FPs blog article on ZeeJustin/cheating

Just thought I'd give FP some mad props for it - various other fora I occasionally frequent (sorry!) have essentially been filled with people inanely rambling either along the lines of "What's the problem??" or "OMG CHEATOR I HOPE HE DIES LOLOL".

It's pleasant to read a well thought out and constructive take on the situation, and of course the fact that I agree with most of what he said helps too (I'd disagree with the multi-accounting in itself "not being a big deal", but I'll save that for another day).

Anyway, feel free to discuss stuff about cheating here, or just give FP a hearty pat on the back, whatever you like. >_>

Well, I did say "... in the larger scheme of things." I didn't mean to imply that cheating was okay as long as it went unnoticed, or anything of the sort. I just wanted to take the focus off of the criminal and focus it on the effects of the crime. I could have worded that better, I suppose.

Thanks for appreciating it, though.

Im unsure of the way pokerstars only took 5k from him though. His account should have been shut full stop. Put his name into TR and youll see the guy has had some massive wins, notibaly winning the $200 Sunday game in December netting over 100K.

Now if HE has multiple accounts, can you just imagine the collusion that must have been going on, get another 4 folks with multiple accounts together on an MRC channel and boom you can have a huge amount of collusion just there.

But as Chris said Freddy, great well thought article.

There was just another incidence of this a week or so ago on Party poker, another well known player who had two entries into their big tournie, one of which supposedly his grandma was playing.

With this guy that FP meantioned, what gets to me is that he admitted to having played more then one entry into a 1 table sng. that's just scary. It is a big problem and it should be dealt with severly, as the fear of cheating and unfair game play is one of the biggest problems the online gaming industry currently has to overcome. And the fact that these are "high profile" players only makes it worse, as it calls a lot of things into question.

-n

The interesting this is that for both cases, the players involved were shopped by fellow players, and in both cases Party Poker only took action after they were banned on Poker Stars (or vice versa). The ZeeJustin / Party Poker scam for instance - he said that all he did was click on the Party Poker icon on his desktop quickly and 5 seperate account windows opened - he didn't even have to use seperate computers or fancy hardware. Party Poker (and P Stars etc) can't limit accounts to 1 per ISP address playing at a same time? Poker sites wax lyrical about their methods of stopping collusion, but if they cant or dont do it when they are paying out $100,000+ to someone, then who really thinks they are?

The biggest problem for online poker and gambling is the degree of seperation that everyone has while online. You really don't know if you are playing a bot, a 7 year old autistic genius or your mom. You are only looking at a computer screen and if lucky a picture that they put up to give them some personality. You can yell and scream like an idiot when you get AA in the hole and there is nobody to stare you down except your cat. Nobody knows who you are, what you look like or where you live. You can't call security over to get them removed for being drunk, stoned, or an arse that won't shut up.

People can spend $50 on a program that will track how well/bad they do. It will also keep track of all your opponents and get to know their tendencies better that they do. You can pull up info against people you have played before. Is that fair? Is that having an edge over them if they don't use it?

I don't own a program but how many of the CC regulars do? When we play the CC games on titan and PS, i bet those who do have them on and are tracking every move on the table. After awhile do they get an edge on those of us who don't because they can instantly get an idea of how you played in the past? I don't really call it cheating but is it fair and make it an even challange of skill?

These are the two things that make online poker more of a challange that it really should be. We all know the beast and are willing to dance with it if we deposit money on the sites. We all know the risks when we deposit on the site and are we really shocked to find out that somewhere some one is trying to bend the system in their favor.

PS. FP, nice writing. I have been not looked at the blog for awhile, looks like I have been missing some good stuff.

PokerStars, PartyPoker, Titan, and Absolute (to name the ones that I know of first hand) definately have measures in place for multiple players at one IP address. I have another family member that plays off of his laptop at the same address, and we had to get special permission just to register the accounts. If we try to play at the same table (initially) it won't be allowed, and it's been that way for some time now. We have come up against each other at MTTs and that hasn't been an issue, but for someone like ZJ to say that "all he had to do was click the icons", I find that hard to believe.