PokerStars say you can break their rules

[Josem]

[ QUOTE ]
so you do work for pokerstars on the side?
thx for clarifying =)

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't - never have, and don't envisage it in the future

[/ QUOTE ]


I am far too easy to troll.

[Alobar]

[ QUOTE ]
I think Stars handled it very well.

[/ QUOTE ]

[jbsc7769]

Reading this thread reminded me of an article that was written by Lee Jones a few years ago. I managed to find it with the assistance of Google. Despite the fact that he worked as PokerStars' Card Room Manager, it does address this very issue and is somewhat relevant as it explains the stance that is taken:

""How many days has it been since I was born?"

This isn't a column about hold'em strategy. If you want to learn hold'em strategy today, read Barry Tanenbaum's column. Heck, if you want to learn hold'em strategy anytime, go read Barry Tanenbaum's column.

This column, in fact, comes from a thread (ah, a series of threads) on the rec.gambling.poker newsgroup ("RGP"). RGP is (like most Usenet newsgroups) filled with a lot of blather and trash: off-topic political rants, questions about the sexual preferences of poker celebrities, and other wastes of perfectly good electrons. But there are a few die-hard poker veterans who stick around there, asking and answering reasonable questions.

The thread (a series of posts on a single subject) that caught my attention was about dealing with "chat-cheaters." Here is the problem: Consider an online supersatellite tournament that is giving away 15 seats to a larger tournament. As the tournament gets down to two tables (18 players), the excitement builds as the remaining players realize that all but three of them are going to get seats. And an interesting phenomenon takes place - a phenomenon that's contrary to everything that poker is about: The players at a single table often start rooting for each other! "Wait - poker is a one-man or one-woman game; you against everybody else." I agree - it should be. But supersatellites make for strange bedfellows. After all, the person who comes in 15th in this event gets exactly the same prize as the person who comes in first. So, if you're planning to come in third, you can spend a little emotional energy rooting for the players fighting for the last few seats.

Of course, it's one thing to "root" for players at your table; it's altogether different to do anything about it, and unfortunately that line gets crossed on occasion. Sometimes, the players at one table will suggest (via chat) that they all constantly fold all the way around the table to the big blind. This will keep everybody at the table alive while they wait for real poker at the other table to bust out the necessary three players.

This behavior, or even the discussion thereof, is cheating - plain and simple.

Thus, the discussion on RGP took place. The veterans in that newsgroup are understandably appalled by this sort of thing. "Off with their heads!" goes the cry. Well, more correctly, the cry is for disqualification of the perpetrators - or, at the very least, removing their chat for a while, teaching them a thing or two. Since I'm the poker room manager for PokerStars.com, I review these complaints when the problem occurs at our site (although it happens at all sites, of course).

At PokerStars, we are relatively lenient with people who do this if it's their first offense, and I believe this is exactly the right response. Here's why:

Poker has been experiencing record growth. Not only is it record growth, it's really unimaginable growth - numbers that nobody could have possibly forecast. Consider this: The larger poker sites (PokerStars included) have doubled their business yearly over the last few years. Of all the players on our site today, half were not playing there (or likely anywhere online) a year ago. The players who have been playing for two years make up less than a quarter of the online poker population today. So, a large majority of the players on PokerStars and every other poker site are novices.

Well, what could serious poker players want more than a constant influx of new players? These people are new to the game, are just learning, and make lots of rookie mistakes. Most of those rookie mistakes will give money to the veterans. They overvalue their weak hands. They don't push their strong hands for full value. They call when they should fold. They call when they should raise. And you know what? They really don't mind. Most of them are playing for entertainment, and they're playing for stakes that they can afford to lose (which is wise). But, they're playing poker, just like they see on TV!

Indeed, this seemingly endless wave of novices is very profitable for the (good) veteran players. But there is another side of it. That is, many of them don't know proper poker etiquette and protocol. How could they? Nobody teaches this sort of thing, it's (mostly) not in the books, and even if it were in the books, few of the novices read the books, anyway. And I don't think you really want them reading the books before they start playing, do you?

So, everything they know about poker etiquette, they learned at the kitchen table, the neighborhood bar, or a frat house common room. In short, they know almost nothing about proper poker etiquette and protocol. And that brings us back to the original point of this column. It is this very ignorance of the rules that often starts chat-cheating discussions as I've described above. They are novices, and they don't know any better.

Now, we could throw the book at them. We could disqualify them and take away the hard-won seat in the target tournament. Or, we could take away their chat - silence them online for a while as penance.

