| This is a discussion on Possibly good news!!! Cereus (UB/Absolute Poker) sold to Blanca Games within the online poker forums, in the Poker Rooms section; http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/blanca...network-15027/ Maybe getting rid of this horrible ownership group will help put the terrible scandals further behind Ultimatebet /Absolute Poker and gives a chance for ... |
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| Possibly good news!!! Cereus Poker Network (UB/Absolute Poker) sold to Blanca Games http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/blanca...network-15027/ Maybe getting rid of this horrible ownership group will help put the terrible scandals further behind Ultimatebet/Absolute Poker and gives a chance for a competent owner to get this site moving to the potential it had when it first started operating in 1999. Would love to see a poker site give reasonable competition to Full Tilt. Maybe CC will eventually start up the FRs again. Last edited by WEC : 27th August 2010 at 9:45 AM. |
| Play Texas Hold'em Online Poker | Possibly good news!!! Cereus (UB/Absolute Poker) sold to Blanca Games | |
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| I totally agree. This network needs a lot more attention. I would like to see it catching Pokerstars and Full Tillt up. |
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| ITs weird, I really like UB as it seems really comfy to play there, but I dont do very well on that site. AP doesnt seem as comfy but I seem to do better when I play there. I play such low levels that if they need to see my whole cards to beat me, then thats really weak |
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| I mean, Cereusly? Oh and lol Quote:
Last edited by onemorechance : 28th August 2010 at 3:02 AM. |
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| re: Possibly good news!!! Cereus (UB/Absolute Poker) sold to Blanca Games For those who would like a pretty good history of the sites that make up Cereus I have placed links for both below. These seem to be pretty accurate and better than a lot of the half-truth and mis-informed posts made by people on most forums. UltimateBet (UB) History AbsolutePoker (AP) History And, I guess 2 year is far too long for some people. And, when AP/UB are 1-2 years into it's 2nd ownership group since the scandals, I'm sure this group will get nailed by people re-posting "news" from 3-4 years ago and complaining how horrible AP/UB is. |
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| UB changing ownership AGAIN So Ultimate Bet is changing its ownership again... and as the internet is not well regulated in terms of slander I imagine many people harbor some suspicions... But I will elide all that presently and attempt a more droll perspective: Doesn't this constant switching of ownership every few months remind one of a lover of questionable character, whom perhaps seems so attractive to be with but you cannot stand to be involved with once you have attainted? I mean there must be something behind the scenes which the owners realize and figure that the site is not that profitable or worthwhile versus the risks or time, etcetera... |
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| except now we have to worry about new super-users- testing their moral mettle versus avarice, and old super-users from spurned employees out the door, and more surreptitious activities, and cronyism, etcetera. ah well, i only play for fun anyway. but it would be more fun if the odds actually held up. |
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| Onemorechance.....so no? then you dont have proof ? Just a silly picture? Are we adults here or what. I am asking for proof that Pokerstars or any other site for that matter does not ave any employees with superuser access? UB got caught but to be honest can they really be the only ones? |
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What made most folks the most upset was UB/AP's initial responses after being investigated was that all was well with the world and the accusers were in error. They were squeaky clean. Then the proof that it was true about the scams came out. With the amount of money being played on PS and Tilt, you can bet there are many players and groups watching the action closely on those sites. In that case, more to the point is that AP and UB have numerous proven incidents of corporate and financial indiscretions ... but there is no proof that there has been such happenings at the other sites. When and if that happens, it will create as big a scandal (or bigger) than has happened at the other Cereus sites. |
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| re: Possibly good news!!! Cereus (UB/Absolute Poker) sold to Blanca Games Quote:
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| You know what's really sad about this? That they were able to find a buyer. Their brand equity ought to be in the toilet and they can't have much in the way of physical assets to chop up. About the only valuble asset they'd have on their books is their contracts with Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke. Which brings us to the sad part: what they're really paying for is the network's player base... which means there's still more than enough players there to make it worth buying. After all the cheating scandals, controversy and other issues people are still playing there. Why is that?!? |
