Absolute Poker's Official Response to "superuser" allegations

[adanthar]

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Of course it is possible that this is happening every day on every poker website. Anyone who claims this is an isolated incident is full of sh*t. This is just the only time that someone has used their edge in such a retarded and blatant manner, and in big money cash games and tournies, as to alert smart intelligent players in the online poker community to the fact that something fishy was going on. Smart players with this ability would just lie low under the radar quietly raking in tons of money but never being so blatant about it as to raise suscpicion.

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People keep saying that, but the high stakes games on every single site have been datamined for just about forever and no single player has ever jumped out 1/100 as much as this.

Basically, if someone else is doing the same thing on Stars/FTP/Prima/UB/etc., they're making the same 3-5 BB/100 as every other winning regular at 25/50. This makes them the greatest poker player alive sans hole card cam, because they're successfully losing exactly the right amount of pots to compensate for the 2-3 big pots a session they're supposed to cheat themselves into.

[Red_Diamond]

Well, for my four cents...

If what AP says is true, that there was no cheating going on. Then 2+2 really needs to hire this player to write a whole volume of the next 2+2 books. Obviously, he must have a wealth of poker information that is not available in any of the books, nor do I expect they could fill even 100 of them.

But then again, if you're THAT good, why would you give away your secrets?

[ibluffoldladies]

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Of course it is possible that this is happening every day on every poker website. Anyone who claims this is an isolated incident is full of sh*t. This is just the only time that someone has used their edge in such a retarded and blatant manner, and in big money cash games and tournies, as to alert smart intelligent players in the online poker community to the fact that something fishy was going on. Smart players with this ability would just lie low under the radar quietly raking in tons of money but never being so blatant about it as to raise suscpicion.

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People keep saying that, but the high stakes games on every single site have been datamined for just about forever and no single player has ever jumped out 1/100 as much as this.

Basically, if someone else is doing the same thing on Stars/FTP/Prima/UB/etc., they're making the same 3-5 BB/100 as every other winning regular at 25/50. This makes them the greatest poker player alive sans hole card cam, because they're successfully losing exactly the right amount of pots to compensate for the 2-3 big pots a session they're supposed to cheat themselves into.

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I'll propose a theory that sites could just rotate accounts and pull off the same thing (albeit not as moronic as potripper) and still fly under the radar while making 5-10k a week or whatever.

[dergitarrist]

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Suddenly U.S. regulation is sounding like not such a bad thing.

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As a European, It never ceases to amaze me how some Americans tend to think everything on the whole world is subject to their regulation..

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Obviously the regulations from Europe aren't getting the job done if this is happening.

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You do realize that you're missing my point, right? The U.S. are a super-power but they're not all the world depends on. You CANNOT regulate something that is spread all over the globe and operates from locations such as Costa Rica.. some day Americans will have to realize this. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[KEW]

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"I for one am done playing online poker. Bring on the B&M."

I view this risk as the same thing as running into a "card mechanic" dealer in a B&M...In fact I would worry more about a "live" dealer "stacking the deck" then I would an Internet site security...

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IMO that's a crazy comparison. Maybe I don't know enough about "mechanics" and their "art", but I think the risk of running into collusion, hacking or any other form of cheating at on online poker site is much higher than the risk of running into a crooked dealer at a reputable B&M casino. Moreover, having the ability to see other people's hole cards is a much more devastating advantage to have over your opponents than to be working with a crooked dealer who can deal you the nuts every now and then.

Anyone who tries to minimize this hole card scandal is either (a) foolish, (b) a winning player worried that the "online is rigged" cry will dry up their action or (c) a freaking cheater.

The bottom line is that IMO it has been proven without a doubt that certain players on Absolute could see other player's hole cards. That is astounding, isn't it?!?!? That is f*cked up, isn't it?!?!? I can understand how a winning player might react to this information with a bit of skepticism and a kind of "ok, that's great, let's just fix the problem quietly" kind of attitude, but come on. This is bad bad bad for online poker.

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I agree, this is "bad bad" for online poker. So, please, everyone stop ***** talking about it! It happened, and I'm sure it happens elsewhere, AP is just the only place where someone has been stupid enough to get caught. We all know the risks of playing online, but we accept those risks as soon as we deposit money on to the account. I am trying to minimize this whole thing because yes, I am a winning player and I DON'T want online poker to go away. The more people bitch about this whole thing the more likely it is that all of online poker will go down for it. So please, if you are unhappy with AP, don't F****ING play there. But I am very happy playing there, so please don't ruin it for me and others like me.