I can't think of a quicker way to scare them away from the game, can you?

They're already nervous and a bit frightened. They know they're rookies and they know that some of their opponents are grizzled veterans of the table. If sites come down hard on them for infractions that they didn't even know were infractions, what are they going to do? They're going to leave. And they're going to tell their friends and family what a miserable experience it was. Life has enough stress without being sanctioned by a poker site, where you went to have fun.

So, we educate them - and are the first people to do so. We explain that what they're doing is against the rules, and why. We tell them that we're going easy on them - once - and that in the future, there will be stiffer penalties (and there are).

We are, for now, living in the "eternal September" of poker (check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September for more about this term). The novices will eventually become veterans, and our wonderful pastime will grow and thrive. Until then, let's cut them all a little slack, make them welcome, and keep the long-term view in sight."

The above was taken from the Card Player website at:
http://www.cardplayer.com/author/article/all/41/7313

[Rek]

[ QUOTE ]
you are a sore loser, no way about it!

when you say its not about the money its laughable, 6 emails proves its about the freaking money

[/ QUOTE ]


Wow! Wtf guys? I may be a newbie poster here but a newbie poker player I am not. I have been playing over 20 years live and online since 2004 have played over 5000 S&G’s across most sites. In addition to cash games. If you want to Sharkscope a couple its Rekrab at Full Tilt and William Hill. I am not a college kid scratching around for a freaking measly $25. I earn very good money in my day job and more than enough online playing poker.

SERIOUSLY it has **** all to do with the money. There is a principle here – we should all be subject to a set of rules. We all know them and IMHO if there is the remotest possibility that any player loses out due to someone breaking the rules you should be refunded.

It is like the PokerStars Appreciation Society here. I agree their customer service is second to done (I even say so in one of the emails). However, I think they were wrong here and so kept on.

I would bet that had they refunded my buy-in and deducted it from the rule breaker and he posted on here that he had broken the said rule and been penalised ALL you same posters would be saying “you broke the rules wtf do you expect”.

PokerStars is a seriously good site with great support but it doesn’t make them immune to errors.

I have already accepted I am out numbered here on this one and said lets move on. I am being blasted for doing nothing but trying to play by the rules.

Thanks again for some of the more constructive comments.


Great post above by jbsc7769 - these are the sort of inputs that help. Not just dumb "PokerStars must be right" comments

[chicken10der]

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps it would be better if there was just one rule - that being "there are no rules"

[/ QUOTE ]
man you can't tell me this isn't one of the most melodramatic and whiniest things ever said. saying it's ok to give a one-time warning instead of a $ penalty = there are no repercussions for anything ever in online poker. get a grip on reality.

[Rek]

chicken10der really makes the most pathetic and worthless posts. If you bother reading what I have said I accept I am out voted here. Try engaging brain before keyboard and think of something constructive to say. Learn from jbsc7769.

Let's wait for his next pearl of wisdom

[Henry17]

I have to agree with PokerStars on this one

1) There is no reason to assume the player might not have folded anyway. He might have called he might not have called. He was still thinking about it.

2) The rules were broken in that a hand was discussed while it was still in play (something I see at least once or twice a week) but there is no way to determine that the other player actually believed him. If I player tells me he has a certain hand I am not going to fold my hand based on that information. If players actually behaved like that I'd just play any two and then yell out that I had whatever the nuts happened to be and have everyone fold to me.

3) In this case you have a very easy situation. On the bubble with a call by the other player leading to him being eliminated. But what if the case was he'd just be crippled or what if there was 4 players not 3 and the same thing happened? How far and to what extent should the site be willing to counterfactualize?

4) It is $25. At 6 e-mails you are at just over $4 per e-mail. Honestly is that what your time is worth?

[El_Hombre_Grande]

You need to play live poker once or twice, and you would understand that several of the rules regarding table talk are not enforced with an ironfist.

This is exactly the ruling i would have anticipated.

[earck]

[ QUOTE ]
How would FTP or a Crypto site have handled this.

[/ QUOTE ]

He would still be waiting for a response.

[qpw]

Why are there so many sanctimonious arseholes on poker forums?

I agree that PS handled the situation well, an the quoted article by Lee Jones articulates their thinking well.

But that's no reason for the all the rudeness to OP.

Different people have different views on various rule breaking and OP was quite happy to accept that his thinking was in the minority here.

Most posters simply gave their views politely, but a few just had to go that little bit further and be objectionable.

Why?


PS. You may well find this post to be self referential!