suspicions...

Over the last few days I've had the same Russian person sit at the ring game I was in for close to 30 minutes without playing a single hand. 4-5 minutes after she leaves one or two Russian players joins the game depending on seats available.

Last game the 2 Russians were seated side by side, joined at the same time and left the table at the same time. One always folded the sb to the other unless other people were in the hand, then he played softly unless he hit a big hand. The one to the left was very aggressive pre and post flop, bets following a decided trend by who ever was in the hand.

Seems to me like the first person was data mining and the other two went past obvious that they were working together. No chat whatsoever from the 2 playing, the first person (who sat out 1/2 hr) talked only a few words, usualy "sorry" or BRB.


What do you guys think? I have no proof of collusion in chat.

Sounds like a scout for the other two indeed. Or just a very weird coincidence

definetly sharing hole cards. You should report them to the adminsrater just in case. I donno, I donno looks mighty suspicious

Zat voz me, Comrade. How u like buy fine Russian voman for vife, verree cheap ?

Well there you go - I didn't think there was enough evidence in the OP, but obviously there was!

One question though, why does a player have to sit in at a table to observe it?

Depends if they are using data tracking and mining software to profile the players and game -- most programs dont support gathering data on tables you are not playing at, and most poker rooms do not allow data mining at tables you are not playing. PT3 DOES have a room monitoring function that will scan table data for all tables at a site -- but if pokerstars or tilt catches you using it you are banned.

It is highly possible they were working as a team. I have been reading alot of blogs and articles on that and BOTS man I didn't realize that much crap was out there and even worse that people use it I guess I am to honest to be a poker player LOL and by the way not that it matters you have broke my cherry your my 50th LOL.

Congrats on reaching 50, and txs for the reminder, it is entirely possible to sit a bot at a table, program it to keep folding and just gathering data. Bots can be set up to be virtually undetectable by the site.

BTW OP If you see suspicious activity notify support immediately, they will often look into it right away at the major sites, and give you a response. Wont stop all the cheating but they are working on it...

Hello,
first of all absolutely that sounded extremely suspicious.
Second reporting it is the best way to resolve the situation so the site can monitor whats happening.

I never even realized there were such machines to this sort of thing. Shows how niave I am. I think poker should be played with integrity. It is a world with in the world and I thought I could trust the people within it. Aparently I am wrong. I will keep my eyes open to this sort of behavior.

Just reading the responses lets me know its not that uncommon.
What a shame.

well anyway good luck in all you do... Bearcat

yes i would say they was sharing hole cards also ....

same country even more suspicous

next time report it, dont hurt u at all

Yes it sounds fishy as hell, it does happend all the time on any poker site. you don't need any kind of tracker. I've heard alot of people tell me that they are on the phone with each other 4 hours and hours. Should always report something like that if u really think they are doing that.

This could be the start of a new Cold War...

If there's money involved there always will be cheating, sad but true.

yea thats definitely a collusion act, but most sites are on top of that stuff these days

Or maybe, just maybe its nothing more than one player being taught how to play by a friend?
I know its more romantic to have sinster undertones, but there is nothing in the OP to suggest they were playing to take money from others, just soft play and no chat

I like your genteel attitude, but dont ignore that these things (collusion) do happen. I have seen it before, reported it, and seen people get caught. Rather than ignore it and give people the benefit of the doubt, we have to be vigilant and report suspicious activity if we hope to cut down on this common practice.
Rather than Will Rogers, think Texas Rangers, OK?

There is no evidence that anything was going on here other that strange play. If we are to report every strang thing a player does at a poker table, We wont have anytime left to play poker as we will be reporting the 90% of the poker players in any given freeroll.

My suggestion...NOTES!!!! Take lots of notes, if you see this more that once or twice by the same players, you may very well have something to report.

Once I was playing at a table and I saw 2 other people from the United States. They were both extreme nits and NEVER PLAYED A HAND AGAINST EACH OTHER despite playing over 50 hands each. Of course I reported them, as I'm sure player A reported myself and B while B reported me and A. Cheating American scum, can't trust any of them.

I have noticed simalar things like they sit and dont play much unless somebody raises preflop then they both cap the betting (limit) eventually everyone folds thinking they have both hit monsters- only to find they have nothing but they are not bothered as either one wins the pot -

this needs more love IMO

This is pretty bad though. Think about it, if the other guy actually does have a hand, he gets the cap out of TWO players. They have to win 2/3 of the time. This type of collusion doesn't work.

