Absolute Soulreading/Rigged thread #3

[pineapple888]

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Maybe throw in a few quotes from well known players of how unlikely it would be for someone to win a tournament playing nearly every hand and the significance of the river aggression stat. I think river aggression should be defined also. From PT:

Aggression Factor - this is calculated as the (raise % + bet %) / call %. Basically what it tells you is how aggressive a player is on each street. The more times they bet/raise as opposed to just calling, the higher their aggression factor will be

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Thanks for the feedback. But I just fell asleep myself, reading that explanation of AF. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

The quotes idea is the right way to handle it, I think, and of course the journalist would do that before publishing something like this.

[Chump Change]

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That HH is what got the ball rolling on this and perked up everyone to take it seriously.

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No, it's not at all. Where are you getting that from?

[Redgrape]

We need a very convincing and dumbed down explanation of why exactly these hand histories proved the accounts were cheating. Ike's was much closer to this than the 2nd one.

[Logun]

make a live video using 10 decks of cards to deal out 10 hands and show how difficult it would be to play 9 out of those 10 hands and come out ahead. Then you can also illustrate what happens on the river where he only raises or folds.

[Redgrape]

We also need a familiar name to the poker communities, such as jman, boostedJ, aba, Barry Greenstein, etc. to back this information up.

[ClubChamp04]

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We also need a familiar name to the poker communities, such as jman, boostedJ, aba, Barry Greenstein, etc. to back this information up.

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[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[MyTurn2Raise]

pineapple's is great to reach a general audience

the other one will just fly right over a normal audience's head

[egj]

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Here you go:

SECURITY FLAW AT ABSOLUTE POKER

Shortly after a recent software upgrade at Absolute Poker, several accounts with suspicious names and identical maniacal playing styles sat down at the highest-stakes games offered there, where tens of thousands of dollars change hands every hour.

The established high-stakes online players quickly noticed these "maniac" players at the tables, and lined up to get a chance to take their money.

Amazingly, the top online pros in the world all lost to these players. Every single hand.

Since these people understand poker and statistics better than you or I ever will, they used various software tools to analyze how they could have fared better against these maniacs.

All of them came to the same conclusion: the only possible way these maniacs could have won money is if they could see their opponent's cards.

Now, there have been many, many people claiming "online poker is rigged" ever since it started. And these claims have always been dismissed easily and quickly by the statistics experts.

This time was different.

The high-stakes players posted their findings on various online poker forums, and other experts who were not directly involved quickly validated their findings, and found even more evidence:

- The maniacs had been "chip dumping", intentionally losing to other accounts as a way to try to launder their ill-gotten gains
- They had finished either dead last or in first place in a whole series of large online tournaments, another hugely improbable statistical anomaly
- Just before the Absolute Poker software upgrade, a relative unknown had posted to a popular online poker forum asking whether, and how, they could make one million dollars in a single day if they could see their opponent's hole cards.

To any thinking player who has reviewed this evidence, the conclusion is clear and inescapable: Absolute Poker's server security has been compromised.

Now, this isn't a reason for anyone to conclude that "online poker is rigged" in general. This appears to be an isolated incident at a single online site (although highly unfortunate for the honest players involved who lost money). Absolute Poker has already suspended the accounts of these maniacs, and claims to be conducting a full investigation.

In the name of fairness, and to reassure the poker community about the safety of play at Absolute Poker and at other online poker sites, we call on Absolute Poker to remiburse the players who lost money to these scam artists, to publish a full analysis of the security leaks and how they have been sealed, and to commission a third-party audit of their internal security systems.

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My two cents, for whatever it's worth.

I agree with others that this is basically very clear, which is great, but I think it needs a bit more substance; i.e., evidence. I think you can bring in the "river aggression" evidence without every using that term which no one will know. Something like this:

From examining the data, one thing stood out above all others. On the last round of betting (after all the cards had been dealt out), the suspicious accounts always raised or folded - they never ever simply called a bet. While some players with aggressive playing styles will often raise or fold, it is unheard of to *never* call. The experts asked themselves - in what circumstances would it make sense to always raise or fold, and never to call. The clear answer is that if you know your opponents' cards, then clearly you should raise (if you have the best hand) or fold (if you do not). Calling never makes sense if you are 100% sure of whether you have the best hand. For normal players who do not know what cards their opponents hold, calling is often clearly the best option when you think you may have the best hand, but you are not sure.

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- Just before the Absolute Poker software upgrade, a relative unknown had posted to a popular online poker forum asking whether, and how, they could make one million dollars in a single day if they could see their opponent's hole cards.

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I would definitely leave that part out. It's very weak evidence, and any weak evidence causes the whole account to lose credibility.

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Amazingly, the top online pros in the world all lost to these players. Every single hand.

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That's simply not true, is it ("every single hand")? Perhaps better to say: "Amazingly, the top online pros all lost to these players, at an astonishingly rapid rate.".

[iron81]

We should keep in mind that the remarkable thing about the river aggression isn't merely that it is high, its that he's almost always right when he does it. Any monkey can jam the river, but the suspicious part is doing it correctly 20 or 30 times in a row. I felt that was getting lost in the accounts.

Also, if we're contacting media outlets, it would probably be helpful to direct them to the HSLHE threads. The is much more concise and concrete analysis there.

[e_phemeral]

I think the information in these threads needs to be provided to the poker media (Cardplayer, Bluff, etc.) but you have to let them analyze the facts and write the story. I don't think that it makes sense to try to "negotiate" with Absolute - e.g., hey absolute, if you don't straighten all of this out we are going to the media, etc. - I suspect that this story will eventually makes its way into the poker media anyway. The people in these threads with first hand knowledge and respectability in the poker world need to be the ones to bring it to the poker media. That way, the story can at least be controlled from the outset.

Once the story is in the media, what happens will happen. Either (a) Absolute admits to the security flaw, apologizes profusely, fixes the flaw, revamps their security, agrees to reimburse affected players, etc. or (b) does nothing and people continue to push this in the media and eventually people start yanking their money off of the site. Ultimately, this will be a good thing for online poker if the story gets out and all of the sites redouble their efforts to maintain security. And if Absolute goes down because of this, then so be it, that's a warning shot across the bow of the other sites to make sure this kind of thing cannot happen. So what if in the short term some fishy newbies stay away from online poker. In the long term, burying this situation under the rug privately with AP could be much much worse for online poker.

Also, as a lawyer, I would completely eliminate from this discussion all of the allegations about Mark Seif being involved in the cheating. I have not see anything in these threads other than various circumstantial stuff implicating him. The fact is that there is evidence here of cheating, but it is impossible for the people in these threads to determine who was/is doing the cheating. Absolute is in the best position to do that. I am not a litigator, but I have to believe that accusing a professional poker player, and semi-public figure, of cheating in the game that is his profession is pretty serious and could lead to a libel lawsuit.