Absolute Cliffsnotes (Mod edit: AP thread, part 2)

[RiverFenix]

This should also be included in the history if you can edit still. Not that it implicates Mark Seif but it implies that this has been possible for over a year and a half.


I am still amazed and beyond disgusted at what I saw and heard very late last night/early in the morning at Absolute Poker...and I don't even know what to do about it. The irony of this happening the night after my "poker ethics" post is too much, also:

Anyone who has watched the 75/150 game there knows that Mark Seif (who is the site's signature pro and part-owner) has been extremely abusive lately of the other players when he's at the table.......always banning other players' chat in an instant and threatening account closure, etc. He has lost a lot a money at that 75 game (the resident pros consider him the big fish there) and it's been pretty obvious lately that it was starting to get to him more and more.

Anyway......stuckinpgh (my good friend Mike) is one of a handful of high-limit players who have managed to get under Mark's skin in recent weeks. It was evident that Seif was not fond of Mike and would tilt sometimes. Only this time, it turned out to be a lot worse than harmless trash talk.

Last night, Seif was actually having a good session for a few hours at the 75 table. Eventually the game mostly broke up, and it was just Seif and Mike heads up. After some see-saw action, Mike started to get the best of him again and was ahead maybe 4 or 5 k for the HU time, I'd say. At that point, Seif says something like "one second punk"....leaves the table.....then comes back about a minute later and announces "I'm ready to take you down."

Play then started again......and I saw something that I never have before in all my on-line poker play: obvious manipulation. Every hand was a complete dissection based on whatever Mike was holding (third pair was capped by Seif if Mike was behind or bluffing, for example.) About 10 or 12 k was basically stolen in 15 minutes (over maybe 100 hands), and here's the kicker: he was so pissed and beyond rational thinking that he actually wanted Mike to know what was going on! For example, Mike had K9 on one hand and flopped a boat. Seif was first to act after the flop, and FOLDED OUT OF TURN just that time. I had heard that Seif was having some personal problems, but who would've ever guessed that he could be capable of this. Between that possibility and the abuse that he's taken from the pros (in chat, $ lost, and pride lost at the tables), he must've finally snapped and lowered himself THAT much to get some revenge. We were simply stunned, and all Mike could do at the time was leave the game and withdraw the rest of his money (which he did get already.)

I have never played in a game with Mark Seif myself (or ever said a word to him), so none of this information is based on anything personal between him and me. I'm only trying to help out a good friend here and to call some needed attention to what happened. If Seif is capable of this, then it's a scary thought to trust your money to that site. And to think I was just about to deposit to play the 75 game myself.


http://www.internettexasholdem.com/phpbb...as-vt34808.html

[aig]

[ QUOTE ]
does absolute use a constant shuffle? no way to know community cards if this is the case.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't know. You are right if it does though.

[ QUOTE ]
this actually seems pretty unlikely and maybe impossible. if he chagnes an update then the next update that runs isn't giong to work right because stuff isn't going to be in the places it expects it. also the updates will fail any MD5 hash test and anyone who reinstalled absolute wouldn't be vulnerable unless he was backdooring every update.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. MD5 can be fooled. Files can have same size, same MD5 and still be different (backdoored).

[ QUOTE ]
kinda just sounds like you wanted to use some fancy sounding computer security words

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? Maybe I did sound like that. English is not my first language.

[RiverFenix]

Integrity

You can feel safe playing at Absolute Poker. Great care has been taken to provide our players with the safest place to play poker online. Integrity is a key part of our mission statement and will continue to be our focus as we strive to continue to be the best and most trusted online poker site in the market. When the stakes are on the line, we have gone, and will continue to go to great lengths to do everything possible to offer the most honest and fair games played on the web.

Our security and safety measures and procedures are constantly reviewed and updated regularly to ensure that our players have a safe place to play poker. A strong competitive advantage is obvious when taking a closer look at the measures taken in respect to banking, collusion, hackers & the randomness of our card shuffling software at Absolute Poker.

Hackers

Absolute Poker is secure in the transfer of any information between its players and our Absolute servers. We utilize the internationally accepted industry standard SSLv3/TLSv1 encryption algorithm to protect your information as it transfers between our client application running on your computer and our servers. So whether it is credit card, your name, password, your cards, your personal address and any other private information is protected. Player cards are sent directly and exclusively to the individual player's computer without ever being susceptible of being hacked. Also no other computer playing at your table can see your face down cards. This security is the best available and prevents any hacking and ultimately collusion to take place.

Card Shuffling

It is critical for card shuffling to take place using a shuffle algorithm as part of our software. This shuffling algorithm is fair and unpredictable. Please see our RNG certificate. There is no deck of cards that is shuffled as thoroughly as the Absolute Poker algorithm shuffles our cards. Each game, the deck is shuffled 10 times with each shuffle moving each card somewhere between 1 and 51 times throughout the deck (10 passes at Knuth's full shuffle algorithm).

