Mr. Gatorade’s Lies cost me over 70k at Full Tilt

[13ball]

Are you going to file a complaint with the wannahawkalougie thing or not?

[BeatMe1]

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Are you absolutely certain that the e-mail dated Thu, 24 May 2007 15:17:07 -0700 (PDT) was the very first e-mail you received regarding this?

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Yes

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In other words, are you claiming that prior to this e-mail you had no other notice from FTP that you were the subject of any investigation or that your account was in jeopardy?

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Correct

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Are you also claiming that this entire matter was investigated and concluded over the short period of just six days, i.e., 24-29 May?


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From my perspective it was concluded on the 24th.

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If indeed this is what you are claiming, and if indeed this is the truth, then I'm strongly inclined to agree that FTP's procedures of investigation and notification in this case are highly questionable.


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I could not agree with you more.

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However, if there are other e-mails you exchanged with FTP regarding this matter prior to May 24, I suggest you share those with us as well.


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I have included everything and suggested that FTP verify that what I say is so.

[Guthrie]

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FT said they would show Mike Haven the evidence and he could report for us, this seems perfectly fine as we entered into a contract that would not even allow us this. I have no problem with how FT handled this all this 'sky is falling' attitude is pretty stupid IMO.

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It's only stupid when it's someone else's money. Your attitude would probably change if it happened to you.

[cwar]

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FT said they would show Mike Haven the evidence and he could report for us, this seems perfectly fine as we entered into a contract that would not even allow us this. I have no problem with how FT handled this all this 'sky is falling' attitude is pretty stupid IMO.

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It's only stupid when it's someone else's money. Your attitude would probably change if it happened to you.

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It would suck yes but I understand its a possibility when I play at FT. I personally think he is guilty and this is pretty clear to be honest but this is besides the point. FT is under no obligation to do anything for you, its not a court of law you must understand this when you play at FT or any other poker site. Think about FTs track record with the NL bots, if they were so hesitant to 'convict' them they must have something pretty damning to take beatme1's money. The fact that FTPdoug is willing to give Mike Haven evidence to look at makes me very content with the way they have handled everything, how should they have handled it differently?

[BeatMe1]

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I personally think he is guilty


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WHY?

[sethypooh21]

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It would suck yes but I understand its a possibility when I play at FT. I personally think he is guilty and this is pretty clear to be honest but this is besides the point.

[/ QUOTE ]Based on what, but yes it is largely irrelevant.
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FT is under no obligation to do anything for you,

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False. In addition to anything else, there's (sorry, legalese) an implied covenant of good faith an fair dealing attached to the T&C. Proving a violation of this is tricky, but taking your money and not really telling you why (if that's in fact what happened. And no "you be botting" is not really sufficient, IMO) is arguably a breach of this covenant.
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its not a court of law you must understand this when you play at FT or any other poker site.

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I don't understand what you mean by this. Yes there is a certain degree of caveat emptor involved, but that doesn't mean we have agreed to get screwed. Also, and I've said this about 10 times in this thread, the harsher terms of the T&C would almost certainly not be binding on us, the user. (Not to say that botting would be allowed, but certainly a confiscation of funds without a rather detailed explanation is not something they would likely get away with.)
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Think about FTs track record with the NL bots, if they were so hesitant to 'convict' them they must have something pretty damning to take beatme1's money.

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Not so. First of all, as was discussed somewhere upthread, a ring of multi-tabling mid-stakes FR grinders generates a lot more rake relative to BR then does a HS HULHE. How long would it take for beatme to play to generate 70k in rake?

Second, there's something perverse about using FTP's past suckage in dealing with bot issues as evidence that they are dealing with this one fairly and correctly.

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The fact that FTPdoug is willing to give Mike Haven evidence to look at makes me very content with the way they have handled everything,

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Once they in fact do this, and Mike weighs in, I'll feel better, but not much. That it will have taken almost a week of roiling debate on this forum for them to reach a jury-rigged solution of a problem they should already have considered is disconcerting.

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how should they have handled it differently?

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They should have been much more proactive, both in this particular incident and their policies. I'm not arguing that they don't have an interest in safeguarding their bot and/or collusion detection methods. However, that is not a sufficient rationale for what amounts to "black box" (actually, in practice more like Magic 8-Ball) decision making on these issues.

Absent meaningful regulation, all FTP has is consumer confidence, and while some people are not bothered by the lack of process in this case, it's pretty clear from this thread that many are bothered. Hopefully, this, and the NL bots case, will be the stimulus FTP needs to come up with a policy which gives adequate public explanations of these decisions.