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Plus the major sites have a tidy, multi-squillion dollar business already sewn up. They wouldn't want a scandal like that threatening their profits so it's safe to assume they're extra vigilant about their security. |
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| Nevada and Oz...I agree. I hope it isn't goingonat the other sites. If what you say is true and the poker community is still watching closely then I imagine if it happens with new owners they will catch it again. I will the go and enter a sit n go fir the remainder of my br and be done with it. |
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| Quote:
Is it possible? Sure it's possible, there are employees who have access to hole cards from the server side. If they didn't, they wouldn't be able to investigate cheating, or broadcast their PokerStars.tv coverage of online events with hole cards exposed. However PS and FT have always taken security very seriously, and I'm certain they have safeguards in place and internal audits that would quickly uncover anything, especially in light of the Absolute Poker/Ultimatebet scandals. Same as with any other financial institution or other corporation where employees have access to highly sensitive information or large amounts of funds -- the controls in place are ridiculously tight and make it extremely difficult for rogue employees to get away, at least for long, with any funny business. And as was pointed out, the poker community itself is pretty quick to pickup on when things just don't look right. People throw around the terms "superuser" and reference the Absolute Poker/Ultimatebet scandals without really knowing or understanding what went on and how. If you realize how it happened, you realize how unlikely it is to ever happen at PS or FT, or even again at Cereus for that matter. First, Absolute Poker's superuser scandal arose from a consultant who had full access to their backend systems. This backdoor access was presumably for support and investigative purposes, but this consultant (player known as POTRIPPER) abused it for his own gain. It was suspected that he shared this access with friends, but I don't know that it was ever proven. Next, Ultimatebet's problems started with a scam perpetrated by some software developers employed by the original owners, Excapsa Software, who inserted some secret backdoor code into their system to broadcast hole card data in real time as hands were being played. Russ Hamilton (a WSOP ME winner) was employed as a consultant and is widely considered to be the ringleader of a group who used this for cheating. By the time the scandals emerged, Ultimatebet was under new ownership (Tokwiro Enterprises), so from their perspective they were innocent. They audited their systems, found the secret backdoor code and removed it. However many consider them both negligent in not doing their due diligence on auditing their newly acquired systems up front, and also in their repeated denials and misinformation campaigns following the scandals. Combine that with a few lesser software/security snafus afterwards (the infamous Phil Hellmuth hand glitch, the weakness in their encryption protocol, the lying about their encryption being industry standard when it was really a home-grown simple XOR algorithm, etc.) and a pattern of a negligent operation emerges. So the original owners were (or employed) blatant crooks, while the subsequent owners were lazy, negligent, deniers who couldn't be bothered to clean up the previous owners' mess until the chickens came home to roost. The kicker for me is, I simply HATE their software. As in, it completely tilted me every time I played there. I simply have no reason to go back, when you have the better experience and track record of solid sites like PS and FT, whom I trust far more than I ever would the Absolute Poker/Ultimatebet portfolio. Too little, too late, IMO... |
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| re: Possibly good news!!! Cereus (UB/Absolute Poker) sold to Blanca Games Quote:
Last edited by onemorechance : 7th September 2010 at 10:32 PM. Reason: I think the actual term for Russ is 'piece of shit scum' |
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The UB thing with Hamilton was widely known to involve a bunch of people, as I said he was considered the ring-leader and coordinated money transfers and game info between the cheaters. I think he helped shield them or cover their tracks too. |
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| I mean look, just to follow that, their 'new' owners (Blanca Games) website contains this Quote:
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That said, I'd just as soon they did, maybe that would kill them off. IMO those sites need to die and new ones spring up from their ashes. I think that'll be the only way they'll regain any trust. |
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| re: Possibly good news!!! Cereus (UB/Absolute Poker) sold to Blanca Games Quote:
Not sure about PS-I dont play there that often to have read the user agreement fully. |
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