MEGA SAT cheating...

[Tommy Bingham]

Very interesting to read through these. I haven't read all posts so sorry if I am repeating. Like mentioned, you can only monitor it. But..if someone is caught of down right cheating. Eg. Small on big blind. Sb shoves and says 'Andy I have Aces fold mate' or acts of collusion, suspend their account for a week or from satellites.

Problem is the satellites are so good for many recreational players that cannot afford the buy in and it means a lot to play in these comps. So when they fold, ask people to fold, time bank fold with 79 left, even say there hands in the chat box etc etc. they are doing it with no real knowledge of malicious cheating, just desperation to win a seat. If people are really cheating, they are doing it on Skype, via Facebook or on the phone. Which you cannot monitor. Just like 4 guys sitting in the same room playing?

If satellites of this scale are being done it so often it needs a reformat of the software.

Chat turned off from beginning.. It has no purpose just to say how bad someone played a hand and got lucky vs you.

Hand for hand when X away from seat. Eg 55 players = hand for hand. Yes it will slow it down, and go on longer than present, but it makes it fair. I have seen people timeout every hand with 80+ left when there are 50 seats. It is just frustrating. I know it is not against the rules to use all your time or time bank, but when you are so close to the prize with such high blinds, You are getting punished for playing fairly and properly.

You cannot monitor genuine soft play as you goal is not to win just qualify. People fold Aces with X left without influence as they do not need to commit chips.  So let players play how they like, all you can do is just reduce the influence of others, and format the tourney so the same amount of pressure is applied to all players.

[christopherhunt]

From reading this I can see the main theme is cheating/colluding, but the last few posts have also mentioned hand-for-hand play.
This really needs to be happening in these multi-seat, multi-table satellites.
I had the ridiculous skill of pure bubbling both the Wed and Thurs 8.30pm satellites for the Monte Carlo, coming 51st in both with 50 seats gtd.
The fact that no hand-for-hand is going on, so some tables have players all timing down whilst others play quicker is simply not right/fair/whatever and this also makes collusion that little bit easier.
Thankfully just got a seat in the £5 rb......

[Fenix35]

Pretty hard to monitor colluding in sats. It's not like an actual tournament where it might occasionally be correct bvb with KK v QQ to fold. And everyone's got different strategies. For instance, a player might have 15bb, a 4bb stack is in the BB, folds to SB and he just folds TT as he doesn't want to risk losing chips and wants to fold into a seat. Whereas it might be a bad fold, it could also certainly not be colluding. Very hard to monitor. Only situations it becomes more obvious is if people with 1bb behind get walks from big stacks etc.

[skolsuper]

Pretty hard to monitor colluding in sats. It's not like an actual tournament where it might occasionally be correct bvb with KK v QQ to fold. And everyone's got different strategies. For instance, a player might have 15bb, a 4bb stack is in the BB, folds to SB and he just folds TT as he doesn't want to risk losing chips and wants to fold into a seat. Whereas it might be a bad fold, it could also certainly not be colluding. Very hard to monitor. Only situations it becomes more obvious is if people with 1bb behind get walks from big stacks etc.

It is all relative as well. E.g. In Australia I played a $250 stage 2 satellite while Rupert was on the final table of the $1k. I had 10% so just wanted something to do while I railed, and as Rupert was laddering I was in a pretty good mood and was having a few beers and chatting with my neighbours etc. There were 18 seats and I was pretty short with 19 left, and the guy on my right had possibly 1/3rd of the chips in play and was shoving every hand blind. Then, without any notice, he gave me a walk when I had 1.5bbs. Obviously there was uproar and people were calling for me to be disqualified. I had my head in my hands when he did it, but honestly had nothing to do with it and, in my opinion, it would have been unfair to disqualify me, however much I benefitted from it. He just said he liked me and wanted me to win a seat, which was his prerogative as far as he was concerned. He'd won the chips and now had the right to decide who got seats.

My point is that this can't be policed on a tournament by tournament basis, only pre-meditated collusion can really be clamped down upon, i.e. people agreeing to play satellites cooperatively and playing many satellites together. This can and has been enforced in the past on other sites, but even if it is enforced here, with so many seats available in these bigger sats and such a small player pool there is always going to be this kind of 'opportunistic' collusion.

[nirvana]

I've played a few of these and there has been a lot of timebanking from quite a long way out etc, OK I think if people think that's their best strat to win a seat.

I've seen one guy count down the number of players left (just in case the table wasn't aware how far from the win they were). But no one else got involved

I think maybe I've been lucky but from my perspective I haven't seen much/anything that looks out of line, given satellite dynamics

[kinboshi]

Tommy's right that the vast majority of the chat isn't malicious cheating, just people desperate to win a seat and haven't really considered what they're doing is cheating. Of course, there are some who know exactly what they're doing.

Easiest solution is to switch chat off, either throughout, or after the addon? Still allows the real cheats to collude on Skype, but they can do that anyway.

