Official Absolute scandal thread

Yeah, we frown on posting links to other forums, but this is potentially big enough news to justify it, imo.

The 2+2 Forums: Beat: Absolute is *actually* rigged (serious) (read me)

For anyone who doesn't want to wade through all that, I'll summarize...

- A hand is posted where some guy makes a ridiculous turn call with T high which is actually good. Not really suspect on its own, could be a misclick or w/e.

- Dunno where it started, but a rumour appears to be in circulation that Absolute Poker has a 'superuser' account for testing purposes that can see other players hole cards.

- Some crazy Poker Tracker screenshots and stats are posted (doubledrag, potripper and graycat are apparently all the same person).







Note not only the fact that the guy is playing with an insane VPIP/PFR and winning, but also the ridiculous river aggression factor. Pretty much exactly as you'd expect someone to play if they knew other player's hole cards.

- A bunch of HS regulars have sent HHs to adanthar, who notes that he can never see any instance of the guy calling with a worse hand on any street that subsequently goes to showdown.

Some hands...

Here's the T high hand I mentioned at the start.

Basically, the play really does identically and consistently match what one would expect from an uncultured player who can see his opponents holecards.

If you're still not feeling it, read through the thread. Many of the people who are onside with the 'something is amiss' theory are high stakes regulars who are much better at interpreting these sort of things than I am. Nevertheless, it makes for pretty unpleasant viewing even for me, although I've never played at Absolute (or played $3k NL, lol).

Who'd have thought I'd ever be making a serious "ZOMG RIGGED" thread?

I wonder about all the sites I play on!!!
For example on Bodog during a freeroll Person in 1st position after BB goes all in with 85 off suit I call with AA (DUH) flop comes 885
I know this has nothing to do with seeing others cards but Luck?
I kinda suspect something fishy

can we please not turn this into a random bad beats thread, thanks

oh man, i thought this was going to be about the absolute incident where they awarded a pot to a losing razz hand because they, a poker site, actually have their razz rules wrong (also on 2+2, can probably find it via search). but this is pretty insane. absolute is messed up

Sorry Dorkus wasnt trying to do that. I was serious but sorry just the same

so you are saying that these users are used for testing and they can see the hole cards???

that is crazy....glad the only US friendly and MAC friendly site is full tilt...although there are many believers of full tilt being rigged (me not one of them)...just people whining about bad beats

but that absolute thing is ridiculous....has this been brought up to absolute's support???
if so, have these occurrences stopped?

They moved most of the original post to the mod forum where nobody can read it. All we can see is that hand history which on it's own isn't enough of the story.

Yeah, that baffles me a little, not sure exactly why they'd move stuff.

Most of the relevant info is in the linked thread though. There's not just the one HH - there are many, and the Poker Tracker stats are ridiculous. I do suspect there's something more to it for someone like adanthar (who I know from places aside from 2p2) to be so convinced, though.

No probs sir. I'm just conscious that people might use this thread to say silly things like "I KNEW ONLINE POKERS WAS RIGGED MY KK LOST TO RUNNER RUNNER QUADS YESTERDAY", which is entirely missing the point. Just trying to nip it in the bud early.

Well - if you have time to wade through 43 pages of posts you get to see a little bit more - the Poker Tracker stats are scary.

I did try to summarise it all dear - but there are 13 pages more since I went to sleep last night.

That's quite worrysome.

Luckily, I have never played on Absolute Poker and it doesn't look I'll be changing that anytime soon.

I guess the actual facts of what took place will surface soon. But, I can't help but think of the article I read a few months ago. It was describing how some computer guy was developing a type of spyware program that would sit unknown on a poker players hardware, and when he played online the user would be able to see his hole cards.

The recent problems with the Poker Tracker website I understand, was a breech of their system. Maybe the invasion was to get IP address?

So, this issue doesn't necessarily mean the site was responsible. That might be just a rumor.

Be sad if someone was able to do that on their own. They were saying to see other players cards might have yet taken another 5 to 10 years to create. Hope someone out there wasn't ahead of their time.

That's just some crazy stuff there. I started out on Absolute Poker so it was my original (and only) online poker is riggat! place. Maybe all the crazies on the site could end up being right after all. I mean man, those stats are insane!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is more about some individual players cheating rather than the whole site being rigged, ja?

This isn't the first time Absolute has been accused of exploits including holecard viewing (link). In the light of this recent development I don't think linking to Absolute Poker on CardsChat is appropriate or responsible.

Summary of evidence thread

Yes, but 'rigged' sounds cooler.

Yawn, another rigged thread. Hopefully Dorkus Malorkus will come along soon and lock it.

Oh Robert, you're such a card.

If this is true, the Absolute Poker server code is written by a guy who should never have gotten a job as a programmer to begin with. It's such an elementary, stupid, big-fat NONO to make (making privileged information available to more than absolutely necessary) that if made once, it's an indication that anything that particular programmer has made is not trustworthy.

More than that, it further proves that

a) They don't have proper checks and reviews in place for the software that they release, which means that they suck, or
b) all of the people working with the reviews are also not smart enough to see what a bad idea this was, which means that the rest of their code can't be trusted, which means they suck.

In short: They suck. Jesus, do they suck. Holy mother, do they suck.

They suck. Really.

I'm royally pissed off, and I haven't played at Absolute for over a year. That's how badly they suck.

Does anyone have the original link that was deleted out of the 2+2 thread?? It would be interesting to see all of the evidence. From what Ive seen here, Im glad Ive never played at Absolute Poker.

Original thread (it's been moved back).

So that's why I've been losing so much at $3k NL on Absolute Poker

I'm glad that when I do play at Absolute that it's only for play chips and an occassional freeroll. Thanx for the info!!

