On Ghosting

[Bakes]

no one lets you text or talk on the phone while you play live poker. if it came down to it, would you pick AIM over eliminating multiaccounting? i sure wouldn't.

[bobneptune]

[ QUOTE ]
I do not think that getting sweated by a better player is unethical really, given that there is not, and has never been, and likely never will be a precedent for 1 player to a hand in online poker. People need to stop using live as a frame of reference for online poker. The fact is, they are just 2 different beasts in this day, and I do not see why we need to say "well x should happen online, because it happens live."

Anyways, I'm willing to be convincned I am wrong, so discuss.

[/ QUOTE ]


hello ansky,

this entire thread reminds me of the famous quote by justice potter stewart when deciding an obscenity case in the 1960's he essentially said, don't ask me to define pornography.... but i know it when i see it.

it's pretty much the same here. i can't give a concise definition for the difference between ghosting , sweating and coaching, but when any of them occur during the play of an individual hand, it is cheating. well.... maybe cheating is a little strong (only be`cause i don't know of a particular statute it violates), but it is surely unethical.

i believe, when i sign up for any tournament, i should have a reasonable expectation that i am actually playing ansky, not a G.E.College Bowl*** panel of ansky, gobboboy, wpthero, bond, etc.

to my frame of ethical reference, consulting with others DURING THE PLAY OF AN INDIVIDUAL HAND is a gross violation of ethical play.


that being said, it is perfectly ethical to discuss over the phone or any other way any situation with whomever AFTER the play of a particular hand.

*** for those not so long in the tooth, the G.E. College Bowl was a tv game show in the 1960's that pitted 4 university students from different schools in a "jeopardy-like" team competition.

[NHFunkii]

[ QUOTE ]
no one lets you text or talk on the phone while you play live poker. if it came down to it, would you pick AIM over eliminating multiaccounting? i sure wouldn't.

[/ QUOTE ]

yes. not that it would eliminate multiaccounting or even close to it. but yes I'd pick aim in a second. Now maybe if I could personally close my AIM while playing poker and that magically eliminated multiaccounting I'd do it, but I'd rather not make everyone else do it, cause uh... I want people to want to play poker, and I think people are way more likely to avoid playing poker because they can't use AIM than because of multiaccounting

[KneeCo]

I think we've talked about this before, but if sites created some kind of mechanism so that you wouldn't be able to run IMs while playing (in the same way you can't run certain apps now) I think you'd be shocked at the toll that would have on online poker because (1) people don't want to know that poker sites can/are scanning their PC activity, and more importantly (2) IMs is one of the few internet addictions whose power exceeds/rivals that of poker, and given the choice between the two a lot of fish would choose their ability to send emoticons to the cute girl in the office over playing poker. Tournaments especially, given the length, would suffer I imagine.

Also to SM,
I'm pretty sure your involvement in this thread is partially serious and mostly rabble rousing and I guess that's fine, if immature. However mlagoo is right, we've been over the Sunday mil thing and we know happened both from a bunch of people in the house, and from gobbo and mlagoo themselves and we have no doubt about the trust. If the same thing had happened and rather than them it was you and JJP, yes there probably would have been a ruckus. That isn't undue prosecution of anything, it's just common sense, people are trusted and given the benefit of the doubt only where they've earned it and if they haven't earned that trust naturally questions, doubts and even accusations are sure to arise.

[Yuv]

Matt, it is obviously a similar situation if you pretty much played on Gobbo's advice. I wasn't there, but knowing you I can almost be 100% you weren't.

That is basically the line. Ghosting is a made up word that is too wide to have any meaning. It becomes unethical at some point on an invisible line, which is why it's impossible to define. The reason this whole JJ thing exploded is basically since we know that JJ doesn't give a crap about any lines, so he is way more prone to crossing it.

[BAK]

[ QUOTE ]
My position remains unchanged and has been spelled out previously. What is right and wrong is not dependent upon, in any way, what is enforceable. It is unethical to take or give advice during a hand, and by explicitly stating it is allowed the poker sites have invited this "grey area" disaster we have found ourselves in.

ONE PLAYER TO A HAND rule eliminates all of this grey area as far as I can tell. Then the problem is not what is right and wrong, only how it can be enforced, if at all. But it does not leave any players in limbo, and pushes the "grey area" cheating to where it should be, clearly against the rules and anyone who does it will know they are a cheater, instead of hearing these lame excuses that we do now.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree completely.

And to the people saying live coaching during a tourney is OK, that is wrong. Coaching in poker is so totally different than coaching in other sports that it would be akin to someone's bowling coach throwing the ball for them during a tournament. It is completely unethical and I cannot understand how anyone can say otherwise.

[shaniac]

[ QUOTE ]
Coaching in poker is so totally different than coaching in other sports that it would be akin to someone's bowling coach throwing the ball for them during a tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the opposite of correct. Coaching or giving advise in a tournament is more like the bowling coach saying, "If you throw the ball with more spin, you will hit more strikes" and is equally unlikely to influence the outcome of the game beyond the player's actual skill level.

[shaniac]

[ QUOTE ]

Why do you think enforcing my suggestions would have negative effect on the legitimacy of the game?

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of the tougher issues you are addressing are not unique to online poker but applicable to all forms of poker. If we start putting in place a bunch of rules designed to regulate these things which are impossible to regulate, it will just turn people off from online poker.

In the instance where you were playing against a horse and his backer, what makes you think anything shady was going one if they themselves agreed to the deal?

I feel most players act ethically and in the proper, self-interested manner without needing rules to tell them what's right and wrong. Making a big show of enforcing rules that are only meant to police already-unethical players who won't follow the rules to begin with creates a worse image for new players entering the game and, in reality, won't change the ethical composure of online poker for us full-timers.

"Ah judge, your damn laws--the good people don't need 'em and the bad people don't obey 'em."

[Ansky]

ucla,

If say, we completely ignore any precedent set by live poker, why, objectively speaking, is more than 1 player to a hand unethical? Can you explain it?

(Not saying I disagree/ just playing devils advocate)

[BAK]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Coaching in poker is so totally different than coaching in other sports that it would be akin to someone's bowling coach throwing the ball for them during a tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the opposite of correct. Coaching or giving advise in a tournament is more like the bowling coach saying, "If you throw the ball with more spin, you will hit more strikes" and is equally unlikely to influence the outcome of the game beyond the player's actual skill level.

[/ QUOTE ]


In other sports there are two elements needed to succeed - knowing what to do and having the skills to do it. In poker there is one - knowing what to do. Clicking a mouse takes no skill. Telling someone where they should be placing their bowling ball is not the same as telling someone they should raise $4k in this situation. The player's skill in bowling determines whether they can succeed in that situation. There is no poker skill needed by the student to succeed if Shaniac tells them to raise in this situation.