Cheating in Online Poker

[MJBuddy]

I'm taken aback somewhat at attacking stars on any form of support.


Maybe I give them too much credit, but stars support for it's clients far far far exceed the support of most companies in any field. If my cable company was 1/10th as good at support I would be ecstatic.

And cheating and recognizing it and punishing the cheaters falls under this. I don't feel that crucifying Stars over this is good.

[uclabruinz]

To clarify, I think Stars support in general has been fantastic. It's not a support issue, it's an issue with their stance on cheating, which is inconsistent and weak.

[rothko]

ucla, where many people go wrong is in making a disadvantage into a question of ethics. simply because a person may have an edge on you doesn't make it wrong. this is what is happening now with online poker.

the rules define what is right, not any one person's opinion as to what seems proper. if team play is allowed online it is not wrong. it may feel wrong, but that is a conditioned response not one based in logic.

consider the game of baseball. oftentimes the manager will switch pitchers to match up with a certain batter. the pitcher might be particularly good against one batter and may come to the mound for only that one batter. after the strike out, the pitcher returns to the sidelines and the pitcher that is better overall resumes playing. likewise a batter that is particularly good in certain situations, but isn't in the regular rotation might be brought in. runners that excel at stealing bases can be subbed in. balls can be thrown to intentionally walk a superior batter, etc. perhaps of greatest import to the current conversation is the example of the relief pitcher: the one that is a specialist in closing. nobody considers these things to be unethical, because they are explicitly allowed in the rules of the game. however, if you actually sit back and think about it you might be tempted to say that they are unfair. shouldn't the pitcher that started the game finish it? how can they bring in so and so with a fresh arm who is absolutely deadly at finishing? it's not fair. see the similarities?

there will be things that don't seem to make sense. behaviour x will be allowed, but behaviour x.1 won't be even though they are essentially the same thing. this goes for anything in life. whenever there is a line drawn there are things that may be holding hands, but are separated by that line. it is up to each of us to respect that line, regardless.

when jeff bought that seat late in the sunday million what he did was not wrong, because it was allowed by the rules of the site. however, the rules have since been changed and so it would be cheating to do it now.

if stealthmunk buys a bunch of people into a tournament and then coaches the one that goes deep it gives him a much better chance to win the tournament and most importantly, from our standpoint, to do better than us. it is this last point that makes us want to say, "hey, that's unfair!" however, if it is sanctioned by the site it is not wrong. yes, it sucks for us, but it doesn't make stealthmunk a bad guy. if the rules do forbid the behaviour then it would indeed be unethical of stealthmunk to do this.

it is the rules that define the "morality" of the game.

[Foucault]

I may have more to say about this, but it seems to me there are (at least) two separate problems here, and some are more concerned about one or the other. I dont think they are actually mutually exclusive, though they kind of seem like they would be.

Problem 1: Multi-accounting is a problem because it creates an information asymmetry. If UCLA is playing under JoeSchmo's name, then UCLA knows he is up against Foucault but Foucault does not know he is up against UCLA. Similarly, the vast majority of players who don't know the extent of this problem (including myself probably even now, and certainly until recently) are not making an informed decision to buy into a tournament because they don't realize exactly what they are getting into.

Problem 2: Multi-accounting creates a perception of wide-spread cheating that, true or not, scares away many recreational players who contribute EV to the tournament.

In the first case, the central problem is that fish don't know multi-accounting is going on. In the second, the problem is that they do.

[Butcho22]

Where are you going to publish this?

[DVO]

All of this stuff is going to come out anyway, eventually. Far better for good, ethical online players to address it, and try to fix it from within, than the eventual alternative.

UCLA is right. How can you argue against exposing the truth??

[0evg0]

[ QUOTE ]
All of this stuff is going to come out anyway, eventually. Far better for good, ethical online players to address it, and try to fix it from within, than the eventual alternative.

UCLA is right. How can you argue against exposing the truth??

[/ QUOTE ]

cuz it ain't my job nukka

and you taking away my moneys by doing a job that ain't yours neither

i'm neither judge, jury, nor executioner.

i have a problem with not doing the easy work of turning in known cheaters, but to sacrifice my own money to punish those less scrupulous? nah, they'll get what's coming to them from a place that actually is in charge of dealing with this type of stuff. and that palce is not my home.

[Ship Ship McGipp]

i'm not going to lie, if this was as easy as "belowabove2" and "lilholdem2" in the 109r and 1k tuesday suddenly, i'm pretty sure i'd just go ahead and approve of it, and then see if annette_16 wanted to paly also

[Ansky]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm not going to lie, if this was as easy as "belowabove2" and "lilholdem2" in the 109r and 1k tuesday suddenly, i'm pretty sure i'd just go ahead and approve of it, and then see if annette_16 wanted to paly also

[/ QUOTE ]

1/3 of those ppl is good actually btw.

[Jurollo]

The argument that is -EV so we shouldn't do it just further exposes the divide I see everyday here between people without a whole lot of life experience outside of poker and people who do. The whole thing comes to two fairly simple equations that everyone needs to ask themselves:

A) Is my EV lost from multiaccounting pro's > or < the lost EV from an article decrying those who cheat and its effects on fish

and

B) Is my EV gained short term by not alerting the general public > or < my EV gained long term by creating transparency?

If you must look at things in an "EV" perspective please do so with these two questions.


A few others musings:
-This problem is far less a problem then some are making it out to be
-It is a very complicated problem that would require an exhaustive effort to truly fix
-The analogy to the baseball steroid era is a, frankly, brilliant one in that it explains, with pinpoint precision the fact that for problems such as cheating (multiaccount, et al) and steroids things work on what works out to be a public opinion "reverse bell curve" The game's reputation is hurt short term only to rebound long term from transparency and rule changes. Something to think about.
~J