[cwar]

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Once they in fact do this, and Mike weighs in, I'll feel better, but not much. That it will have taken almost a week of roiling debate on this forum for them to reach a jury-rigged solution of a problem they should already have considered is disconcerting.

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This is not true, they dealt with it long before this. Their response time on this forum is not the issue they obviously have better things to do and the fact that FTPdoug comes around and talks to us personally is a great benefit to us but our 2p2 community is not the end all of the poker world however much we (including me) like to think it is.
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False. In addition to anything else, there's (sorry, legalese) an implied covenant of good faith an fair dealing attached to the T&C. Proving a violation of this is tricky, but taking your money and not really telling you why (if that's in fact what happened. And no "you be botting" is not really sufficient, IMO) is arguably a breach of this covenant.

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They were able to prove (in their minds) that beatme1 was botting for which there is a specific consequence, they have all the HHs and evidence Im not exactly sure why beatme1 needs to provide more info for them they already have it all. Saying that this is a breach of a good faith covenant is a large stretch at best.
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I don't understand what you mean by this. Yes there is a certain degree of caveat emptor involved, but that doesn't mean we have agreed to get screwed. Also, and I've said this about 10 times in this thread, the harsher terms of the T&C would almost certainly not be binding on us, the user. (Not to say that botting would be allowed, but certainly a confiscation of funds without a rather detailed explanation is not something they would likely get away with.)

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You want them to detail to a botter how they caught him? This makes little sense to me, not only that but they are willing (because the 2p2 community is worried about this seizure) to calm our worries by providing the evidence to a respected member to review. They can do this in their own time as the 2p2 community is not their number one concern, the fact that they are doing it is a big plus in my mind.
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Once they in fact do this, and Mike weighs in, I'll feel better, but not much. That it will have taken almost a week of roiling debate on this forum for them to reach a jury-rigged solution of a problem they should already have considered is disconcerting.


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I fail to see how this is a 'jury-rigged' solution its the perfect solution, we can get a review of the evidence and no information about how to make a better undetectable bot is released. The only problem is they did not provide an adequate explanation to YOU (2p2 community) they very well could have sent emails to beatme1 that we did not get to see, I hardly expect someone who has had 70k seized to be worried about changing a few facts or omitting a few details, beatme1 actually stated his purpose was to cause FT pain so they would deal with him, well they already have dealt with him he is just unhappy with the decision.
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Absent meaningful regulation, all FTP has is consumer confidence, and while some people are not bothered by the lack of process in this case, it's pretty clear from this thread that many are bothered. Hopefully, this, and the NL bots case, will be the stimulus FTP needs to come up with a policy which gives adequate public explanations of these decisions.

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They are providing an explanation without giving away bot detecting info I still fail to see your problem with this. They came to two separate decisions in very similar cases, you say its because of the difference in rakeback but that is just a guess and could be and likely is far from the truth, in my mind FT is trying their best and doing at least a decent job. Also you are acting like there are no bots on other sites maybe FT isnt doing the best job but its way better than UB, AP, WPEX (havent been following but maybe WPEX got better) and also PS doesnt have to deal with this as much because they do not have rakeback. Yeah FT isnt doing the best job but for the sites available to US players they are definitely #2 in my mind.

[sethypooh21]

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This is not true, they dealt with it long before this. Their response time on this forum is not the issue they obviously have better things to do and the fact that FTPdoug comes around and talks to us personally is a great benefit to us but our 2p2 community is not the end all of the poker world however much we (including me) like to think it is.

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I grant you that 2p2 is not the end all of the poker world. HOWEVER, from a customer confidence standpoint, the system they have sucks. Regardless of how accurate it is in detecting bots (and honestly, if it takes Crazy Mike to bring botters to their attention, I'm not sanguine on that front), it is just as important for them that the poker community has confidence in the accuracy and fairness
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They were able to prove (in their minds) that beatme1 was botting for which there is a specific consequence, they have all the HHs and evidence Im not exactly sure why beatme1 needs to provide more info for them they already have it all. Saying that this is a breach of a good faith covenant is a large stretch at best.


[/ QUOTE ]On the last point, I disagree. Neither of us are privy to the full facts of the case, but based on what we know, it's possible. Is it dealing in good faith to take 70k and in response to the inevitable "WTF?" say, "we have our reasons, but we aren't telling you?"
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You want them to detail to a botter how they caught him? This makes little sense to me, not only that but they are willing (because the 2p2 community is worried about this seizure) to calm our worries by providing the evidence to a respected member to review. They can do this in their own time as the 2p2 community is not their number one concern, the fact that they are doing it is a big plus in my mind.