[smokynuts]

played this last night and there was a lot of time banking but I didn't see any coulision in chat box the bubble was over pretty quick was 3-4 players on less than 1 bb thou

[shmeigle]

Has anyone mentioned that this format of satellites is always going to be a big target for collusion? That's why Stars ditched their double-or-nothings- a few mates would all join the  same one and work as a team which gave them a huge advantage. If you've got a big stack near the bubble, you can decide who you call and try and knock out and who you can just ignore (your mates), at very little cost to yourself.

Here is another format for satellites that solve this problem (it's not my idea, I've seen it on 2+2 somewhere). I know you can't do it on iPoker without reprogramming, which isn't going to happen, but DTD could do it live without any problems, especially since they've got a great clock/ tournament management software.
 
Play until reg closes/ rebuys end and tot up a) how many total chips are in play and b) how many seats there are.  Divide the number of chips in play by the number of seats. Let's say there is a million chips in play, and 10 seats.  So that gives us 100,000 chips (1 million / 10) for a seat.

Tournament plays as normal. Once a player accumulates  100,000 chips, they've won a seat. Their chips are removed from play* and they go to the cash desk and get their prize. The tournament continues, removing players as they get knocked out (down to 0 chips) or make it to 100,000 chips, in which case they'll get a seat. Eventually there will be two players left playing heads-up for the 10th and final seat.

This format doesn't suffer from collusion, or at least no more than ordinary tournament poker. It also cuts down on dealing costs, makes the satellite quicker for the same structure, and doesn't require special satellite strategy on the part of the players (this could be a disadvantage if you are a player who has mastered satellite strategy).

* There are various alternatives for what to do if a player wins a pot that takes them over 100,000 chips. You can either take all their chips out- in which case the total number of chips in play won't make it possible for everyone to get to 100,000. You can chuck the excess chips over 100,000 back into the pots at the tables somehow. Or you can award one seat, let the player keep his surplus chips over 100,000, and let him try to win 2 seats in the same satellite.

was reading this thread and got up to this post. I don't know where this quote was quoted from.
the original quoter thought this was a good idea.

I couldn't disagree more.

the game is not over till its over. in a satellite environment its not a race to x amount of chips. its about finishing within the seats. its like saying that if you got down to 2 tables in a  tournament then the chip leader at that stage should get 1st place. would any1 else except the chip leader agree to this? hell no.

stupid idea. its a far out there solution to a problem that barely exits

[rfgqqabc]

Has anyone mentioned that this format of satellites is always going to be a big target for collusion? That's why Stars ditched their double-or-nothings- a few mates would all join the  same one and work as a team which gave them a huge advantage. If you've got a big stack near the bubble, you can decide who you call and try and knock out and who you can just ignore (your mates), at very little cost to yourself.

Here is another format for satellites that solve this problem (it's not my idea, I've seen it on 2+2 somewhere). I know you can't do it on iPoker without reprogramming, which isn't going to happen, but DTD could do it live without any problems, especially since they've got a great clock/ tournament management software.
 
Play until reg closes/ rebuys end and tot up a) how many total chips are in play and b) how many seats there are.  Divide the number of chips in play by the number of seats. Let's say there is a million chips in play, and 10 seats.  So that gives us 100,000 chips (1 million / 10) for a seat.

Tournament plays as normal. Once a player accumulates  100,000 chips, they've won a seat. Their chips are removed from play* and they go to the cash desk and get their prize. The tournament continues, removing players as they get knocked out (down to 0 chips) or make it to 100,000 chips, in which case they'll get a seat. Eventually there will be two players left playing heads-up for the 10th and final seat.

This format doesn't suffer from collusion, or at least no more than ordinary tournament poker. It also cuts down on dealing costs, makes the satellite quicker for the same structure, and doesn't require special satellite strategy on the part of the players (this could be a disadvantage if you are a player who has mastered satellite strategy).

* There are various alternatives for what to do if a player wins a pot that takes them over 100,000 chips. You can either take all their chips out- in which case the total number of chips in play won't make it possible for everyone to get to 100,000. You can chuck the excess chips over 100,000 back into the pots at the tables somehow. Or you can award one seat, let the player keep his surplus chips over 100,000, and let him try to win 2 seats in the same satellite.

was reading this thread and got up to this post. I don't know where this quote was quoted from.
the original quoter thought this was a good idea.

I couldn't disagree more.

the game is not over till its over. in a satellite environment its not a race to x amount of chips. its about finishing within the seats. its like saying that if you got down to 2 tables in a  tournament then the chip leader at that stage should get 1st place. would any1 else except the chip leader agree to this? hell no.

stupid idea. its a far out there solution to a problem that barely exits

Live sat last night, twice someone presumably same guy had one ante andsomeone jammed for their stack with 42o k8o etc etc. That's on the direct bubble. I like the idea but atm its really hard to see a fix, hand for hand 5 from the bubble helped the stalling and was very well executed by td (Ryan) I think

[mumblesrock]

there is no cheating going on..... if you stacked and going to win a seat, there is no reason to play any cards.  folding AA is often a better option if u are guaranteed a seat!!

a month ago I blew a seat calling an all in utg with AA v her 77 and she binked a 7 on the turn!! I was then short stacked with 55 runnbers left and bubbled a deepstack seat.

a cautionary tail!!

