Cheating at AP, updated cliff notes

[FoxInTheHenHouse]

You guys (and gals) are way off track here.

First, this scandal affects more (many more) people than just 2p2 members.

Second, The only logical course of action is to submit all the evidence that has been assembled to as many news (press) people as possible in the hopes that someone will pick it up and run with it.

So far, the story has made BIG NEWS in forums and blogs but is not yet in the main stream media. In order to force AP to come clean, there has to be intense public pressure. This will only come from CNN, 20/20, 60 minutes type of coverage.

AP has to be made accountable even if it means they go down in flames. The rest of the online poker world will then sit up and take notice and ensure this type of thing never happens again.

Duff is in way over his head, he has no authority to discuss a deal with AP except in relation to his own money. So far, he has only had one conversation with some middle management peon who was instructed by his bosses to see where things stood. When the time comes for serious deal making it won't be a customer service rep who makes the call.

For the good of the industry as a whole, this must not be allowed to die a quiet death.

[ammbo]

[ QUOTE ]
Slightly OT:
I read that AP owns UB, but does this mean UB could be compromised as well? The software is different, but how safe should UB players be feeling in light of this scandal? I have some money on UB, so I'm a bit concerned.

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolute owns UB. One thing to bear in mind here about the sale of UB to Absolute... UB was a public company on the AIM exchange under the parent company Excapsa (ticker XCP). They "sold" all of their assets to Absolute in order to be taken private so that they could continue to operate in the US. British public companies (PartyPoker) cannot operate in the US. As far as I am concerned, the purchase was nothing more than creative bookkeeping to keep them in the US and they are still functionally separate entities.

[Toonces]

[ QUOTE ]
if absolute admits fault they think they are done

if they offer to pay back 700k everyone should be happy, and then decide on their own will if and when they play there in the future

having dan work towards getting the money is a smart idea. him abandoning the idea is likely to mean nobody gets money, nobody admits guilt, and absolute goes on without the internet smarts. and they will survive or get bought. and nobody gets their money

[/ QUOTE ]

This guy is right on the money. This isn't the Movie of the Week, where idealism always triumphs.

[admiralfluff]

People are making several judgement mistakes here.

1. This is not an isolated incident. There has been cheating in the past, there will be cheating in the future. Whatever the outcome is here, this statement is true. What we can do, and need to do, is take the course of action that minimizes the longterm cost of high stakes cheating. I believe this requires some admition from Absolute of a security breach. Allowing them to deny the cheating won't discourage future cheating, and may actually encourage it.

2. Absolute can survive either way. It is not painfully obvious to everyone there was cheating based on the video, or any hand histories. It is obvious to reasonable poker players, but fyi, the world isn't filled with reasonable poker players. There are plenty of fish who play there who are convinced the site is rigged, yet they play anyways. If Absolute admits to a security breach, and claims to have taken action to fix it, they will continue to play there. If they do not admit to a breach, Absolute will not go down in flames. There will be some converage, they will lose a significant portion of their clients, but they will continue to survive.

I mkae a living from the constant flow of money entering the pokonomy, which is generated by generally stupid people. This is also where Absolute makes their money, but some people tried to make extra by cutting into our take as well. This will never stop completely, but more blame and cost for Absolute in this case will lower how much of our edge cheaters attempt to take in the future.

[apefish]

[ QUOTE ]
if absolute admits fault they think they are done

if they offer to pay back 700k everyone should be happy, and then decide on their own will if and when they play there in the future


[/ QUOTE ]

Take out the "everyone is happy" part and I'm on board with this line of thinking.
If Absolute thinks they can buy back their high volume play by compensating those that were cheated I think 1) they are wrong and 2) it's basically none of my business

I can call them a rogue compromised unsecure site whether or not they admit to it. Yeay.

[dlorc]

Sent a writeup to the register about it, they've posted articles on both pieces of Info I've sent them before and they are not afraid of publishing this type of thing, so we might see something there thursday/friday.

[NNNNOOOOONAN]

wow, you go to bed for 6 hours and all this....

I for one did not lose a dime in this whole fiasco. So that may automatically disqualify my having an opinion in some eyes. I do however rely on online poker for 90% of my income at other sites, so I think that anyone who does has a right to comment on this situation and have some weight given to their thoughts.

I think anyone who is saying Todd is an idiot needs to be quiet or just get banned. Todd is a very smart person and was obviously just trying to accomplish something for the greater good of all the parties who lost money in this. Like he said this isn't just 10-20k this is close to a million dollars. If what he suggested was one of only a very small % of solutions that had a significant chance of working, then it was a good one.

However, there are still a gigantic number of us that rely on online poker for a living and no we will not be satisfied until something is done about this. I really hope you guys get your money back. That would piss me off if I lost 5 figures in this nonsense and I would certainly claim to have more of a voice in this than anyone else.

There is no way that the correct thing to do would be to give the money back by "chip dumping" then continuing to play on Absolute Poker. To me that would equate to a major bank staging it's own hold up w/ or w/o the top-dogs knowing about it, then giving the money back to the main group of clients and saying, there we fixed the situation, that was the best thing for everybody. Everyone else who uses that bank is still going to be dissatisfied because in all honesty, how should they know that it would never happen again? How should people at other banks know that it could never happen to them?

Without a return of funds to cheated players, a true and sophisticated audit, admission of guilt, and revamping of management and their current system, I don't see how a greater good will be served at all.

While their at it, I think it wouldn't be impractical or inappropriate for FTP, Stars, and whatever other sites to open up their doors and say "hey all, come audit us to, we'll show you that nothing like this goes on at our site!" I think it would be great press and promotion for them, as well as a good way for casual players to get some peace of mind and find a new safer place to play.

[Xylocain]

Any body plays at planet poker anymore? It did survive until the legislation you know... and they werent even dishonest, just bad. Absolute will die too. People are stupid but not in the way one might think.

[SuitedBaby]

[quote
Last week, AP could in fact have gotten away with Dan's idea. It's not even an inherently bad idea; we all know that none of the people playing with any of the 5 billion other legitimate accounts on that site were affected, so if they'd settled up behind the scenes and assured everyone privately, it might have been stopped there.

[/ QUOTE ]

How could you say nobody else was affected? Anybody who was eliminated by POTRIPPER in the tourney was affected as was anybody who would have won chips from him.

Patty

[steve1127]

As an aside, how incredibly lucky is Poker Stars? If the whole WCOOP ME/thev0id scandal had broken any other time it would have dominated conversation for weeks. As is, it's become an afterthought. What's one cheater compared to Godmode?