I read it all and it sounds just like rich high rollers, rolling over the less rich. Less rich get pissed off, get angry.


They showed a decent amount of hands with the steamroller and greycat guys losing hands too, they prolly wouldnt lose hands if they could see hole cards.


I dunno I dont think any hacking is going on, these guys are wiring in like 500k at a time aparently, they just sound like gamblers.

STAGE #753375692: HOLDEM NO LIMIT $30 - 2007-09-04 17:44:57 (ET)
Table: ALHAMBRA (Real Money) Seat #5 is the dealer
Seat 5 - DOUBLEDRAG ($22373 in chips)
Seat 6 - THE GRINDER ($11554 in chips)
Seat 2 - DTON21 ($1760 in chips)
Seat 3 - hero ($3055 in chips)
THE GRINDER - Posts small blind $15
DTON21 - Posts big blind $30
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to hero [5d 10d]
hero - Raises $90 to $90
DOUBLEDRAG - Raises $240 to $240
THE GRINDER - Folds
DTON21 - Folds
hero - Calls $150
*** FLOP *** [6d Qc 8d]
hero - Checks
DOUBLEDRAG - Bets $150
hero - All-In(Raise) $2815 to $2815
DOUBLEDRAG - Calls $2665
*** TURN *** [6d Qc 8d] 2♠
*** RIVER *** [6d Qc 8d 2s] 5♣
*** SHOW DOWN ***
hero - Shows [5d 10d] (One pair, fives)
DOUBLEDRAG - Shows [Kd 3c] (king high)
Collects $6153 from main pot

hes not even good

They aren't multiple people. It's one guy with a bunch of accounts, and he just chip dumps between them.
River AF = he can see your cards.

That's one of the sickest HHs IMO.

LOL in 190 hands against a 2p2 member, his river AF is infinite......

Yes, they would still lose hands. The hand history you yourself posted is a great example of that.

Here's what my Absolute Poker rep had to say:

"Absolute Poker is certified and rated by the same organizations that monitor other poker rooms. To make accusations that Absolute Poker is rigged or has a breach in our security is simply not true.

All players are monitored, and the players discussed in these threads have been reviewed and cleared by the security department. It can be assured that there are no security holes where player can hack in the system to view the cards."

Has your rep read the thread on 2p2? Because that just reeks of a canned standard response that they'd give to someone saying Absolute Poker is rigged because they lost to a 2-outer or something, which this is pretty much the antithesis of.

Monoxide, the accusers are regular HS players. I'm sure they've played with regular fish who've gone on ridiculous heaters before - they know the difference. Plus, playing normally, over ~200 HU hands to have an infinite river AF and hence to never have called a river bet is statistically absurd, especially when so many hands are going to showdown.

I know I bleat on about sample size this and sample size that in other threads, but when something is so far off the expectancy, sample size is largely irrelevant. We only have a few hundred hands to go on here, but what's happened in those few hundred hands is pretty much as near to statistically impossible as one can get.

Absolute Poker response seems uber-standard to hold any weight.

I wasnt lookin at the statistics, maybe thats why I dont understand as well. I dont know what alot of them mean, to be honest.

So these "guys" are new, demolishing the normal AB poker high roller players, with very high, almost impossible betting frequencys? Dorkus you said they have an infinite AF on the river right.. does that mean ALOT of river bets or none at all? or do they make the river bets, but never call anothers river bet? I just dont quite understand that part.

Well then, how do they do it? It seems that post is just filled with questions and random comments more than anything, oh and alot of HH's.

Absolute poker claims you cannot see hole cards, so.. how is it possible?

Its not, a program, spyware, etc, it cannot be....everyone would have it.... thats just idiotic to believe that. So its quite a conundrum im rather interested now.

Absolute would certainly deny their software is exploitable even if it was - it's in their best commercial interest to do so.

Best advice I can give is to read the 2p2 threads if you're curious - all sorts of theories, some plausible, some absurd are floating about there.

The infinite AF means the player is either bet/raising or folding on the river and never calling. In the few screens that have a high but non-infinite AF, the fact it's not infinite is explainable through all-in calls. The guy literally never calls on the river.

they're either lying or unaware? what on earth do you expect them to say? if they even act like there's a remote possibility, they might as well start burning all their millions of potential dollars. of course they're going to be firm and unwavering in their resolve

i've read the tons and tons of pages about this on 2+2 and i'm convinced. to echo what DM has said, these are high stakes regulars who generally understand variance as well or better than any of us. they know the difference between a heater and something basically outside the realm of statistical possibility. and they are overwhelmingly convinced that cheating is going on. overwhelmingly.

i've seen HH after HH and he plays EXACTLY how someone retarded would play with the ability to see other player's cards (but not know what community cards will be dealt.. it's a continuous shuffle). and literally nothing else makes sense. this level of HH evidence would be more than enough to convince a reputable site that a pair of individuals were colluding and have them banned, and the site wouldn't need more than 20 hands. so a couple hundred HHs and numbers alone can certainly show that other things are amiss

i'd like to add that Absolute Poker is incredibly incompetent. weeks ago they REWARDED A RAZZ POT TO THE LOSING HAND BECAUSE THEY HAVE THEIR RULES TO A CARD GAME WRONG WITHIN THE SOFTWARE. when e-mailed about it by numerous users, they reply with a partonizing form letter stating their INCORRECT razz rules (it only comes up when two hands with pairs in them go to showdown, which doesn't happen incredibly often and explains why it's never been fixed). and AP was the first place i ever played at, so i've dealt with them

Ahahaha I just read that razz thread myself, it's hilarious.