X-Post Absolute Poker Hole Card Cheating

[rafiki]

agreed. The idea that people are just playing "bad" when calling huge all ins with T high is insane. Because the exact same players are making much less obvious laydowns on the flop, for much less money. Shady shady.

[ikestoys]

Better summary:

For those of you who don't know me, I'm a 21 year old online poker player that has experienced a lot of success at Absolute Poker for the last year, making well into 6 figures, starting from 50 dollars. I did this not through luck, but hard work and determination to make myself a better player. Although I'm by no means the best online poker player in the world, there is no doubt that I'm in the top 1% of players online.

On a fateful night in August, I found what looked liked to be an extremely good game on Absolute. The player DOUBLEDRAG was playing almost every single hand he got preflop, a typical good player plays 20-25% of their hands. I play extremely loose, sometimes playing up to 40% of my hands. The problem with playing nearly 100% of your hands is that most of the time, someone is going to be starting with a better hand than you, so unless you catch better cards than your opponents or force them to fold, you will end up losing money. I can get away with sometimes playing 40% of my hands because I'm an extremely good postflop player, but I still end up losing some hands. DOUBLEDRAG literally never called a river bet when he had the worst hand. I was frustrated, but I thought he was getting extremely lucky and I'd break him later.

About two weeks later, in a tournament, the player POTRIPPER won a 1k buy-in tournament event on this hand:
Stage #896976330 Tourney ID 1883389 Holdem Multi Normal Tournament No Limit $4500 - 2007-09-13 01:43:49 (ET)
Table: 14 (Real Money) Seat #3 is the dealer
Seat 3 - POTRIPPER ($765740 in chips)
Seat 8 - CRAZYMARCO ($214260 in chips)
POTRIPPER - Ante $450
CRAZYMARCO - Ante $450
POTRIPPER - Posts small blind $2250
CRAZYMARCO - Posts big blind $4500
*** POCKET CARDS ***
POTRIPPER - Calls $2250
CRAZYMARCO - Checks
*** FLOP *** [4h Kd Kh]
CRAZYMARCO - Checks
POTRIPPER - Bets $9000
CRAZYMARCO - Calls $9000
*** TURN *** [4h Kd Kh] [7s]
CRAZYMARCO - Checks
POTRIPPER - Bets $13500
CRAZYMARCO - All-In(Raise) $200310 to $200310
POTRIPPER - Calls $186810
*** RIVER *** [4h Kd Kh 7s] [5s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
POTRIPPER - Shows [10c 9c] (One pair, kings)
CRAZYMARCO - Shows [9h 2h] (One pair, kings)
POTRIPPER Collects $428520 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total Pot($428520)
Board [4h Kd Kh 7s 5s]
Seat 3: POTRIPPER (dealer) (small blind) won Total ($428520) HI$428520) with One pair, kings(ten kicker) [10c 9c - B:Kh,B:Kd,P:10c,P:9c,B:7s]
Seat 8: CRAZYMARCO (big blind) HI:lost with One pair, kings [9h 2h - B:Kh,B:Kd,P:9h,B:7s,B:5s]

So what does that hand mean? It means that this player made a call with absolutely no hand and just happened to be right. Now, I'm all for fish getting lucky once in awhile, but this hand sparked more investigation, and what was found was truly disturbing. Hand histories from the tournament from multiple players were gathered and analyzed. It was found that POTRIPPER played exactly like DOUBLEDRAG. The only times POTRIPPER folded preflop was when someone else had AA, KK or QQ. POTRIPPER also never called a river bet when he was beat.

When the news of POTRIPPER came out, I immediately thought of DOUBLEDRAG and submitted my hand histories of that session to some of my peers who are the best players I know. It was obvious to everyone that DOUBLEDRAG knew what there opponents cards were. They all concluded that it was the only explanation for both players playing nearly all their hands, except when someone hand a monster preflop. They all concluded it was the only explanation for the fact they never called a river bet when they were beat, as this is extremely unlikely when you are playing so many hands.

So what is happening in response to this? Absolute Poker claims that it is investigating the matter, but many people do not trust the site to admit that someone was able to cheat on this magnitude, as it would hurt their business severely. The only way to make sure that Absolute handles this situation promptly and fairly is to escalate this story in the poker media and to keep harassing Absolute's security and customer service department. You may not have been cheated out of any money, but a strike this deep into online poker's integrity is bad for everyone and needs to be dealt with promptly.

[gaijinuronin]

I think i've also posted in this forum(Software section) statistical evidence about the games being rigged at smaller stakes.
Unfortunatly people were not interesting in double-checking my theory/evidence
I could post a link to it ...but probably i will be banned because it is not about absoulute.

[pnazari]

would the possibility that this is happening on stars/FT/UB be >0?

[ibluffoldladies]

[ QUOTE ]
would the possibility that this is happening on stars/FT/UB be >0?

[/ QUOTE ]

You wouldn't be stretching reality to assume this.

[pnazari]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
would the possibility that this is happening on stars/FT/UB be >0?

[/ QUOTE ]

You wouldn't be stretching reality to assume this.

[/ QUOTE ]


then online poker has been compromised and this could be the beginning of the end.

[TheDna]

This is scary and disturbing. Really tend to say lol bots lol rigged never ever believed any rigged storrys for a second. But the evidence is just very hard to denie here.

I had several phone calls of an AP guy some weeks ago with special VIP offers so i play at the site again, i just wish i had seen this before and face him with some questions. I m just happy i didnt start up at AP again..

I really hope LOTS of ppl read this and email/phone AP with so this will be solved.. keep us up to date pls, thx.

[Shovaments]

I hope more comes of this story instead of it getting pushed under the rug. If there is legitimacy, and it seems like there is, hopefully a source like Card Player or a major news source gets on the story and digs deeper. The hands speak volumes though, wow.

[The Sower]

[ QUOTE ]
I hope more comes of this story instead of it getting pushed under the rug. If there is legitimacy, and it seems like there is, hopefully a source like Card Player or a major news source gets on the story and digs deeper. The hands speak volumes though, wow.

[/ QUOTE ]

Poker media is far too busy following the careers of such superstars as Chad Brown and Vanessa Rousseau to worry themselves with such trivial matters.

[todd1007]

[ QUOTE ]
Question: Why is he playing 90-80 (or whatever)?

Don't know how many of you have heard about the fix-6 scandal in horseracing a few years back. One insider who worked in the computer room for a tote company and a couple of his buddies took down a 4.5 mil. pick-6 wager by shenanigans.

The only reason they got caught was because they knew next to nothing about betting on horses, and made a bet that no knowledgeable horseplayer would have ever made. Had they known what they were doing, they might still be cashing tickets today.

The point is, this may be the situation here. Someone with access to a "superuser" account, with no real poker skills. No proficient cheater would kill the goose laying the golden eggs.

[/ QUOTE ]

you know nothing about horseracing. they would have got away with it had there not been two bombs that won the last two races at arlington. that is why they got busted. besides that, horseracing is rife is corruption and just about every level in every country. why do you think that the sha-tin (hong kong) jockey colony is always under investigation for race fixing? have you ever talked to an ex-jockey? cheating in horseracing is much worse.