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While I agree it's a bad bad thing I do not think it will kill or has to kill online poker..What I feel is important is how Absolute handles the situation...IMO this situation needed somebody on the "inside"...I would like to Absolute step up to plate and explain what and how it happen..Honesty and forthcoming would go along way...Lies, deceit and covering up will have a worse impact then a 100% honest admission of what went wrong..Security breaches and computer "hack" attacks happen in all industries...

I certainly do not think this issue should be shoved under the rug..Absolute needs to be held accountable..

Online poker survived when the RNG was cracked on a site it will easily survive this...IMO this will and should not hit mainstream media and the very few "fish" will ever know about it...

[Josem]

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This has been asked before but not really responded too:

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Yes, it has actually.

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So it is perfectly reasonable to assume that other other major sites have been hacked as well, and the super user accounts are just not caught because they play more reasonable, and quietly make $1,000's.

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No - as a general rule in life, it is a bad idea to believe things are happening if you have no evidence to make you think they are happening.

To make an analogy - this is disagreeing with a George Bush policy, and thinking less of Hillary Clinton as a result. Whether or not you're a fan on George Bush, it is obviously silly to blame Hillary for his actions.

The same thing is happening here - Absolute is crap, so you're being critical of PokerStars (or Party or FTP or whatever)

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Do we just accept that this is the reality of playing online poker?

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No - because it is not the reality of playing online poker.

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Of course it is possible that this is happening every day on every poker website.

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Please provide the evidence of this.

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Anyone who claims this is an isolated incident is full of sh*t.

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No - anyone claims this is an isolated incident is a rational person who only believes stuff when there is a reason to believe stuff.

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Maybe I don't know enough about "mechanics" and their "art", but I think the risk of running into collusion, hacking or any other form of cheating at on online poker site is much higher than the risk of running into a crooked dealer at a reputable B&M casino.

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I assume you're kidding here.

Total number of dodgy operators in the history of online poker: Two - Planet Poker & Absolute Poker.

Total number of dodgy operators in the history of live poker: Countless

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Anyone who tries to minimize this hole card scandal is either (a) foolish, (b) a winning player worried that the "online is rigged" cry will dry up their action or (c) a freaking cheater.

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I am not trying to "minimise" the scandal (I created a website to expose this, for goodness sake!) but rather, acting & thinking rationally.

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The bottom line is that IMO it has been proven without a doubt that certain players on Absolute could see other player's hole cards. That is astounding, isn't it?!?!? That is [censored] up, isn't it?!?!?

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Yes, it is. Don't play on Absolute.

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I can understand how a winning player might react to this information with a bit of skepticism and a kind of "ok, that's great, let's just fix the problem quietly" kind of attitude, but come on.

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I don't think anyone is advocating that.

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This is bad bad bad for online poker.

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It is bad for online poker because of the hyperbole of ignorant and poor thinking people like in this thread.

[twoblacknines]

Josem, you say it's not reasonable to assume this has happened on other sites:

"as a general rule in life, it is a bad idea to believe things are happening if you have no evidence to make you think they are happening."

The problem is we don't know how this happened. There are theories that it involved someone on the "inside", or AP being hacked. The point is, since we have no idea HOW this happened, we can't say well stars is more secure.

A year ago I would not of believed it was possible to see other people's hole cards unless you had some kind of trojan on their computers or something. Now it seems that a way has been found and I think the most important thing is to find out exactly how this happened and eliminate the possibility of it ever happening again.

[ibluffoldladies]

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So it is perfectly reasonable to assume that other other major sites have been hacked as well, and the super user accounts are just not caught because they play more reasonable, and quietly make $1,000's.

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No - as a general rule in life, it is a bad idea to believe things are happening if you have no evidence to make you think they are happening.

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Wait, what? Now we have the evidence that proves cheating happened, yet we're ignorant to suspect other sites also? You're comming down on AP hard, yet you're quick to tell people they would be foolish to believe this might be happening elsewhere? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[waq]

Please read Adanthar's post above.

[ibluffoldladies]

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Please read Adanthar's post above.

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I did, and I made a response to it. The smart cheaters would actually look just like every other winning player, so that doesn't convince me it isn't happening.