[dino1980]

there is no cheating going on..... if you stacked and going to win a seat, there is no reason to play any cards.  folding AA is often a better option if u are guaranteed a seat!!

a month ago I blew a seat calling an all in utg with AA v her 77 and she binked a 7 on the turn!! I was then short stacked with 55 runnbers left and bubbled a deepstack seat.

a cautionary tail!!

Not always true. If, say on the pure bubble, you're the chip leader and you've got such a lead over the next biggest stack that doubling up a shorter stack has no bearing on you winning a seat or not, then raising to prevent shorter stacks accumulating chips can have it's merits. Of course you could counter this by saying folding increases the opportunity for two shorter stacks to get their chips in against each other.

[smurf]

there is no cheating going on..... if you stacked and going to win a seat, there is no reason to play any cards.  folding AA is often a better option if u are guaranteed a seat!!

a month ago I blew a seat calling an all in utg with AA v her 77 and she binked a 7 on the turn!! I was then short stacked with 55 runnbers left and bubbled a deepstack seat.

a cautionary tail!!

Not always true. If, say on the pure bubble, you're the chip leader and you've got such a lead over the next biggest stack that doubling up a shorter stack has no bearing on you winning a seat or not, then raising to prevent shorter stacks accumulating chips can have it's merits. Of course you could counter this by saying folding increases the opportunity for two shorter stacks to get their chips in against each other.

Had a big stack on my table last night - he chose to go all in every hand from about 55 players. He got called about six times and stole the blinds every other time.
Like you say it was his prerogative to play how he likes, I have done the same myself before.
He could have sat out and got a seat but chose to shove every hand - no right or wrong in my book we all pay the entry fee and can do as we wish.

[Sweetman]

there is no cheating going on..... if you stacked and going to win a seat, there is no reason to play any cards.  folding AA is often a better option if u are guaranteed a seat!!

a month ago I blew a seat calling an all in utg with AA v her 77 and she binked a 7 on the turn!! I was then short stacked with 55 runnbers left and bubbled a deepstack seat.

a cautionary tail!!

Not always true. If, say on the pure bubble, you're the chip leader and you've got such a lead over the next biggest stack that doubling up a shorter stack has no bearing on you winning a seat or not, then raising to prevent shorter stacks accumulating chips can have it's merits. Of course you could counter this by saying folding increases the opportunity for two shorter stacks to get their chips in against each other.

Had a big stack on my table last night - he chose to go all in every hand from about 55 players. He got called about six times and stole the blinds every other time.
Like you say it was his prerogative to play how he likes, I have done the same myself before.
He could have sat out and got a seat but chose to shove every hand - no right or wrong in my book we all pay the entry fee and can do as we wish.

and therein lies a big difference.

I fully agree that there is nothing wrong with this action, he is acting how "he" wishes to and making his decisions based purely on what he wants to do.  Just like the guy who gave Keys a walk in his example, he in my opinion is doing nothing wrong.

For me, the problem occurs when people openly coerce others in the chatbox into folding every hand on the bubble effectively immunising that particular table.  Playing as a team crosses the line of cheating IMO

[david3103]

there is no cheating going on..... if you stacked and going to win a seat, there is no reason to play any cards.  folding AA is often a better option if u are guaranteed a seat!!

a month ago I blew a seat calling an all in utg with AA v her 77 and she binked a 7 on the turn!! I was then short stacked with 55 runnbers left and bubbled a deepstack seat.

a cautionary tail!!

Not always true. If, say on the pure bubble, you're the chip leader and you've got such a lead over the next biggest stack that doubling up a shorter stack has no bearing on you winning a seat or not, then raising to prevent shorter stacks accumulating chips can have it's merits. Of course you could counter this by saying folding increases the opportunity for two shorter stacks to get their chips in against each other.

Had a big stack on my table last night - he chose to go all in every hand from about 55 players. He got called about six times and stole the blinds every other time.
Like you say it was his prerogative to play how he likes, I have done the same myself before.
He could have sat out and got a seat but chose to shove every hand - no right or wrong in my book we all pay the entry fee and can do as we wish.

and therein lies a big difference.

I fully agree that there is nothing wrong with this action, he is acting how "he" wishes to and making his decisions based purely on what he wants to do.  Just like the guy who gave Keys a walk in his example, he in my opinion is doing nothing wrong.

For me, the problem occurs when people openly coerce others in the chatbox into folding every hand on the bubble effectively immunising that particular table.  Playing as a team crosses the line of cheating IMO

which is of course the way this thread started...

Sorry to be the one to put this up, I've been told that it's been happening a lot.  But this is the first time I've seen it in a while.

Someone from DTD needs to be online around the bubble of these tournaments, the dicsussion in chat boxes throughout the last 3-5 eliminations was nothing short of cheating.

This is not acceptable and I do not expect to see it again.

I would like the chat reviewed and for DTD to investigate punishments for anyone typing anything remotely considered to be out of line.

I know the staff at DTD are spot on and look forward to my next sat.  Esp since the next ones are the biggies - Monte and ISPT.


Jb.

[mumblesrock]

that's why we all love this game.... we all play differently.