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#1
10-20-2007, 12:28 AM
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My first post, cheater concerns
Hi. I was convinced to post today after reading about the Absolute fiasco. Not sure if an "outsider" posting here is flame-bait, but here goes. I'm the kind of player you guys must love. I like to think I'm pretty good but the numbers clearly show I'm not. I'm playing $2.25 turbo SNGs at Tilt and lose -$0.29 a game on average despite being convinced that I'm getting better. Who knows, maybe I am. Ok, you probably could care less about a $2.25 player, I take back that part. But anyway, I was interested in online poker for the idea that you can make a lot in MTTs if you're good and play enough to hold the variance down a bit. Checking out OPR showed me how many people make good money this way, I wanted in. Now, after hearing about a few cheats (this Absolute thing, and apparently WCOOP winner was cheating? Anyone have a link to a thread about what happened there? I'd love to know details) I'm thinking, "ok, for every blatant retard they catch there must be several smarter guys who get away" and suddenly I'm wondering how many first-place finishes are simply out of reach because there will be a cheater taking that spot. And remove first-place finishes and suddenly your ROI is going to drop drastically. For a poor player like me, it makes it clear that I should not aspire to play these high-dollar online MTTs. Yeah, my $2.25 turbo SNGs are fine, I'm sure cheaters may start low like that but the successful ones probably move on at least to $10 or so, low enough to be lost in the endless sea of anonymity but high enough to make some money. I'm happy to lose say 1% of my SNGs to cheaters, or more, even 5%, and I highly HIGHLY doubt its that high. But I've gotta think twice now about heading into MTTs, even the low-dollar ones. You get 1000 people playing and there could well be a cheater or two in there and if a final table spot or two is reserved for cheaters here ... well ... it hurts your ev I'm sure. Enough to make me lose interest. And yeah, I know I'm sounding stupid since I already said I noticed how many people are making reliable income with MTTs, but those guys are probably pretty good players. For someone like me, whose margins are so small, the realization that a significant number of big-$ online MTTs could conceivably be handing first prize over to a cheater ... well, it makes me a lot less eager to work up to those stakes. And yeah, no ones going to care about losing one low-stakes player, but there might be a lot of guys like me who wanted to satellite into some real games who suddenly lost a little interest in the whole scene. Anyway, sorry for so long a post, I just got real discouraged with this cheating story and thought you pros might be interested to hear that it really IS scaring some money away from online poker.
As an aside, I tried to withdraw my $52.28 from UB in light of this (I'll play more at Tilt still ... but maybe not MTTs too much!) and saw, first, that they unashamedly state that they'll keep whatever cents you have in your account indefinately (withdraws have to be $XXXX.00 whole-dollar amounts) and that they won't cut a check for under $100, period. Not having ePassport, it seems like they're planning on keeping the whole thing. I wrote them a letter asking for help, if anyone cares to hear I can post how, if, it gets resolved. 
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#2
10-20-2007, 12:30 AM
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Post deleted by Mat Sklansky
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#3
10-20-2007, 12:39 AM
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Re: My first post, cheater concerns
uh oh first of many
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#4
10-20-2007, 01:16 AM
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Re: My first post, cheater concerns
You've basically outlined the concerns that were sure to come up from the media getting a hold of this story. While you've manged to do it in a respectful way, I commend that, try using paragraphs.
Essentially you have to look at HOW people have been cheating. Firstly in the obvious potripper example we saw someone who was high up having access to a development tool which could let him see hole cards. This is a very situational 'cheat' as pretty much no one off the street would have this type of access, and its fairly safe to say it would definately be a one off, although disturbing, example. The void, as far as anyone knows, was DQ'd for using multiple accounts, I believe under his sisters name? Correct me if I'm wrong there. This example says that he does have a slight edge on other players, who are only using one account. Its the most common form of cheating (I would imagine), but its not something that is absolutely devastating. Its also something that would / can be reasonably easy to detect and protect against through automatic features (such as flagging two players with the same IP), regardless of how many thousands playing in the tourney those flags will still kick up. Unfortunately communicating hole cards to friends over the phone, soft playing them etc will always be around, and can never be stopped. Cheating at a minor level, probably does occur, and always will. It shouldn't have enough of an effect to majority effect your ROI and turn a winning player into a bad one. Also with these minor forms of cheating does anything guarantee you something like a first place finish anyway, so its not like you take out 25% of the prize pool all the time.
