PITBULL POKER SCANDAL MAKES HEADLINES

I previously posted a part of the study 5 of us players conducted. I would like to announce it has made pokernews headlines and #3 in google.


Here is the article. I am proud to say we have helped protect the poker community from fraudulant sites.



Pitbull Poker Under Fire Over Security, Superuser Accounts

By Sean Gibson for POKER NEWS DAILY | Posted on August 03, 2009



What started as a collection of threads making arguments against the legitimacy of play at the small online poker room Pitbull Poker has grown into a firestorm of allegations over illegal activities. On most of the major online poker forums, there are threads spanning dozens of pages accusing Pitbull Poker of a plethora of security issues. Some of the posts are wild speculation, but there also appear to be serious accusations made about the site’s security, superuser accounts, and more.
Pitbull Poker is part of the Flash Poker Network, which is based in Costa Rica with servers hosted in Panama City, according to PokerScout.com. The site is ranked 21st in the world in terms of real money ring game traffic and usually has a 24-hour peak of around 65 players at cash tables. There is no software to download, as the poker room has been built using Adobe Flash web technology.
One of the major allegations goes back to December of 2008 for “stack shaving,” where money in a player’s stack would simply disappear between hands. According to several posts, players reported that the range of money that would vanish was between $0.02 and $25. A posted reply from Network Manager Dave Brenes of Pitbull Gaming appears to admit that this error took place and that players would be reimbursed.
The harshest of the posted allegations came from players claiming they have faced superusers. A superuser is an account that has the ability to see everyone’s cards at the table. The allegations outline instances of opponents making call-downs with perfect accuracy and check-folding whenever the hero in the hand flops well. Dozens of examples have been posted.
Brenes has agreed to an interview with Poker News Daily that will run later this week. He responded in detail on the TwoPlusTwo forums to the main controversial threads. The players’ dissatisfaction comes from their desire to receive hand histories in a useable text format. This would allow the players to convert them into a format that can be imported into Hold’em Manager or PokerTracker 3 so the community at large can analyze the hands. This was the same method used to expose the superuser account controversies at UltimateBet and Absolute Poker a few years ago.
Unfortunately for the poker community, Pitbull Poker stated that it would not release any hand histories beyond the format currently provided. The hand history system is based on a tab from within the Flash-based poker room software. Once a user clicks on a link to a hand, it loads in a graphical format. Many users have stated that this reporting system for looking over hand histories is slow and even unstable, as many searches time out and are reset.
More allegations came in the form of holes in the software that apparently expose cards during a hand. Although the poster in the forums making the majority of allegations edited his e-mail, he stated that one of his associates was able to see someone else’s cards during a hand.
Many on TwoPlusTwo called for the group that felt cheated to organize and make more rational arguments rather than provide vague examples of their misfortunes. The debate rages on whether those making the allegations have any tangible proof or if the site should produce hand histories in a readable format for the community to analyze.
In the last few days, the staff at Pitbull Poker has continued to field complaints and tried to work towards a mutually beneficial conclusion. During the course of the investigation conducted by the general public in recent days, allegations that hole card data was unencrypted were made.
Brenes has stated that readable hand histories are coming. These hand histories are expected to shed light on potential irregularities and finally settle the rumors. Poker News Daily is following this story closely and will be bringing an exclusive interview with Brenes later this week to discuss the allegations.

For those who know the author, consider the irony of reposting the article here.

lol.
Nice article Ice .

Meh, copy-pasting an entire copyright protected article is not too cool. The least you could do is provide the link: http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/pitbul...accounts-3773/

Also, great journalist, imo.

I never played at Pitbull and for sure I never will. Poker players are smart, they know when their being cheated.

Interesting read there, have not played on PITBULL but still a good read.

lol, seriously what the hell man! Just plug the article and not shamelessly and illegally copy it! I guess I'll let it slide this time (not that I have any legal power at all).

Anyways thank you Sindri and Belgo ... I'll be sure to share the link to the interview with Pitbull Dave Brenes (Manager) when it publishes, which I am hoping is Friday.

