Online tournament integrity compromised - my email to Lee Jones

[fiskebent]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, something should be done. That's not my point. To stop playing when you have +EV (yes, even against cheaters!) is folly.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the short run, yes. If stopping playing to get sites to take this seriously and it works, then that may be the best (most +EV) move in the long run.

[McMelchior]

[ QUOTE ]
run the numbers as to how much of an advantage a random player would have against you playing, say, 3 accounts in a 5,000 field tournament. The effect in my opinion on the field is virtually negligable.

[/ QUOTE ]Please read Sirio11's post "The Grandma dilemma" before you jump the gun. The link is in my post. You're way off.

We are facing a very serious problem. Sticking your head in the bush or resorting to made up guesstimates makes no sense when there's hard evidence readily available.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

[NHFunkii]

what more do you expect? They can't restrict ips for mtts, that would make a LOT more people upset (including me, if someone else at my school is playing in one of those big tourneys, which is not unlikely). There doesn't seem to be much to be done.

Also, that's a really silly reason not to play those tournaments. Your EV is barely affected.

[odellthurman]

[ QUOTE ]
what more do you expect? They can't restrict ips for mtts, that would make a LOT more people upset (including me, if someone else at my school is playing in one of those big tourneys, which is not unlikely). There doesn't seem to be much to be done.

Also, that's a really silly reason not to play those tournaments. Your EV is barely affected.

[/ QUOTE ]

How about they seize all money in the accounts of any player who has admitted to cheating and ban them from ever playing again. Although it certainly wouldn't end the practive forever, it would likely slow down the practice.

[McMelchior]

My reply to PokerStars' support:

Thank you for your reply.

I understand Lee Jones has not seen my email. Please either forward it to him or provide me with an address where I can reach him.

You statement "We have several more sophisticated measures to warn about potential collusion and multiple account use, and plan to add more." is a far cry from the clarification I politely requested. It appears PokerStars do not recognize the severity for the current situation as outlined in the public debate contributions I referenced in my first email.

Until further disclosure of adequate measures to prevent the cheating has been made by PokerStars, I must assume PokerStars' tournaments do not offer a level playing field for honest players.

FYI I have taken the liberty of publishing my letters to you and your reply on twoplustwo.com for the protection of the poker community and as an incentive to remedy the current not acceptable situation.

Sincerely,

-----

[bestcellar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
what more do you expect? They can't restrict ips for mtts, that would make a LOT more people upset (including me, if someone else at my school is playing in one of those big tourneys, which is not unlikely). There doesn't seem to be much to be done.

Also, that's a really silly reason not to play those tournaments. Your EV is barely affected.

[/ QUOTE ]

How about they seize all money in the accounts of any player who has admitted to cheating and ban them from ever playing again. Although it certainly wouldn't end the practive forever, it would likely slow down the practice.

[/ QUOTE ]

To paraphrase from before:

Great, account funds seized, IP address banned forever. Cheater goes out and buys new computer and signs up again. Now what?

[bestcellar]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
run the numbers as to how much of an advantage a random player would have against you playing, say, 3 accounts in a 5,000 field tournament. The effect in my opinion on the field is virtually negligable.

[/ QUOTE ]Please read Sirio11's post "The Grandma dilemma" before you jump the gun. The link is in my post. You're way off.

We are facing a very serious problem. Sticking your head in the bush or resorting to made up guesstimates makes no sense when there's hard evidence readily available.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

[/ QUOTE ]

Where does Sirio's post mention 3 accounts in a 5,000 player field? 3 accounts in a 180 is a totally different animal than the one I'm describing (and the one relevant to what we are discussing!).

the closest example

[ QUOTE ]
Tournament: $150+12 Party Super
Number of players: 1000
Starting tables: 100

Granny playing 3 accounts gives us numbers of 29800 out of 1000000 starting at least 2 in the same table. This is 1 every 33 times. If Grandma can play 4 of this weekly (could be easily more than that with the Friday and Saturday); then even in this “big” tournament; Granny is cheating once every two months just at the beginning of the tournament. I guess that’s ok for some people standards.

[/ QUOTE ]

So once in every 33 times the person ends up at the same table. For some reason, Sirio has also assigned an arbitrary "cheat" variable that seemingly implies a chip dump from one stack to the other, or some other way of colluding that's definitively +EV. That sort of thing is not only hard to engineer, there's a total luck factor involved. In other words, this Grandma thing happens at a 1,000 person tourney 1 in 33 times, and even then it has to be a successfully engineered chip dump or collusionary tactic. These sort of things DO backfire, I'm sure, quite often.

In a 5,000 person tourney, I stand by what I said - the effect of 3-accounting is almost completely negligible. There's less than a 1% chance the players will be on the same table, and even after that, they have to pull something off which still has an element of luck to it.

[McMelchior]

I don't understand your motive, BestCellar, unless you are one of the players with more than one account (what I honestly don't think is the case).

That you (or the poker sites) haven't managed to come up with a solution so far does not reduce the need for one. This need has been proven very imminent by the recent events and the following debate.

Your position reminds me of one of my childhoods favorite jokes: A small fire breaks out in a theater during a sold-out performance, and sheer panic ensues as people fight each other to get through the exit first. A man in the audience jumps to the stage, addresses the crowd in an authoritative way and urges everybody to calm down. Miraculously he succeeds in making the whole audience sit down again in their chairs. They all die from smoke-inhalation.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

[steeser]

...and runs the risk of having their funds seized again.

[bestcellar]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't understand your motive, BestCellar, unless you are one of the players with more than one account (what I honestly don't think is the case).

That you (or the poker sites) haven't managed to come up with a solution so far does not reduce the need for one. This need has been proven very imminent by the recent events and the following debate.

Your position reminds me of one of my childhoods favorite jokes: A small fire breaks out in a theater during a sold-out performance, and sheer panic ensues as people fight each other to get through the exit first. A man in the audience jumps to the stage, addresses the crowd in an authoritative way and urges everybody to calm down. Miraculously he succeeds in making the whole audience sit down again in their chairs. The whole audience dies from smoke-inhalation.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

[/ QUOTE ]

My motive is

a) to show you that refusing to play a game that has had a cheat element that you've been able to previously beat is FOLLY.

b) to illustrate that the effect of this is being grossly exaggerated across the board because of a statistical outlier.

I'm not a multi-accounter, I just think people are overreacting to something I don't think has THAT much effect on EV in the long run.