In addition to the shuffling algorithm, Absolute Poker uses a random number generator. The entropy pool needs to be large enough to allow it to be impossible for any player to have an advantage over the other players. Absolute Poker's Random Number Generator has been fully certified as random by a well known third party, Technical Testing Systems, Inc, http://www.tstglobal.com/.

If you have any questions with regard to any integrity or security issues, please do not hesitate to contact us .

[ImsaKidd]

Riverfenix that link is there. "Hold on, let me get my DOOMSWITCH".

[Butcho22]

[ QUOTE ]
GRAYCAT's MTT history on AP:

Date Buyin Tournament/Event Place Entrants Winnings
9/15/2007 $10 NL Hold'em 344 644 —
9/12/2007 $1,000 NL Hold'em 43 98 —
8/27/2007 $2 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 38 92 —
8/25/2007 $500 NL Hold'em 22 306 $1,071.00
8/21/2007 $20 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 115 134 —
8/19/2007 $150 NL Hold'em 219 552 —
8/18/2007 $500 NL Hold'em 19 365 $1,277.50
8/9/2007 $5 NL Hold'em 2239 2248 —
8/5/2007 $50 NL Hold'em 256 256 —
8/4/2007 $500 NL Hold'em 309 314 —
7/28/2007 $500 NL Hold'em 142 333 —
7/26/2007 $5 NL Hold'em 1832 2190 —
7/26/2007 $0.25 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 1 172 $5.00
7/25/2007 $1,000 NL Hold'em 86 93 —
7/25/2007 $0.25 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 141 168 —
7/25/2007 $20 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 128 133 —
7/24/2007 $25 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 8 10 —
7/23/2007 $15 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 1 19 $530.00
7/23/2007 $20 PL Omaha Hi/Lo 94 94 —
7/23/2007 $5 NL Hold'em 442 527 —
7/23/2007 $5 NL Hold'em 296 297 —
7/22/2007 $150 NL Hold'em 450 474 —
7/21/2007 $500 NL Hold'em 291 299 —
7/19/2007 $1 NL Hold'em 1456 1585 —
7/19/2007 $50 NL Hold'em 169 235 —
7/19/2007 $5 NL Hold'em 64 135 —
7/19/2007 $5 NL Hold'em 280 284 —
7/19/2007 $0.10 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 115 217 —
7/14/2007 $5 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 19 132 —
7/14/2007 $500 NL Hold'em 214 284 —
7/13/2007 $5 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 82 89 —
6/30/2007 $500 NL Hold'em 273 300 —
6/20/2007 $25 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 38 39 —
6/20/2007 $25 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 40 42 —
6/19/2007 $25 NL Hold'em+Rebuys 30 33 —
5/17/2007 $100 NL Hold'em 45 45 —
5/15/2007 $5 NL Hold'em 147 230 —
5/13/2007 $150 NL Hold'em 175 392 —
5/11/2007 $3 NL Hold'em 14 17 —
5/8/2007 $50 NL Hold'em 142 150 —

He's stuck 4k with a -60% ROI

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok guys, here it is...Ultimate proof that donkaments are all luck. I mean the guy can see his opponents hole cards, and still he's a loser.

[Barrin6]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
To people who say to scan your computers,

Most likely, it's not a trojan. I'm 99.99% sure it's not a trojan that he uses. I'll put money on that graycat or the "superusers" did not use trojans to see people's hole cards. He may have hacked the absolute software or it was intentionally rigged by absolute. So who knows. So don't worry about scanning your computers.

[/ QUOTE ]

So you dont want us to scan our computers? I mean its no real hassle to scan our computers and it is something we should do on a fairly regular basis. So why are you going to such great lengths to get us to not scan our computers?

Its quite obvious you must have some ulterior motive and therefore by simple extrapolation must be one of the scammers involved in this scandle.

[/ QUOTE ]

ok

[Ironic]

Look at all of the poker tracker stats, all less than 150 hands. I am not convinced.

Tbh I think a lot of you are over reacting and getting caught up in a frenzy over what really consists of very very little evidence other than some bad beat stories and VERY small sample sizes.

[aig]

[ QUOTE ]
Wouldn't it be trivial to find out if the software sent data to a 3rd party between betting rounds?

[/ QUOTE ]

I am not saying client is sending data. Trojan is append to the client when downloading from server but separated after install.

[aig]

[ QUOTE ]
Look at all of the poker tracker stats, all less than 150 hands. I am not convinced.

[/ QUOTE ]

How can You play 10k hands with someone who is making at least 500bb/100!!?!

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
Look at all of the poker tracker stats, all less than 150 hands. I am not convinced.

Tbh I think a lot of you are over reacting and getting caught up in a frenzy over what really consists of very very little evidence other than some bad beat stories and VERY small sample sizes.

[/ QUOTE ]

are you crazy?