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Do you even bother to read what people have been saying? No, we don't want bot detection methods disclosed. Like I said, when/if Mike reviews the evidence and is satisfied, that will go a long way for me, in this particular case. But the process still sucks, and that they apparently haven't given any thought to providing at least the appearance of a basic standard of fairness is indicative of a generalizable "ready, fire, aim" attitude which seems prevalent at FTP. (See yesterday's update, and the lack of beta testing. Yeah, they fixed it in a few hours, but a competent company would have worked those bugs out pre-release and/or rolled the update back until they had done so.)
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I fail to see how this is a 'jury-rigged' solution its the perfect solution, we can get a review of the evidence and no information about how to make a better undetectable bot is released. The only problem is they did not provide an adequate explanation to YOU (2p2 community) they very well could have sent emails to beatme1 that we did not get to see, I hardly expect someone who has had 70k seized to be worried about changing a few facts or omitting a few details, beatme1 actually stated his purpose was to cause FT pain so they would deal with him, well they already have dealt with him he is just unhappy with the decision.

[/ QUOTE ]Ok, there's so much wrong here.

A) Allowing Mike to review the evidence is fine so far as it goes. The fact that it took a week of controversy for them to assent in prospect (has it happened yet?) to a pretty simple solution is a problem. The fact that they have given no forethought to this situation is a problem, which is exacerbated by their less than stellar track record on this front.

B) Yes, it is a big problem that they haven't presented an adequate explanation to the poker community. As I mentioned in my OP, absent regulation, we need to have a baseline of trust with a site, or we take our business elsewhere (a big reason I play on Stars, not FTP, fwiw). Maybe I'm being unreasonable in seeking assurances that I have some recourse should Crazy Mike decide I'm a bot. But I doubt it, and even if I am, a completely non-scientific survey of those posting in this thread indicates I'm not the only one.

C) You're dismissal of beatme as untrustworthy since she's been accused of botting is shocking. It's also a completely non-falsifiable statement that she's acting like she would if she's guilty. She's acting like she would if she was innocent as well. (Where's her evidence, you might ask? Well what's the evidence against her that she has to refute? At this point, the public charges haven;t gone much beyond 'you are a bot' 'no I'm not' 'are too'; a timing tell which is of questionable accuracy WRT beatme and odd game selection, which she has provided a plausible if not convincing to all, explanation.

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They are providing an explanation without giving away bot detecting info I still fail to see your problem with this. They came to two separate decisions in very similar cases, you say its because of the difference in rakeback but that is just a guess and could be and likely is far from the truth, in my mind FT is trying their best and doing at least a decent job. Also you are acting like there are no bots on other sites maybe FT isnt doing the best job but its way better than UB, AP, WPEX (havent been following but maybe WPEX got better) and also PS doesnt have to deal with this as much because they do not have rakeback. Yeah FT isnt doing the best job but for the sites available to US players they are definitely #2 in my mind.

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This is a complete red herring and an appeal to emotion. BOTS ARE BAD, I get that. That has no bearing on whether or not any specific allegation of botness is true. To say they have provided an explanation is pretty laughable, actually. THIS IS NOT TO SAY THAT THEY ARE WRONG, it's just to say that their disclosures to this point are completely unconvincing.

It's easy to simply take their word for it when it's somebody else's $70k.

Again, I recognize the importance of protecting their detection methods, but that is not, and cannot be treated as the only concern.

[Humble Pie]

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WHY?

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You seem guilty of some sort of wrong doing to me because some of your claims seem less than reasonable. The main point that I can't rest with it is that you claim to have played HU winning poker for years and you have never used any sort of software to track your results and or your opponets results. Obviously this doesn't seem like a big deal to you but it just doesn't ring true. One more question for you. How much $ did you make on FTP over the time you played there?

[sethypooh21]

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WHY?

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You seem guilty of some sort of wrong doing to me because some of your claims seem less than reasonable. The main point that I can't rest with it is that you claim to have played HU winning poker for years and you have never used any sort of software to track your results and or your opponets results. Obviously this doesn't seem like a big deal to you but it just doesn't ring true. One more question for you. How much $ did you make on FTP over the time you played there?

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Read the HS limit forum. There are several regs who don't use PT so have to ask people about their own stats.