My First, And Perhaps Only, Statement About Absolute

[David Sklansky]

First let me thank phzon for his crystal clear summary in the other thread.

Anway, this stuff doesn't horrify me the way it does some of you. My 59 years in this world have taught me that the majority of people who don't do wrong, at least as far as money is concerned, choose that honest path only because it is the better play. In other words most people won't pass up unfair advantages if they can get away with it.

So rather than being shocked, one should strive to put themselves in positions where those who could cheat you think it is in their best interests not to. Don't trust people to be honest. Trust them to do what is in their best interests. Make exceptions of course. But not with poker players you hardly know.

In the Absolute Poker case, the concern should not be that an insider found a way to see the hole cards. Especially since everybody is telling me that it is not scientifically possible to guarantee that this can't happen. The concern is that Absolute had no software that flagged suspicious play. And that they insisted that the hand histories were not strong enough evidence to override the scientific opinions of their programmers. (I was told that this was their excuse for their initial denials).

I personally was most outraged, not by the cheating, but rather by their snubbing of undeniable statistical evidence. I was personally curious whether the engineers who claimed that the cheating couldn't be done, said this in the face of this overwhelming statistical evidence. Or whether they made these claims without the evidence and the Absolute managemnt was so stupid as to believe them even after seeing the hand histories. Unless of course they were lying.

Thus to put it bluntly, unless the hand histories were not as they have been represented to me, those who originally said there was no cheating were either either lying or morons. If they were lying, it doesn't mean they were in on it. But it does mean they were willing to lie. And if they were morons it doesn't mean they don't know a lot about many things. Just not about poker. Which is obviously a concern.

Meanwhile why didn't Absolute have something in place to identify suspicious play? Internet poker is in some ways, more susceptible to cheating than live poker. But it is also a lot easier to catch. Because all hands can be examined. Any truly expert player would quickly catch any type of significant cheating if he could see every hand. Because if you cheat, you (or a partner) necessarily play hands differently than normal. And not just looser or tighter, or weaker, or more aggressive either. You play according to the cheating method you are using. Whether that might be knowing your partners cards, putting someone in the middle, not duplicating values, seeing other's cards, knowing upcoming cards, etc. And all of these styles are quite distinct from merely bad play. When you see these styles at the same time as you see everybody's hole cards its not hard to figure out what is going on. Even if it is far less obvious than what occurred at Absolute.

Of course no site can be expected to have live experts watching every game. But it isn't necessary. It is only necessary to have software that is pretty good at recognizing possible situations, based on play, results, and other things. Those situations are then refferred to the expert for further analysis. Obviously with such software the Absolute cheating would have been caught.

As far as what should be done now, I say do what is your own best interest. Don't worry if Absolute was cheating you or lying to you or was simply incompetant. Most likely all of that has changed. What apparantly hasn't changed however is that they still don't have software to pick up on cheating. So if you are a cheater or colluder you should rush right over there. If you are not, do what is best for you. Don't make it a matter of principle. You are not going to put them out of business regardless. And it is still not clear whether they deserve it or whether that would be in the best interests of internet poker in general.

When I play poker I always factor in a very small chance that I might get cheated. You should too. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't play. As long as the profit motive is your main motive. Many of the best players are not playing at Absolute right now. The games are probably juicier and Absolute is probably bending over backwards to entice you to go there. This isn't the Civil Rights Movement. We are talking about internet poker. If you think you can win more there, as long as you remain vigilent and are a bit quicker to quit when you are losing then normal, I say go for it.