Cheaters really get my goat.

[thetank]

For curiositys sake I took a look at a poker bot forum today. Seeing all the open discussion of how best to cheat was making me quite angry. I was about to stop browsing when I saw this

Has anyone been caught cheating, whether it was for chipdumping, bots, special program, or teaming? If so, did you get your money taken away? Me and a few buddies were caught cheating, and we were banned and our accounts were frozen. This basically means we got wiped out for cheating and I want to know whether this is legal.

    scum brought to justice 

Always amuses me that lowlife trash who cheat, whether it be at poker or pick-pockets, house-breakers etc suddenly take an interest in the law when they get caught.

[thetank]

i got busted on party and was banned all funds SEIZED for employee christmas PARTY i believe. i guy came on here once and asked the same as you he was teaming party in the big games and lost 10k.

Flippin right, take the dosh off these >expletives deleted<

I lot my roll playing $15/$30 limit poker on Party a year or so back. Roughly 10K, I thought my game was sound, and always believed that there was some funny buisness going on.
It could be that I wasn't good enough of course, it certainly wasn't because I was inadequately bankrolled.

I haven't touched online limit poker since. I'm looking forward to Vegas this summer to play some live limit $15/$30 and try to get my limit game confidence back.

[Graham C]

Always amuses me that lowlife trash who cheat, whether it be at poker or pick-pockets, house-breakers etc suddenly take an interest in the law when they get caught.

Sadly there are cheats for almost everything.

[Cybertim]

I was reading an article a while back about bots and although they seem to play well its the opinion of many people that even an average player can beat them.. something to do with the fact that they tend to fold when they have bad hole cards and it easy to steal the blinds once they go higher..  some of the more sophisticsated ones change their game but still need to play the percentages to give the best chance of a win...  a lot of the big sites chefck for bot patterns and partypokers new build seemingly has a high rate of detection..   a good case for poker companies to share credit card info or addresses so that the cheaters cant get access to other sites methinks..   

translation....  once i reach average I might have a chance 

[thetank]

You can beat a bot, but you can't beat a team.

Some threads on this forum I was reading talk about having as many as 9 players in a game! With as few as 4 players working together on a table, you wouldn't stand a chance.

Big up to Party though for their cheat catching innovations. First good thing I've heard about Party Poker in a long while.

[Nem]

How do you stop collusion online? It's virtually impossible.

[Karabiner]

Glad to see that it's not just me with a goat that's been gotten 

Hang the cockroaches is what I say 

[Cybertim]

online collusion sux.   I was on a table last month on ladbrokes. and there was Two Scandinavian players on the table...  they didnt look as if they were colluding but when there was only 4 players left including myself and the Two Scandinavian guys  one of them typed into the chatroom  "Go Skype"   i went nuts and reported both ...   for anyone that doesn't know Skype is a free programme that lets you talk Live and in real time over a broadband connection to someone else who has it.. its just like being on the telephone..  In truth its a fantastic bit of kit  but having Two players on your table talking on it whilst playing is nothing short of cheating.. now heres the thing.. I was only on a £5 STT..   what about the higher limit tables?   using skype you can conference call in real time up to SIX people and it cant be detected..scary thought ehhhh..  I see Live games becoming more popular in the next few years where collusion must surely exist but can be spotted easier by experienced players and cardroom staff.  I think I might be sticking to larger MTT's from now on where collusion rates must be low due to the randomness of table seating draws...   I would never play cash games online  due to the fact that these guys can easily get a seat on the same table..  MTT's for me I think

[Tinsel Town]

I came up against it in a low limit $10 sng on paradise

There were two players from the same town in Germany blatantly chip dumping.

(Big raise from one with the chips...everyone folds aprt from the other guy who calls
 flop ....big chips bets...re raise...fold)
I went radio rental. No one else on the table seemed to care. They never admitted it of course
but both made the money. Unfortunately, I lost my cool and to my shame started having a go back.
Not big..Not clever.
All I figured I could do was take their names and email the site. I passed on the table name and time
the game started to the admin people. I could only hope Paradise would check their records and act accordingly

 

[Dingdell]

I was talking to a guy from Pokerstars in january re the same subject. They have software (apparently) that monitors player names and how often they play with the same players etc. It also follows betting patterns and reports anything suspicious. He agreed that there are cheaters but they do their utmost to keep them at bay.

