Online tournament integrity compromised - my email to Lee Jones

[McMelchior]

Following the current debate I have forwarded following text to Lee Jones/PokerStars, in the hope of receiving some kind of clarification on the issue.

To Lee Jones:

Dear Mr. Jones,
Following recent debate on the poker discussion sites twoplustwo, pocketfives and pokertrails I get the clear impression that the honesty of online poker tournaments have been decisively compromised.

Allow me to point your attention to following discussion:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...p;vc=1&nt=6

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...p;vc=1&nt=2

http://pokertrails.com/articles/multiaccount.php

http://www.pocketfives.com/68F7F5AC-...F3203E56F.aspx

Briefly what has happened is that a renowned online player playing at the poker site partypoker.com this past Sunday won $140,000.00 in a large tournament. The player openly admits to have played several accounts during the same tournament.

In the controversy following this disclosure other players openly admits to:
- the same practice,
- to have played several accounts seated at the same table in higher buy-in online poker tournaments,
- and even to have been playing two accounts simultaneously at a final table.

It occurs from the debate that a substantial (but still un-substantiated) number of successful online players on a regular basis participate in the same tournaments employing multiple accounts at the same time.

A (different) renown players illustrates very convincingly that a successful player entering an online tournament playing 2 or 3 accounts simultaneously will have a substantial – far from ignorable - chance of playing two accounts seated at the same table a one point during the tournament.

I can’t help but conclude that a number of players by cheating this way gain an unfair advantage, and that money – and obviously big money – is diverted from the prize pools shared by the honest players into the pockets of the cheaters.

I have no reason to assume the cheating practice should be confined to PartyPoker – I must believe it affects PokerStars tournaments as well. Being a player capable of sustaining a marginally profitable level of play this is no less than devastating for me. A diversion of funds from the general prize pool will hurt the profitability of my game decisively.

I am aware of PokerStars’ tournament rules #21, that prohibits this cheating practice, but I have no knowledge of what measures PokerStars have taken to enforce the rules and stop the cheating. It is my impression that the rule in general is considered un-enforceable unless the cheating becomes blatant and easily detectable via that chat.

Until I have seen evidence that the cheating practice has been stopped I will not enter tournaments with a buy-in higher than a few dollars – in the hope that the cheaters do not consider the low buy-in tournaments worthy of their efforts.

Having played at PokerStars for close to four (4) years I know your site as the market leader when it comes to integrity and customer care. Please inform me what steps PokerStars have and will take to address this crucial issue – thank you.

Yours truly,

Johan

------------

I will post whatever reply I get.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)

[Beachman42]

Nice post & initiative. In your reply, you can certainly mention that your views are shared my more than just yourself, at least by me as well.

[bestcellar]

Good letter, but if you think that the cheaters are somehow diverting even a significant portion of the cash, you are sadly mistaken. Winning a major weekly tournament is a statistical outlier, and happens usually once or twice in a lifetime, especially in 4000+ field tourneys. In this case, yes it happened. It probably has happened only a handful of times.

To restrict your own play because of some perceived widespread conspiracy is not only ludicrous, it's unrealistic. Entering any run-of-the-mill tournament for $1-$100, I'm guessing you could expect maybe 1% of the field was cheating in this way (if even that).

I play every day on Stars and I feel I have a good feel for the regulars and would be able to easily recognize some sort of pattern that was occuring, if there was widespread cheating going on.

Simply put, I think you're grossly overreacting by shutting down your play altogether. There has obviously been a general backlish from MTTers on all forums, so much so that people with an originally contrary position have now changed their tune.

I, for one, am thankful this happened now. Let's nip this in the bud and set standards while it is still relatively manageable.

One other thing, folks - run the numbers as to how much of an advantage a random player would have against you playing, say, 3 accounts in a 5,000 field tournament. The effect in my opinion on the field is virtually negligable.

Also, there's no way to stop the cheaters if they just have enough computers. When they do find out about it, the important thing is to investigate and come down HARD on those players that are cheating.

[rockin]

[ QUOTE ]
Good letter, but if you think that the cheaters are somehow diverting even a significant portion of the cash, you are sadly mistaken. Winning a major weekly tournament is a statistical outlier, and happens usually once or twice in a lifetime, especially in 4000+ field tourneys. In this case, yes it happened. It probably has happened only a handful of times.

To restrict your own play because of some perceived widespread conspiracy is not only ludicrous, it's unrealistic. Entering any run-of-the-mill tournament for $1-$100, I'm guessing you could expect maybe 1% of the field was cheating in this way (if even that).

I play every day on Stars and I feel I have a good feel for the regulars and would be able to easily recognize some sort of pattern that was occuring, if there was widespread cheating going on.

Simply put, I think you're grossly overreacting by shutting down your play altogether. There has obviously been a general backlish from MTTers on all forums, so much so that people with an originally contrary position have now changed their tune.

I, for one, am thankful this happened now. Let's nip this in the bud and set standards while it is still relatively manageable.

One other thing, folks - run the numbers as to how much of an advantage a random player would have against you playing, say, 3 accounts in a 5,000 field tournament. The effect in my opinion on the field is virtually negligable.

