 times) they tried to make substantial bets against well-known players about who would last longer, then won the tournament. And the next tournament, too.

I think there is a big difference between saying that it hasn't been proved, and saying that the right way to bet is that there was no cheating. The evidence does not look bulletproof to me, but it is convincing enough to act on it, e.g., by not playing for high stakes on Absolute, and by setting a stop-loss when playing against maniacs.

[lucky_mf]

I still play there because I like he software, the games, the rakeback, and the player promotions. I have never been cheated out of a bonus, rakeback, or otherwise. I've also cashed out more than $90k from AP this year without incident.

Lucky

[Ironic]

[ QUOTE ]

I respect your right to look at the evidence and come up with a different conclusion than mine, but would you care to bet on it?

[/ QUOTE ]
That is irrelevant.


[ QUOTE ]
You say, "I don't in my opinion believe it to be likely"... would you still feel like you need odds? How much would you be willing to bet getting 2:1? 10:1?

[/ QUOTE ]

Irrelevant

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, it wasn't just that the accused players were very aggressive with weak cards and won a lot. They also made amazing folds when their opponents had strong hands, e.g., after capping preflop 3-handed, they check-folded on a 522 flop getting 13:1... just when an opponent had 55. Normal maniacs pay off good hands because they suspect others are bluffing, too, but these accounts almost never paid anyone off. The few hands they didn't play preflop seemed to correspond to the times someone had QQ+. They almost never acted as though they were in doubt by calling on the river instead of raising (when possible) or folding. With a 0-24 record (failing to cash 24 times) they tried to make substantial bets against well-known players about who would last longer, then won the tournament. And the next tournament, too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Billions of hands have been played online. It is a certainty that there will be amazing stretches where donkeys defy the odds. The results are over a small sample size. About two weeks ago I was up against a donkey fullring he was running 80/35 with infinite aggression factor and had over $100 on the table at NL25, the highest I had ever seen. When I saw this guy and what was happening I started to wonder. And then I saw him lose it all.

[ QUOTE ]

I think there is a big difference between saying that it hasn't been proved, and saying that the right way to bet is that there was no cheating. The evidence does not look bulletproof to me, but it is convincing enough to act on it, e.g., by not playing for high stakes on Absolute, and by setting a stop-loss when playing against maniacs.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is why I advised the OP to use another site to be on the safe side. There are different ideas of the concept proof. I was not aware I had to make myself so clear or face a long post from another user. I was not referring to mathematical level of proof of course. I was talking in the legal sense.

I have discussed this before and don't want to get drawn into further discussion since I only wanted to voice my opinion to the OP. There are a hundred things I could say and expand upon, my response now is full of ambiguities etc, a full analysis of the situation would be too much to write in my limited time. I would rather spend my spare time discussing hand histories.
Btw, I have an extensive background in university level statistics and hold a first class degree in mathematics. Please don't take that as justification but just to warn you that I am not an idiot; as I am so commonly called when I dispute what the majority agree on re: Absolute. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Ironic exiting.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
There are different ideas of the concept proof. I was not aware I had to make myself so clear or face a long post from another user.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's not a question of clarity. The ordinary meaning of, "[I believe there is] nothing dodgy going on... I don't in my opinion believe it to be likely," is that you believe the probability is significantly less than 50%. Is that not what you meant? If not, please rephrase it, as it wasn't merely unclear, it was misleading.

If your statements had the ordinary meaning, and you still agree, why not bet on them? I have enough confidence in my statements to bet on them.

You should appreciate the difference between not being 100% convinced and believing the evidence points in the opposite direction if you have a background in rigorous mathematics. If you mean that you aren't convinced, why not say that instead of saying that you actually believe there is "nothing dodgy going on?"

[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
You say, "I don't in my opinion believe it to be likely"... would you still feel like you need odds? How much would you be willing to bet getting 2:1? 10:1?

[/ QUOTE ]

Irrelevant

[/ QUOTE ]
It's quite relevant to whether your beliefs are consistent with what you said. It's standard in economics to look at questions like that to guage the strength of beliefs and preferences. Many people try to convince others of things they are not confident about themselves. Is that what you are doing?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
By the way, it wasn't just that the accused players were very aggressive with weak cards and won a lot. They also made amazing folds when their opponents had strong hands, e.g., after capping preflop 3-handed, they check-folded on a 522 flop getting 13:1... just when an opponent had 55. Normal maniacs pay off good hands because they suspect others are bluffing, too, but these accounts almost never paid anyone off. The few hands they didn't play preflop seemed to correspond to the times someone had QQ+. They almost never acted as though they were in doubt by calling on the river instead of raising (when possible) or folding. With a 0-24 record (failing to cash 24 times) they tried to make substantial bets against well-known players about who would last longer, then won the tournament. And the next tournament, too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Billions of hands have been played online. It is a certainty that there will be amazing stretches where donkeys defy the odds. The results are over a small sample size.

[/ QUOTE ]
The sample size was not small relative to what was observed. If you are testing hypotheses against each other that differ slightly, such as winning 1 BB/100 vs breaking even, you need a lot more data than when you are testing an outrageous deviation from normal play.

[ QUOTE ]

About two weeks ago I was up against a donkey fullring he was running 80/35 with infinite aggression factor and had over $100 on the table at NL25, the highest I had ever seen.


[/ QUOTE ]
If that's all you have seen, it suggests you have not played much. In this screenshot, you can see that I had 5 buy-ins, and one of my opponents had 9. Here is another where I had 8 buy-ins, and another player had 4. While I'd like to think my skill had something to do with those (in addition to a lot of luck), I've seen a bad player accumulate 7 or more buy-ins several times.

[ QUOTE ]

Btw, I have an extensive background in university level statistics and hold a first class degree in mathematics. Please don't take that as justification but just to warn you that I am not an idiot; as I am so commonly called when I dispute what the majority agree on re: Absolute. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]


[/ QUOTE ]
That sounds more than defensive. However, I have a Ph. D. in mathematics and am a professional mathematician. I don't say I'm right because of this. My arguments stand or fall on their own.

If you think the observed behavior should happen every few billion hands, I think you should recalculate. It should be noted that these players were playing some of the highest stakes games available, and there haven't been billions of high stakes hands played.

To recap, I'm willing to bet money that there was cheating at Absolute, that the accused players were able to see the hole cards of their opponents during the hands. Some people claim that they believe the opposite, but so far, none have been willing to bet on what they claim to believe.