PXF question (possible multi-accounting)..

[degeneratedonk]

For anyone familiar with PXF and how the HH uploading playback works, what is the liklihood that two players in the same large field tournament on Stars would both have their hole cards viewable preflop every hand?

As I understand it the hole cards of both players being visible when they are at the same table could be explained by both of them having uploaded HH's from the same tournament--which is conceivable since they both went very deep. But that would mean they both have to be paying subscribers to PXF right? You can't upload full HH's unless you're a paid subsciber right? They both have to have their HH's marked "public" as well.

Here's the thing .. one of these players won the tourney on Stars. Very late into it (and long after I first noticed both their hole cards were visible when at same table) he raised a reraise of the other player in question all-in with a marginal hand and ended up stacking him. Chips could easily have gone to the other player who didn't have that much less of a stack. I won't call it a 'chip dumping' but it certainly didn't make sense given stacks relative to the blinds. The players in question both seem to play about the same style also.

I'm not familiar enough with PXF to make a sound judgement here and I'll concede that any one of these issues I've raised in and of itself shouldn't cause undue suspicion. However to see that peculiar all-in confrontation at the FT after my suspicions were already piqued really has me wondering.

Please don't ask for names or the tourney in question. I'm not going to risk anyone being defamed by what right now is no more than a casual concern. I just want feedback about PXF or Stars that might put my concerns to rest here.

[Ontario_Tory]

if you're concerned, send an email to Stars with the details. They'll look into it, and you don't have to worry about defaming anybody (especially in a 'public' forum such as this).

[Sherman]

To the OP,
I really don't understand your question or exactly what transpired. If you have an actualy HH (w/out names) it would be a lot easier for people to tell you whether we thought it was collusion or not. Also, just because two players who went deep in a tourney posted the same HH on PXF doesn't mean they are colluding. In fact, it is probably less likely that they are colluding/multi-accounting. Think about it. If you were multi-accounting would you post both HHs on PXF? I sure wouldn't.

To OT,
Your avatar change confused me.

[degeneratedonk]

[ QUOTE ]
if you're concerned, send an email to Stars with the details. They'll look into it, and you don't have to worry about defaming anybody (especially in a 'public' forum such as this).

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd rather not involve Stars until I know more about PXF. I did send an email to PXF and they responded, but all they said is that when players upload HH's their HH's "combine" with those of others. This means apparently that if two players who are both subscribing members of PXF (which is not cheap incidentally) both upload their hand histories from the same tourney--which doesn't seem particularly likely--and both have them marked "public", that could account for why both their hole cards were visible at the tables they were on together.

It would be one thing if this were a common occurence, but in the thousands of PXF HH's I've looked at I'v never seen it before. Has anyone else? It's very hard for me to believe anyone would be foolish enough to upload HH's if they did happen to be multi-accounting or colluding with someone on the same computer network, but I've seen more brazen stupidity.

The PXF response unfortunately doesn't tell me near enough to put the issue to rest, so I may eventually end up getting Stars involved. I'll probably look really dumb doing it, but I'll own that if it means possibly nailing a very high-profile cheater.

[degeneratedonk]

Posting the HH would alert one of the players in question. If there's nothing to this I don't want to make an enemy out of him. Even if I just told you the hand it wouldn't be that hard to find out who it is, or for him to know who I'm talking about.

I will say this.. when raised at the FT (7 left) with a hand that is very commonly dominated (at least a 66-33 dog) and almost never anything better than a coinflip at best, he came over the top and went all-in against the other guy (who he had covered by about 3-2) while his M was still a very respectable "10" with the real big money at hand. Wouldn't normally raise too much suspicion but here it had to. The reraise was getting called as raiser had 1/4 of his stack committed and would have been left with an M of about 4 had he folded. It was a blinds confrontation (bigger stack was BB) but it still seems like too dumb a play for reasonable explanation. If I were looking for a chip dumping scenario it fit the bill to a T.

[dave6]

[ QUOTE ]
Posting the HH would alert one of the players in question. If there's nothing to this I don't want to make an enemy out of him. Even if I just told you the hand it wouldn't be that hard to find out who it is, or for him to know who I'm talking about.

I will say this.. when raised at the FT (7 left) with a hand that is very commonly dominated (at least a 66-33 dog) and almost never anything better than a coinflip at best, he came over the top and went all-in against the other guy (who he had covered by about 3-2) while his M was still a very respectable "10" with the real big money at hand. Wouldn't normally raise too much suspicion but here it had to. The reraise was getting called as raiser had 1/4 of his stack committed and would have been left with an M of about 4 had he folded. It was a blinds confrontation (bigger stack was BB) but it still seems like too dumb a play for reasonable explanation. If I were looking for a chip dumping scenario it fit the bill to a T.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok I'm confused -- it folded around to the blinds right? Then SB put in a standard raise and BB pushed? From your description of BB's hand he probably has something like KQ or KJ. sn't this a totally standard play HU? Especially if BB puts SB on a range of any two cards? Are you positive that BB didn't have any FE?

[slickmick777]

god if every bad shove that i have done made people report me to stars i think that the site would melt down. if it was a small buy in tourney then bad shoves are common even if it was a big buy in tourney someone may be out of their depth at the final table and make a bad push. so i dont think that 1 bad play can realisticly be considered as
collusion.

[degeneratedonk]

It wasn't the marginal play at the end. My suspicions were raised early on by the fact both players hole cards were visible in the replayer, all 50 or so hands they played at the same table throughout the tourney. They also looked to be playing about the same style. I thought to myself "keep an eye on these two, at some point if it is the same player or different players on the same network they will chip dump to one another." Sure enough 200 hands later they are at the final table and one player ends up with all the other's chips in a questionable play. Is it the worst push I've ever seen, not even close. Nonetheless it fits perfectly with a multi-accounting scheme.

I have not decided there is fraud here, I just have some concerns I was hoping someone might aleviate with an explanation of how all this is perfectly unremarkable.

Like I said I've replayed thousands of hands in the PXF replayer and I've never seen more than one players hole cards visible preflop before (every hand, whether they showdown or not).

The most likely explanation is that both players are paid subscribers to PXF (which has a $179.00 up front fee and $25 a month dues thereafter) and just happened to both upload the very same tournament HH.

That doesn't seem like a given to me, should it? PXF is a niche site, I doubt they have that many paid subscribers.

[Sherman]

Yes they do.