Also, there's no way to stop the cheaters if they just have enough computers. When they do find out about it, the important thing is to investigate and come down HARD on those players that are cheating.

[/ QUOTE ]

totally disagree, OP's post is right on the money. how can you make unsubstantiated claims as to the # of "cheaters" there are in any tourny.

1%??? once in a lifetime??? who says it has to be a 1st place finish to matter? what about the difference in 9th or 10th, or from 18th to 19th or whatever. the difference in just bubbling or not is TOO much difference. it would also be interesting, with all the conjecture going on around here, to hear from Lee himself, what kind of protocols they have set up to safeguard against this type of action.

nice e-mail to Lee Jones.

[Beachman42]

I'm not disputing your statistical analysis, but IMHO, you are off point.

Cheating is cheating. If any form of cheating is tolerated, then the confidence in on-line poker will always be suspect, ESP. by new, inexperienced players.

This issue really has little to do with $$, but Johan's arguement should resonate with a company worried about continuously attracting more and more new players.

At some point, the poker bubble will bust, public attention will go elsewhere, and only the pros & hobbiests will remain. I would rather see that decline be as far out in the future as possible.

As for me, I began my MTT journey playing for free chips and am perfectly happy returning there if necessary. In truth, there isn't much difference between free and $10 - $20 anyway.

[h20man65]

First of all, thanks, I for one appreciate the effort and the feelings of most posters on this subject.
Secondly, I don't really care as to the negligability of 1-2-3 accounts versus the field. It's BS and it should not be tolerated in any sense. PERIOD.
Difficult to detect...sure, impossible...no. These [censored] should be banned!
This would not be possible in the "real" world and it degrades the integrity of the game I and many others truly love.
I find this offensive and would gladly kick their asses. FWIW.

[bestcellar]

[ QUOTE ]

totally disagree, OP's post is right on the money. how can you make unsubstantiated claims as to the # of "cheaters" there are in any tourny.

1%??? once in a lifetime??? who says it has to be a 1st place finish to matter? what about the difference in 9th or 10th, or from 18th to 19th or whatever. the difference in just bubbling or not is TOO much difference. it would also be interesting, with all the conjecture going on around here, to hear from Lee himself, what kind of protocols they have set up to safeguard against this type of action.

nice e-mail to Lee Jones.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's a best guess, ace, settle down. I honestly do not think that there is a substantive collusionary element based on the fact that I know many players and play the games every day. Call me a fool if you want, it's a gut feeling.

People are obviously reacting in part because of the number "$140,000". If this was $800, we wouldn't have 8 friggin' threads going about the same damn thing. While $140,000 is a hell of a lot of money for any player obviously, think about the fact it is a fraction of 1% of what PP or any big site pays out in prize pool money annually. I'm not saying it's not a big deal, but I think we need some perspective on this.

Online poker is always going to have this stigma, and there are always going to be cheaters. If there is an example set, we can only hope to discourage this from happening more often than it does already.

[bestcellar]

[ QUOTE ]

Secondly, I don't really care as to the negligability of 1-2-3 accounts versus the field.

[/ QUOTE ]

You had better care about the effect of 1-2-3 accounts vs. the field, because in the end, profit and EV are all about math, and it is up to the player to determine what his advantage is.

Yes, in spite of cheaters.

THERE ARE ALWAYS GOING TO BE CHEATERS ONLINE. There always have been. If you didn't think this was going on before this weekend, you were being naive. I don't know how to say this more plainly.

You will never play online again for anything above micros if we are to believe you are taking the stance you are taking now, because nothing has changed in the past 4 years.

Although I sincerely HOPE something does happen as a result of this, there are always going to be greedy players and people looking for any edge out there in cyberspace.

[ QUOTE ]
These [censored] should be banned!

[/ QUOTE ]

Okay, they're banned. Then they buy a new computer, and sign up for a new account with a new IP address. Now what?

[bestcellar]

Also, players, you were either a winning or losing player with the cheaters in the mix before you knew someone won $140,000 multi-accounting. What's changed? Nothing.

Yes, something should be done. That's not my point. To stop playing when you have +EV (yes, even against cheaters!) is folly.

[McMelchior]

As promised here's the reply I received from PokerStars.

It appears Lee Jones has not even seen my email. I'm not satisfied with this standard reply and will continue my effort to elicit a thought through reply from him.

Hello Johan,

We appreciate your concerns, and that you have taken the time to write us.

Currently we do not prohibit players from opening two accounts with the
same IP address. Many users have dynamic IPs that can be rotated within
the same ISP and therefore several unrelated users may accidentally
have the same IP (but we do have this information recorded).

To prevent multiple accounts being opened by the same player, we check
that the accounts are not opened from the same computer and, of course,
we check for the same email address. None of these is sufficient, but
they do make opening multiple accounts by related players, or even by
the same player, more difficult.

We have several more sophisticated measures to warn about potential
collusion and multiple account use, and plan to add more.

Site integrity has been, and always will be, our paramount concern.
Although some people may think the use of multiple accounts "isn't wrong",
we will not tolerate it.


Regards,

Rob
PokerStars Support Team