Re bots - he said they removed them immediately they found/proved they were there but on a personal note he didnt see them as a threat as they stil had the same cards as everyone else which is random......

Not sure about that one.

[Karabiner]

I was talking to a guy from Pokerstars in january re the same subject. They have software (apparently) that monitors player names and how often they play with the same players etc. It also follows betting patterns and reports anything suspicious. He agreed that there are cheaters but they do their utmost to keep them at bay.

Re bots - he said they removed them immediately they found/proved they were there but on a personal note he didnt see them as a threat as they stil had the same cards as everyone else which is random......

Not sure about that one.

Anything re-goats ?

[byronkincaid]

Trouble with bots is even if they're only small winners you can presumably run dozens of them 24/7 and are just sucking money off the tables out of proper players pockets, so the losers go bust quicker and the winners don't win as mch as they should.

[Dingdell]

Trouble with bots is even if they're only small winners you can presumably run dozens of them 24/7 and are just sucking money off the tables out of proper players pockets, so the losers go bust quicker and the winners don't win as mch as they should.

I have now researched some of these programmes as the whole thing fascinates me - a bit like those impossible get rich quick schemes - and I have a healthy level of scepticism  about these things.  Journo's had these progs on their systems and over a day made £40. It could be argued that with loads of these running you could be making a healthy profit but with all the progs the poker companies have now I dont think it's a great way to make money. The progs can be set to play remotely or just as a hand logging system giving you info on other players betting and folding habits etc which you can then use when choosing your games and how to play them.....

On the main one I looked at the site explains how to run the progs on another computer to hide the programme from the poker site -  party poker seems to the favourite on the ones I had seen - but they also provide stats for players on poker stars, UB and some others.

The funny bit about this is that they may have already tracked you.  You can put in any name for a player on poker stars and it gives you a general overview of their game based on the hands it has logged them playing.

I came up as :  You are a Calling Station (Loose-Passive/Passive). The most unprofitable player type! Have a seat at my table, please...  (marvellous)

Out of interest I put the only other player I knew off the top of my head from pokerstars in - flopit20 - who is our very Brian Wilson The Rookie and his said: You are a MANIAC (Extremely Loose-Aggressive/Aggressive). Your presence alone changes the entire dynamic of the table.   

So the programme seems to be pretty accurate really.........wouldn't it be great to play one way and get classified and then change your play significantly to try and fool the system? It updates every 3 mins so it wouldn't take long for it to catch up though!

Is logging of others hands cheating? I'm not sure - you would never criticise a player for making notes so how far does it go?

Having got my free report on my playing I have to say it has highlighted a massive thing about my online game I didnt realise so that is useful. (IE Take up knitting)  As for getting the programme installed - I'm too scared of having my accounts frozen by the poker companies to give it a go - and after all poker isn't about computer programming for me.

I have noted the sites that allow it/can't trace it easily and take that into account when choosing my games so it was a useful exercise.

Tracey

[thetank]

Good post Dingdell.

In answer to your question is logging of others hands cheating?

Anything that violates the terms and conditions of the poker website you play on is cheating.

I don't make up the rules, the sites do. I haven't scrutinised the terms and conditions of all of them, can only speak for Pokerstars and Party Poker.

The answer is no, if you do it yourself and yes if you pay a subscription to one of the huge central database services to do it for you. There is grey area here though, a database service that shows winning results only, (not Poker Prophecy) the sites aren't too bothered with you using.

This is fine by me, showing that someone has won X amount of tournaments won't tell you much. Knowing that they raise X% of the time in the small blind isn't on though.

If you are unsure whether or not a program is ok to use alongside your poker software, check with the poker site's support. As a general rule though, if something is advertising that it can be used alongside Party Poker say, and it has no affiliate banner for Party Poker on it's website, it's unlikely that that program is usuable without violating the legal agrrement you clicked and agreed to when you signed up.

[thetank]

I spent around half an hour or so browsing earlier and could not find any database service that had Pokerstars turbo sit n gos covered.

Several claimed to, but when I used their trial searches for 'tigmong' it said player not found. They can't be too comprehensive if they missed lil ol' me. I've played over 1,000 this year!

I'm happy about this, it isn't a service I would use. Glad that my opponents can't either. They should know I've got the goods when I raise by now though