Official Full Tilt Poker Response to Bot Thread

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
Do you really believe FT is going to post in this thread again?

Unless they find new evidence and they acknowledge that the accounts were bots, they are done with this issue.

They said what they meant and that's it.

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William,

I don't believe that they know with certainty that those accounts were botting and are just covering it up. However they can still take the reasonable step of cashing those guys out and closing their accounts. Furthermore, this is a long term issue, and they definitely need to post again and address the issue from that perspective. If they won't take pro-active measures to find bots, disallow same IP play and the use of HUDs and datamining that are half the way to botting, and use other alternatives like cash out and close instead of just seize or allow highly suspect accounts to continue playing just because the evidence isn't 100%, then it means their statements about taking botting seriously, as in serious enough to take *effective* measures, just aren't true. And that posters here should consider taking part or all of their FTP business elsewhere.

Now of course there is no evidence that other sites are doing nearly enough, including stars which doesn't even do all it can to eliminate all datamining, despite their state policy against it. But we have to start somewhere, and since FTP is in the spotlight, we should start with them. Getting one or more sites to truly take effective means will lead to a competitive need for the others to follow. And any poster here who wouldn't consider scaling back or eliminating play at FT until it addresses these issues, including US players with reduced options these days, should just STFU and not complain or post in botting/collusion threads about FT and just eat their [censored] and ignore the full magnitude of the problem like FT wishes them to do.

[batair]

It would be better if they were bots, because if they are what they say they are that would be a bigger problem IMO.Bots can be baned,but if a few guys can make a system that wins whats to stop 10,50 or 100 people from doing the same thing since this is within the rules.Now that full tilt has said they don't have a problem with this we should see more teams like this all over the place.

[William]

Bluff, I mostly agree with you. I just don't think FT will be posting here anymore.
Once they have taken a stand, it is allmost impossible they will change their minds, it would be considered "weak".

The site's traffic hasen't been affected in the slightest either. We just have to accept that those are the conditions we have to play in and, as usual, adapt.

Bots, sweatshops or whatever there is out there, I and probably most of us, will be playing where is most profitable, as we allways do.

[thelogan]

Fascinating thread and clearly one with conflicting views. Credit has to be given to Full Tilt for posting a message, however you open Pandora's box if you do, as you are expected to reply to every query that gets raised as a result. I think FT should have said this is their position and they can't comment further or respond to further queries as their resources are employed elsewhere preventing further outbreaks of botdom!

I think it is unrealistic to have expected them to speak until their enquiry was carried out, as they would have been accused of being silent when the barrage of responses came their way.

Nevertheless a company generating the revenues that Full Tilt does should have a dedicated community manager who does a lot more than issue a statement after the horse has bolted. They have clearly lost a lot of goodwill as a result of this issue and perhaps could have generated some had they acted in a more proactive manner on the communication side.

I would think that any poker site that is trying to catch the top 2 will be more lenient towards bots, however most will be reactive rather than proactive as the revenue from these bots must be a positive until somebody uncovers them.

I think they have taken a middle ground view which has satisfied few, so perhaps next time they will either shut up shop and say nothing, or actually engage the poker community a little more. I suspect the former as a result of this type of thread.

[MonJamon]

[ QUOTE ]
With FTP's HH and resources they can surely determine if they are bots or not.

1) Have they ever timed out?
2) How long have they played without taking breaks?

[/ QUOTE ]

3) Have they ever missclicked and folded the nuts, as we all have done at least once?

[William]

they will engage the poker community a little more.

This is the one point that FT does not seem to get. They act as they please and NEVER say anything to anybody until the very end and only the absolutly necessary.
They have this very disagreable "STFU, we know better and do as we please" attitude towards players that is one day going to blow in their face. The moment this bussiness gets regulated, they will feel how faithfull gamblers are. Unfortunately by that moment, they will have made so much money that it will probably matter little to them.

No communication at all on the following matters (just to name a few):
- security issues.
- withdrawal issues.
- software issues (horrible lags that they refuse to take responsability of).
- store issues (no shipping outside US/Canada).
- horrible support issues.

Arrogant site.

[morphball]

I don't have the time to read the whole thing, like I didn't the first one. I have some defense and criticism for FTP though, and I apologize in advance for the bad writing.

<u>Defense</u>-For all you saying FTP should have caught this, I tend to agree, but I can understand why they didn't. These guys are not the only cheaters in on-line poker, and I have a hunch there are a lot of actual colluders from the same IP address that take up a lot of time. Then there are a lot more who use different IP's and IM or telephonic means to collude. Detecting these takes up a significant amount of resources I am sure, and I think the latter category may escape detection until significant numbers of hands are logged. These guys were careful not to play at the same table, and they did that, at least in part, to avoid detection.

I think it's easy to say this should be caught, but think of all the fraternities and dorms sharing IP's. I think that's a huge burden to have to sift through for any pokersite, and that's why the multi-accounters got away with it for as long as they did, and probably still do.

Like it or not, cheating is everybody's business, and we need to communicate with the sites because against all but the simplest of cheaters (who are large in number), it's easier for the people in the game to detect than some programmer/security agent faced with reviewing millions of hands from thousands of players. That's just the ungly fact we have to live with.

<u>Critism</u>-Once these guys were detected, they should have been shut down. Seizing $80,000 and shutting down 4 accounts are not the same thing. Something was going down, and it was fishy. Maybe not enough to grab their money, but enough to say get out of here, and shut down any future attempts to let these guys play, like an IP ban or something. FTP reserves the right to kick any one off for any reason, or even no reason whatsoever. Well here's a big reason, because this looks like a bot, smells like a bot, and tastes like on too. FTP's failure to kick these guys off gives me serious pause.

[rakemeplz]

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These people are slick enough to put together a formula with almost identical numbers when it comes to making money but cannot put together a strategy when addressing this forum---OK!!!!


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Ok, this argument is silly, why should they have to put forth their entire strategy to the mob that is twoplustwo...this could possibly hurt twoplustwo in the future in terms of programming bots and would hurt themselves. They owe twoplustwo nothing, and in fact have not been treated kindly by two plus two. Proving themselves innocent to twoplustwo doesnt really benefit them in any tangible ways that I can imagine.

[pyedog]

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Guys, we should all realize by now that a poker site's self-interest in the bot area is different from that of the players. The poker sites want the rake, and there's no better kind than automatic bot rake. On the other hand, Joe Average doesn't want to play against bots (or multi-tabling semi-bots, but that's another matter).

So what's the end result, given the context of a less-than-ethical company? It's easy: Announce a policy of no bots, claim aggressive enforcement - and don't look very hard. Except, of course, when it's time for a bot to cash out big; just as for humans, there are definitely times when enforcement can be a nice profit center.

I think that's exactly what we see at FT, and nobody that's been around here for any length of time should really expect anything different.

[/ QUOTE ]
QFT.

This is the major problem with us expecting the sites to police themselves. They really do not suffer at all when people collude and cheat against other players. Unfortunately there is no easy way for poker players to punish the sites for ignoring these issues. Organizing a 2+2 boycott is ineffective because it will just take some good players away from the site and make it easier for the remaining good players and bots.

We can try to organize a smear campaign against FTP and any other sites which are obviously ignoring this issue. This will bring negative publicity to online poker and hurt all of our bottom line, but it might force the sites to start taking the issue more seriously.

[Pokerlicious]

That's it?

Are you serious?