I colluded and got caught by Full Tilt

[ateamcrew]

Its amazing that such a big site would not have a phone number to call in order to speak with a live customer service representative. Its absolutely insane! And the way they take money out of your account is by a third party and is very shady and cannot be trusted.

 

[TheKAAHK]

Yeah, I did find it very difficult to get a clean line of communication going. But I do believe my dad found a phone number to call on the website. Not sure though. Just be sure to be humble and honest in your emails to them but also be persistant. They deal with a large number of emails every day and yours could get lost in the shuffle.

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

- paste all your e-mail correspondence with FT. that's everything regarding the issue that they've sent to you and that you've sent to them. assuming there's not a ridiculous amount of e-mails this should take no longer than 10-15 minutes.

- do you have PT3 or HEM? if so, the database files could be valuable evidence, you may want to ask someone statistically-minded to take a look. i'd be happy to look at any PT3 database you might have, PM me if you're interested.

- if you don't have PT3/HEM, drop FT an e-mail asking for your complete hand histories and then someone can import them into PT3/HEM and take a look. again i'd be happy to do this.

- if you're lying and you did collude don't bother doing any of this because it will be obvious and you will be found out. yes FT does make mistakes but 95% of the time when someone makes a thread like this they have cheated and are just pissed that they were found out. if you are telling the truth though, an analysis of your hands will likely give you some valuable ammunition to use to refute FTs claims.

- why am i being so nice? i have no idea.

 

[Poker Orifice]

Its amazing that such a big site would not have a phone number to call in order to speak with a live customer service representative. Its absolutely insane! And the way they take money out of your account is by a third party and is very shady and cannot be trusted.

I've seen an account get unjustly closed but situation was rectified when Fulltilt saw the error they'd made (and did so promptly). Situation was much different from what you've described (was a friend's acc't. and a 3rd party wrote support complaining about players on the table colluding,.... FT incorrectly banned the wrong player, lol... they temp. banned the one who was being cheated... & not the cheaters, ha ha ha.... as I said, they took care of it promptly though, once they realized their error)
I'm not going to call you a cheat (I don't have evidence to say so). I will have to disagree with you though when you said, "I urge players to avoid playing on full tilt unless you are able to somehow protect your funds because if you win a big tournament they are not liable to pay you and they wont." < this is just not true.

 

[kidkvno1]

In some cases they do.

My father had his account banned and over $2300 taken from him. FT actuallly sent my acct the email notifying me that my "second" account was shut down. He created his account over a year after I did on my recommendation.

FT assumed that since we shared a last name and the same town that we must be the same person. He has never played at my house. I have played on his internet connection though. We share a family business and sometimes I have to mind the storefront, which shares a it's internet with his house (same property). Though I used my own laptop. So with all this "evidence" FT deemed we had to be the same person.

We never purposely played in the same SNG and neither of us played ring. We did sometimes run into eachother due to playing the sme levels, but there was never any collusion. I used to take pride in busting the old man so i could gloat at work the next day. We eventually got everything straightened out, but it did take almost two months.

So FT sometimes does make mistakes, so don't be so quick to judge. We have all at one time or another played at a table with a friend or relative.

OP:I'm sure if you were in fact cheat-free it will come out in the end. But then again, if they really believe you did cheat, you're going to be hard pressed to change their minds. Better get to data mining your HH's and tracked stats. Might help your case. Or not.

Not so, they would of closed the 2nd account.
I had sent FT an email sometime ago, i asked them and told them that their were 2 accounts with the same address and same IP, they said all was fine. As long as we did some stuff. I got one and so does my brother.

Hate to tell you, but that's collusion. Answer this question honestly...were you ever on the phone with your buddy when playing??

You missed the checking the hand down.. " Soft play " is cheating ESP with the same IP.

 

[2-7MakesMeRaise]

If they think that you were cheatin WTF can you do, fly to where ever FT is and bang down the door's!

Why are people so quick to pounce on new comers and judge them as bad all the time !
When I first joined CC, I made a simple post simply asking if you 'could you anyway change your name on Fulltilt?' as you can imagine I got a load of sarcastic comments saying no and why would you wana etc...
A week later I get my name changed :dancing:

 

[kevkojak]

Why are people so quick to pounce on new comers and judge them as bad all the time !
When I first joined CC, I made a simple post simply asking if you 'could you anyway change your name on Fulltilt?' as you can imagine I got a load of sarcastic comments saying no and why would you wana etc...
A week later I get my name changed :dancing:

Most newcomers are greeted with open arms. I was warmly welcomed when I joined, but still had the pi55 taken out of me whenever I made a totally wrong statement or asked a really noob question.

