Latest cliffsnotes on Absolute soulreading.

[TheLoveDoctor]

Here is Justin West's take on the issue:

http://news.pokerpages.com/index.php...ew&id=2606

[suzzer99]

[ QUOTE ]

This thread is really starting to suck.

By the way, if you google "Absolute Poker Cheating" you will see that the "story" is starting to show up on more and more poker-related sites. First 2 or 3 pages of the google search are for the most part variations of the story.

Yet still no change in amount of traffic at Absolute?

[/ QUOTE ]

That search sucks. No way to filter out jokes, crackpots and BS cheating software from the real story. The biggest impact I could see is if someone like Negreneau will pick it up on his blog. Of course then Absolute could just claim he's being a shill for PS. Also I'm not sure PS would want to risk the potential blowblack of players just deciding every site must be rigged (I'm only 99.9% sure they'd be wrong).

[A2steaksauce]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is Justin West's take on the issue:

http://news.pokerpages.com/index.php...ew&id=2606

[/ QUOTE ]
This guy clearly has no idea what he's talking about.

[suzzer99]

[ QUOTE ]
Here is Justin West's take on the issue:

http://news.pokerpages.com/index.php...ew&id=2606

[/ QUOTE ]

What a jackass. He's either stupid, bad at poker, or lying.

[Pokeraddict]

It looks like AP has admitted to Casinomeister there are "offenders". The statement is vague but it appears this means they have changed their stance.

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/poke...html#post189730

[PokerLearner]

I feel we are making the statistical analysis overly complex. Let's simplify things (and I realize the number won't be exact), which gives us a nice basis to work with so we can argue how unlikely these results are.

The key finding, so far as I understand, if that the possible cheater always made the correct decision on the river. Because he never called, he only had two possible decisions, Raise or Fold. Now we don't know what his a priori likelihood of raising it, but we can just say for now that is it 50%. Hence 50% of the time he raises, 50% of the time he folds.

Now on Hand 1, if he is ahead he should correctly raise. On hand 2, if he is behind, he should fold. On hand 3, if he is ahead, he should raise. Clearly, then, the only 'correct' pattern would be {raise, fold, raise}, which would happen by chance 1/8.
In DoubleDrag's case, we know he say the river at least 42 times. If he really was correct on all 42 rivers, the probability of that happening is:

1/(2^42) = 1/(4,398,047,000,000) (approximately) which is approximately 1/10,000,000,000,000 (ten quadrillion, if I remember correctly).

That is unlikely.

[pineapple888]

[ QUOTE ]
It looks like AP has admitted to Casinomeister there are "offenders". The statement is vague but it appears this means they have changed their stance.

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/poke...html#post189730

[/ QUOTE ]

IDK dude, it's hard to read much into a single word choice, in an email that is likely to be from some barely-English-speaking support drone.

[Pokeraddict]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It looks like AP has admitted to Casinomeister there are "offenders". The statement is vague but it appears this means they have changed their stance.

http://www.casinomeister.com/forums/poke...html#post189730

[/ QUOTE ]

IDK dude, it's hard to read much into a single word choice, in an email that is likely to be from some barely-English-speaking support drone.

[/ QUOTE ]

If that is what it turns out to be then I'm sure that would get them steps closer to the CM rogue pit. If CM rogues them the search engines will take notice.

[suzzer99]

Here is my correspondence with Justin West. I know it's long in a thread already filled with overly long summaries. But it may be worthwhile to send out as an argument for laymen.


Thank you Justin. I appreciate your honesty and sincere reply. Here is my position, I would appreciate at least hearing what you think. But I promise I won't continue to pester you ad infinitum.

Anything is possible. According to cosmologists, it's statistically *possible* that another big bang could happen under my fingernail right now. That's the reason we have the "reasonable doubt" standard in our courts. I have no reasonable doubt that my fingernail is not going to explode, nor that these guys were cheating.

At least 4 players who'd never played above 100NL, and badly at that, all start crushing high stakes limit, NL and MTTs. All start showing the same pattern of play, all on the same day as a software upgrade. These players all see 95% of flops and play the river PERFECT, making about $600k in a few days. The only times they fold preflop, if there is a showdown, someone else shows down a big pocket pair.

One of them calls a huge pot to win a big MTT with T-high, when his opponent was bluffing with 9-high. All by itself this doesn't prove anything obviously, but together with all the other evidence it's pretty damning. This guy's screen name is the same as a popular hacking tool - POTRIPPER.

Then they OBVIOUSLY chip-dump to a couple other players by doing stuff like capping every street in limit, then folding getting 31-1. Over and over and over. Sites like Poker Stars, Full Tilt, and Ultimate Bet routinely suspend player's accounts and confiscate 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars for MUCH less obvious chip-dumping. Reputable poker sites don't wring their hands about whether or not this is the one in a trillion shot that these guys could actually just be playing this perfectly bad. They just confiscate.

Then one of the cheaters comes on and plays purposely horrible just to try to deflect some of the suspicion. But is so obvious about it, calling with stuff like 4-high, that it just adds more evidence to the fact that he was cheating. He spews off a tiny fraction of what they won.

Many affiliates have complained about Absolute dealing with them unfairly and doing all kinds of shady things, a lot of it this year. It seems obvious they aren't the most reputable or well-run company. And either their support is almost completely clueless about poker, or they are lying through their teeth. Neither engenders a lot of confidence that Absolute would *never* let something like this happen. If hole-card cheating ever could happen, a site like Absolute with a pretty lousy reputaion, would seem to be a prime candidate.

I leave you with one of my favorite quotes of all time:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

--Upton Sinclair



Quoting Justin West:

> Thanks for your comments, but I sincerely disagree.
>
> I say again - the hand histories are suspicious, yes, but
> mathematically speaking such irregularities are GOING to happen.
> Period.
>
> Again, I appreciate the feedback.
>
> Cheers.
>
> /Justin West /
> ASSISTANT EDITOR [>
> Matt Savino wrote:
>
> This is an enquiry e-mail via http://news.pokerpages.com from: Matt
> Savino <test@synergizethis.com>As a professional poker player, I can
> tell you that if you can't look at all those HHs on 2+2, combined
> with all the other circumstantial evidence, and *know* beyond all
> reasonable doubt players are seeing hole cards -- then you aren't
> very good at poker or critical thinking. Or you're just lying to
> protect perceived vested interests.Either way you're doing the online
> poker community a huge disservice, and helping to jeopardize the over
> all health of the game.-Matt
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://www.PokerPages.com
>

[knappis]

[ QUOTE ]
1/(2^42) = 1/(4,398,047,000,000) (approximately) which is approximately 1/10,000,000,000,000 (ten quadrillion, if I remember correctly).

[/ QUOTE ]

I have seen a lot of this kind of calculations and I think they have done a lot of harm because there are people out there that actually beleive in them.

Your caluclation is aproximate with random boards and hole cards if villain always was put to the test on river with a bet and did not have any clue about where he stood in the hand i.e. was just guessing on the river. That means, no prior betting information but more importantly couldn't see the board or his own hole cards.