A couple of online scandals in the world of
Online Poker made some news recently. The scandals
involved players who could see the hole cards of
all the players at the table at two sites,
Ultimate bet and Absolute Poker. There were able
to do this for years, and stole millions from
other players at those sites until they were
caught. Not caught by the site operator or the
certifying body, both of whom initially denied the
possibility, but caught by other players who
analyzed their play and got lucky when the sites
provided some playing hand information that
accidently was released.
Just because some players were
caught cheating online does not mean that it still
does not happen. This one player,
potripper, was incredibly dumb to play it the
way he did, by winning so much it became too
obvious that there was some sort of cheating going
on. Had he not been so greedy and just played
slightly above the average, he would most likely
still be at it.
And there may be others
who can do the same thing, but are smart enough to
cover their tracks by smarter play, losing a few
now and then, and keeping a low profile.
We see examples everyday of websites being
hacked, information being stolen, sites raided and
other types of Internet crime. Who is to say that
this is not being done now as I write this?
I think there is a lot more cheating
online than most players suspect, and collusion is
the most rampant. Collusion can occur many
ways:
Using an instant messenger service, such as
Yahoo, MSN, AIM or others, two players, or even a
group of players, can use these services to share
hand information during play, from locations
across the street, across the city, across the
state, even across the country or in a different
country. By sharing hand information during play,
these players can acheive a significant advantage
over the other players.
Next most common is players who use multiple
accounts to play on the same site, often through
different skins. This makes it possible for the
same player to actually have two (or more) seats
at the same table, enabing chip dumping in
tournaments or whipsawing to build
pots.
After that comes two accounts from the same IP
using two different computers under different
names (think husband/wife teams, or family/friends
teams) who can play in the same game, even at the
same table.
Many online sites claim to have controls in
place to prevent this type of cheating, however I
have my doubts, I have seen too much of it in
single table SNG's, ring/cash games, and in
private tournaments with smaller participants. In
fact, at one site recently, I just had to quit
playing there, even though I was on the site
leadboard for winnings, because this type of play
had become just too obvious and rampant and site
support was simply unresponsive on this issue.
There will be no final answers until online
Poker is regulated legally in the USA. The Poker
Players Alliance is trying to do this, for more
information, visit their site and join up, it's
free!