Also note that colluders can do very little next to each other. Soft play is likely, but that doesn't hurt you at all in a cash game. The best location would be across from each other so they could trap people in between (for example, player A raises small, player calls, player B then raises, A can then even minraise or something so if the player calls B can still act).

the fact that no chat and three russians is suspicious and the way they came and left. it wouldnt surprise me one bit

Cowboy is on the money about chat. Not one word said to prove coersion ever in chat.


One thing that realy stands out at this site I didn't mention.

Quite often tables at these micro limits are filled with waiting list/observers to the point where you cant even veiw a table, even with 30 or more running.. Many times the ones that aren't totaly filled have 6-8 observers, (names 95% russian) but only 3-4 players sitting at a 6 seat table.

Best fix...take money elsewhere, Like Stars or such.

I would think that most poker sites have methods of monitoring the play of certain players. Since this happened on more than one occasion, I would report it to the administrators of the site, along with the names of the questionable players and their scout. The administrators should be able to pull up the records of their play and detect any collusion in their playing patterns.

what site is it AB?

People also use the chat programs like yahoo and msn to talk to each other ...sometimes 4 at the 10 table.....and you are going for a ride....

PlayersPoker...Time is mid morning CST. Evenings in my time zone are relatively free from them. I don't mean to pick on Russians, I've seen coersion from people all over the world. This place just happens to have a ton of Ruskie's at certain times of the day doing things that would make anyone suspicious.




fwiw: Just played 2/4nlhe with a $2.00 buy in, stacked the same idiot 6 times in an hour and he kept rebuying, no joke. Others tried but they only added to his br for me

Here's a pict of the first one, they only got richer after that (had to take a screenshot of Quad A's!). Second hand was moments latter, my Aces against his 74 off suit, my raise all in preflop. Last hand he was way up to about 6 bucks from his 2.40 buy in.... I called his all in prefop raise with Aces again Kept hitting AA and twice KK, all but one against a tiny stack ($1) held. I played tighter than a drumskin, never lost more than 8-12 cents in any other pot.

My br is happier now, goes to prove even a blind chicken gets a worm once in a while

Attached Images

edit Players Quad Aces.JPG (46.6 KB, 7 views)

That type of 'collusion' should be easy to detect if you report it promptly. You didn't say if it was 6 or 9 handed, Collusion is much more effective in 6 handed games.

Those two were definitly telling each other their hands via instant messaging or something...its seems fairly obvious did you report them straight away?

Yes they were reported. Pretty obvious data minning/collussion when the same person sits at your table for 1/2 hr without playing multiple times.

Screen shot pretty obvious that it is 6max micro. Not like their stealing millions, but it is the principle that matters.

Syst....I thought I made it clear I've seen people from all over data mine/collude, not picking on Russians.

Pesky Russians...


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Or maybe, just maybe its nothing more than one player being taught how to play by a friend?
I know its more romantic to have sinster undertones, but there is nothing in the OP to suggest they were playing to take money from others, just soft play and no chat lol awayyyyyyyyyy

Wow, just the other day I was playing and noticed that these two russians where bettiing/raising/ and reraising each other and driving the other players off thier hand. They did this every hand. They reaised and jammed every single hand on every single hand. I picked up a monster hand on the flop and joind in thier jam fest and took down an $18.00 pot (.25-.50 limit) and took out a big chunck of both their stacks. After I took down the pot, they both left the table at the same time and moved to another table playing exactly the same way. Again after they lost a big hand they then moved to another table once again. I sent this message to Pokerstars support:

While playing on Bistro, a .25/.50 limit holdem table I noticed two players, Granas_Evil and Beoc666 both playing many hand and playing aggressively, raising and reraising every hand. I didn’t think much of it at the time, because you see many players playing like that on low stakes tables, but after I took down a big pot because both of these players jammed the pot every round and then left the table together and they both moved to another table, Benda. I believe these two players are in communication with one another while playing. Please check table history to confirm this that they playing oddly. I made a comment about it in the chat box and another player pointed out that they moved to another table so I observed for awhile and noticed that another player from my table (bistro) named Ali_gator37 made this comment as an observer in the chat box of the table that both boec666 and Granas_Evil where playing on:


ali_gator37 [observer]: e
dealer: Game #21872073318: chucky0ne wins pot ($2.15)
boec666: s

Obviously this meant something to boec666 because of his response. I know you have access to all the hand histories, please look into this.

Sincerely,

I don't know if what they wer doing was strickly cheating, but it is unethical at best. They probably split their winning with each other. I hope the others at my table reported it as well.

I woulda left that table - you got balls haha. Yeah sounds like they got a strategy that has probably worked several time before.

I wouldn't say I have balls, I just didn't recognise what they were doing until they left the table together. I just though they were a couple of over agressive idiots.