This is different. A long-time member, two time poster (POSSIBLY someone who turned up for the freeroll password one day and couldn't be bothered taking the time to make 50 intelligent posts?), just popping on to say:
"Full Tilt is corrupt. They closed my account simply for soft playing against (best case scenario) / colluding with (worst case scenario) a friend in order to give us an advantage over the other players. All of whom had put their money on the line expecting as fair a chance to win as everyone else.

Does anyone have ANY sympathy? I'm glad FT are sorting this out to be honest.
I have a very good friend who plays on Tilt through my referral. He lives 5 minutes away from me. We have similar work patterns and get paid the same time of the month- which means we play the same high volumes around the same times (payday!) tailing off towards the end of the month. Both in the UK so both playing in the same 5/6 hour window in the evenings, and both playing low stakes ($1-$5 mainly), and both play SnG's 90% of the time.
In over a year, I would guess we've been at the same table together half a dozen times (maybe a handful more since the micro super turbo's were introduced). I've never gone easy on him, or him on me. I love KOing him with his A3 off, its the only way he'll learn! lol.
I e.mailed Full Tilt not long after he joined and asked if it was ok to transfer funds between ourselves despite occassionally running into each other at the tables, they got back a few days later and said that it was fine. The IP addresses were obviously different so it wasn't a multi account scam, and just to be careful as (T&C's...chip dumping etc). If they were cool with that, then there must have been a good reason for them to close OP's account.

If they wanted to play against each other with side bets etc, there were plenty of options. HEADS UP. No-one else involved, just a clean battle between the two of you, no way to use your accounts to defraud anyone. PLAY MONEY. Play the SnG's like you would for real cash, but have your side-bet on highest finisher at the play chip tables. PRIVATE. Its easy to set up a private game, whether a SnG or MTT. As long as Tilt get their rake they are happy. LIVE. Why not just go to one of your houses, rope in a few others and play a live game for your side action?
All in all, it was a dumb thing you did. Maybe open an account at Stars now, and play on your own like the rest of us?

 

[BelgoSuisse]

Thread title should be changed to "Why full tilt poker can be trusted!!!". It's a good thing that they catch colluders.

 

[genozzolo]

it look normal, u cant play from same internet line in the same poker room, ofc FT think that you take advantage of it.

Didnt try yet, but if would happen I use phone line and my home line for split ip's and play together, but never use same ip, on same poker room.

 

[tbdbitl]

- why am i being so nice? i have no idea.

Because just maybe there's an outside chance that there wasn't anything funny going on and like a lot of people on this site, you are willing to help out someone in a jam! But, oooooo I shudder at the thought that you do get the requested hand histories and you find something fishy!

 

[darc11]

I`ve never met a cheater that`s admitted they did it. They tell there 1 side of the story and claim they have been wronged. So according to you FT decided out of its gazillions of players to randomly take your money for no reason. Except for the fact that you and your buddy happend to play all the same MTTs together from the same phone line. Right....Sounds innocent enough to me.. Show the e-mails.

 

[darc11]

Post the e-mails so we can see exactly what happend.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

Its amazing that such a big site would not have a phone number to call in order to speak with a live customer service representative. Its absolutely insane! And the way they take money out of your account is by a third party and is very shady and cannot be trusted.

Why is this bad customer service?

You broke the T&C which are there to protect players as a whole.

They have made a decision, they intend to stand by it; it isn't really open to debate.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

I`ve never met a cheater that`s admitted they did it.

Actually OP admitted in this thread that he and his fellow colluder were soft-playing each other in SNGs.

 

[Debi]

He admitted they soft-played each other - isn't that enought proof already? I thought that was a violation of the rules. It seems to me if they are checking down hands against each other when one of them should clearly be betting that is collusion. From the way he states it - it is a pre-determined agreement.

I know I don't want to sit at a table with 2 people who are soft-playing each other.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

I know I don't want to sit at a table with 2 people who are soft-playing each other.

BTW, that's one reason why you should play cash and not SNGs. In SNGs, the difference between cEV and $EV makes it very easy for colluders to profit by soft playing each other.