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#5
10-20-2007, 01:58 AM
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Re: My first post, cheater concerns
CliffNotes: I'm a fish, but not a donator. People like me have an inflated value of our true poker skills, but play good hands well enough that we occasionally luckbox a win. Now with the prospect of facing cheaters at the table, my Faith in the Box is getting weak.
I'm not trying to be rude in any way that's just what I got from your post.
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#6
10-20-2007, 02:29 AM
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Re: My first post, cheater concerns
YOu better be more worried about the people that are cheating together online. Ive witnessed it first hand and known several people that would go into a room with 2-3 friends and "collude". A few weeks ago I got some two way radios, you know the ones you dont need a license for and my son turned them on and was listening to channel six so I heard some people talking so I said bring that to me. I listened and it was 3 guys playing poker online and cheating telling each other "I folded an Ace so your Ace is probably good" and "I made a set get out" etc......etc....I listened to the same guys for the rest of the week at night cheating at online poker cash games. Online poker is rife with cheating of all sorts.
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#7
10-20-2007, 02:48 AM
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Re: My first post, cheater concerns
[ QUOTE ]
YOu better be more worried about the people that are cheating together online. Ive witnessed it first hand and known several people that would go into a room with 2-3 friends and "collude". A few weeks ago I got some two way radios, you know the ones you dont need a license for and my son turned them on and was listening to channel six so I heard some people talking so I said bring that to me. I listened and it was 3 guys playing poker online and cheating telling each other "I folded an Ace so your Ace is probably good" and "I made a set get out" etc......etc....I listened to the same guys for the rest of the week at night cheating at online poker cash games. Online poker is rife with cheating of all sorts. [/ QUOTE ] lol.
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#9
10-20-2007, 04:25 AM
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Re: My first post, cheater concerns
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] YOu better be more worried about the people that are cheating together online. Ive witnessed it first hand and known several people that would go into a room with 2-3 friends and "collude". A few weeks ago I got some two way radios, you know the ones you dont need a license for and my son turned them on and was listening to channel six so I heard some people talking so I said bring that to me. I listened and it was 3 guys playing poker online and cheating telling each other "I folded an Ace so your Ace is probably good" and "I made a set get out" etc......etc....I listened to the same guys for the rest of the week at night cheating at online poker cash games. Online poker is rife with cheating of all sorts. [/ QUOTE ] lol. [/ QUOTE ] What does that lol stand for? Does no one here believe there are people outthere, talking on the phone or using online messenger while sitting together on one table? Isnīt that a way to cheat big time playing online? Sit down with 2 friends and send informations about your hands back and forth...
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#10
10-20-2007, 05:15 AM
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Re: My first post, cheater concerns
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] YOu better be more worried about the people that are cheating together online. Ive witnessed it first hand and known several people that would go into a room with 2-3 friends and "collude". A few weeks ago I got some two way radios, you know the ones you dont need a license for and my son turned them on and was listening to channel six so I heard some people talking so I said bring that to me. I listened and it was 3 guys playing poker online and cheating telling each other "I folded an Ace so your Ace is probably good" and "I made a set get out" etc......etc....I listened to the same guys for the rest of the week at night cheating at online poker cash games. Online poker is rife with cheating of all sorts. [/ QUOTE ] lol. [/ QUOTE ] What does that lol stand for? Does no one here believe there are people outthere, talking on the phone or using online messenger while sitting together on one table? Isnīt that a way to cheat big time playing online? Sit down with 2 friends and send informations about your hands back and forth... [/ QUOTE ] I believe it, but this is not a groundbreaking revelation. Internet poker has been around for 8 yrs now. You think people have never thought this was possible until now? More importantly, do you think it is so rampant that people who make a significant amount of money are going to quit as a result? This thread is pointless.
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