Not mulit-accounting at CC and plugging your own article, Ice?

jk

Seems to imply that the OP's study is #3 at Google? Or is that the article??

At least he gave you credit, and didn't try to pass it off as his own. I believe this to be the same poster (Skunked) who was banned in the original 2 + 2 thread about Pitbull, because he kept trying to take credit for uncovering the story. Here are post 684-687 in that thread:

Wasnt this the same as what Absolute poker did? IF this is true then i really am upset... i hope those whom are responsible will get taken down by the long arm of the law big time!
Thank god i stick to FTP / Stars only.. the reason is actually because of these similiar actions ..

i only knew this pitbull lol

Pffff, thanks pitbull. Poker had a great name to the outside world already...

Just to be clear about this. I got banned because I had 2 previous accounts from over the years. I havent been on 2p2 for along time and forgot all my log in details. Mike Haven banned me for multiple account use and not using multi accounts in the same thread either. PM him to confirm.

It had nothing to do with trying to take credit from anyone. Who cares as long as they get taken down. There were alot of trolls a few I know from Full tilt who rail the high stakes game trying to derail the thread. They were close friends of chesterboy and he didn't like that what i was posting would take his thunder. So thats how that all got started and ended.

In the end who cares who got what thunder. They are exposed.

Yea - well you still can't just copy and paste articles without the author's permission.

Lucky for you the author posted in this thread.

Serious question: I thought it was OK to C/P something if the author was correctly credited. Am I wrong in thinking this? Just wondering because I have wanted to do the same thing here in the past and on my blog, but I wouldn't want to get in trouble.

I really have no idea for sure but i allways thought, linking was fine(including some quotes fine to) but full on c/p was forbidden.
Some one please correct me if im wrong...

quoting parts is cool, copy pasting all is not.

OK, thanks for that. But call me "overly curious" since I was wondering where that comes from. Is it an actual law somewhere or is it just an unwritten rule of the internet?

i believe it would only become a legal issue if money was involved and someone was profiting from claiming the article as their own (i am basing this assertion on a ratio of 1 : 10000 | legal knowledge : random guesswork)

anyway, regarding the original topic, i read through the mammoth thread on the maths forum while at work this morning and spent most of that time loling at how incompetent pitbull's cs rep is.

In case you don't know, DM, CC is a commercial site. Nick makes money - probably a lot - as a poker room affiliate and gets his referrals by attracting people here through the content of this site. if that content was hijacked from another site, it is a big deal.

about fair use: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Ahh! This is excellent. Exactly what I was wondering.

So I could probably, maybe re-post stuff on my blog since I don't make money on it (yet). But not here since money is made from the content here.

if this were a year or two ago i'd be posting the o rly owl right here.

lol what, was someone gonna sue me? anyways......

i never liked PB poker ne way but alot of my buddies complain about their site . but i feel its all the sites , i there is alot of people who think its crazy to think a site it rigged but it might not be the site , its the players .. i am DONE wth full tilt . i have had the worst month of poker ever , and i wrote FT support and told them why would i play at a site that i can NEVER win with the best hand i feel that i have been cheated and im done with your site ,and i gave them a copy n paste of a ring game i was playin , within 20 mins i got an email back from them...... has ne1 everrrr got an email back in 20 mins??? so neway the email said that they have looked up my history and found some players wer useing illegal software and their accs. wer cancled and they rufunded my money that i was cheated out of .... but they couldnt tell me who or what games its was in ???? fishyy ass site . i complain that i feel im cheated and they jump right on it ,, sooo i took a break for like 3 days and went back FT , that night in the midnight maddness 32 away from the money . im delt KQ of spades i bet 4xs the bb and i get 1 caller the flop coms QK2 , i push he insta calls wit A9 ............... the turn 9 the river A he called over 18k with nuthin and runner runnerd me ..that was the end im prety much done wit online poker all together ..

good luck on the felts ,ROBERT