That's less of an issue when you play cash, even though the stoxtrader scandal shows it's not entirely out either.

 

[Vfranks]

1. Soft playing or chip dumping is not allowed. Any unethical play may result in the suspension or termination of the offender's account.

Glad to hear FTP is doing it's job. I wonder why people never read the site rules?

 

[CAMurray]

Can we just start a new thread labeled, " I Colluded at Full Tilt"?

 

[thebluff1000]

Good. Glad to hear FTP is catching cheaters and taking their $$.

+10

If they took ur measly $800,its because you did something severely wrong cuz they wouldnt worry bout ur small change if it wasnt worth it.so either show ur emails and prove ur case(which i dont think u can) or end ur thread by admitting ur wrong doing.

 

[DawgBones]

they are keeping 800 dollars and refunding it to other players that were in the games.

Woo Hoo! Hope I sat at your table a time or two, I'm down a few bi's this month

and secondly nobody that played in the games with us ever received anything.

Wondering how you know this? Were there others in your dorm/house that were playing at the same tables?

Ateamcrew

Good luck.

 

[doops]

I totally feel you Kaahk. I feel like we were in a very similar situation. I would try not to bust my friend because we avoided playing big pots but anytime we both had solid hands I enjoyed busting my friend so I can win my side bet! Its amazing though they say their decision is final yet they have no phone number to call or no reasonable customer service agent you can call and explain the situation. When people are first accused of collustion THEY ARE WARNED. This never happened or I would have never played with him!

And to answer lektrikguy No we did not but he lived a few walking minutes away so sometimes I would offer my advice ONLY WHEN OUT OF THE TOURNAMENT because I have been playing for so much longer and as long as he is not beating me I want to see my friend win.

That, hon, is collusion. If you are not playing the same sort of game against your friend as you would against someone else, it's collusion. If you were tight-weak with everyone, you could play tight-weak against your friend, I suppose.

A good while ago, on another site, there were a couple of people who liked to play limit sngs together. On most sites including the biggest, the volume of people who prefer lower level FLHE sngs is a pretty small group, and I'm one, so I played with them often. (Several of us regulars still play together often, now at FT.) They had similar names and were from the same place, claimed to be neighbors. No problem with that. But the rest of us couldn't help noticing that they avoided being in hands together, and rarely raised against the pal when they were. Neither of them won much -- the avoidance of strong betting in pots with each other hurt them. And it was rare either of them made final 3. But they were undoubtedly colluding by soft-playing each other, if not worse (we also suspected they shared card info because it was so rare they were in a hand together). We all noticed it. It was obvious. I would groan when I found that they'd both signed up for a sng I was playing (but, unlike NL, FL tables don't fill too quickly so you cannot necessarily be picky.) Eventually they were prohibited from playing with each other -- or so it seemed. But then they both disappeared. Made me happy. Even though they were losing players, they hurt the game.

As to you and your pal, be assured that your soft play with each other did not go unnoticed. And if you were discussing side bets at the table and regularly passing money back and forth, this would add to the already considerable problem.

I figure that you are mostly peeved that the money that FT took was unrelated to your collusion. But they cannot reimburse wronged players with nothing -- so it's fair, by my standards. However, that may be the point on which you could contest the penalty. Ask for results and hand histories of all games you played with your friend. Each game where one or both of you cashed is a game where others should be reimbursed.

That said, it is standard that colluders' accounts are shut down and their money is forfeited. It's not just about restitution, it's a punishment as well.

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

Actually OP admitted in this thread that he and his fellow colluder were soft-playing each other in SNGs.

He admitted they soft-played each other - isn't that enought proof already?

Just playing devil's advocate here but I dunno, the phrase to which you're referring could be taken two ways. There's "I avoided playing big pots with my friend (but not with/more than against) everyone else" which is clearly softplaying and undisputable or there's the more general "We both don't much like playing big pots at all (without big hands, and the opponent doesn't matter)", which isn't really evidence of anything.

But yeah, it's fishy.

 

[KyleJRM]

We did not raise each other off good hands but we tried to avoid pots with each other like ppl do in real casinos by checking it down.

That's an admission of guilt right there.

 

[Dorkus Malorkus]

oh, missed that lol.

scratch my generous offer, you colluded, FT caught you, gg OP.

 

[mdnmdn]

Just take a look at the threads title
I colluded and got caught by Full Tilt
Pretty much says it all.
Good luck