Absolute Poker Scandal

[pray4mojo]

what was this thread about?

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: pray4mojo
what was this thread about?

All people who play online poker are idiots..

or

The fact that an employee or more likely the owner/ex-owner of a popular poker site has been implicated in the biggest online poker cheating scandal in history.

Take your pick.

 

[Firebot]

Originally posted by: ManyBeers

Originally posted by: DBL

In general, most people lose money but plenty of people make money playing online poker. How can you call someone who consistently makes money playing online poker ignorant or stupid?

Anybody can type in a chat window or forum post how they won 50,000.00 playing online poker last year or whenever., but that is all it is...typed words in a chat window or forum post. Prove it.

www.officialpokerrankings.com

 

[waggy]

a few of us said this months ago and got flamed to holly hell and back for it.

crap like this is one of the reasons i stoped playing poker.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: waggy
a few of us said this months ago and got flamed to holly hell and back for it.

crap like this is one of the reasons i stoped playing poker.

said what?

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: waggy
a few of us said this months ago and got flamed to holly hell and back for it.

crap like this is one of the reasons i stoped playing poker.

said what?

that people were cheating. It seemed every now and then you would get someoen who knew what cards everyone had.


a few said the same thing and we got flaimed for it. saying there was no way that anyone can cheat.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: waggy
a few of us said this months ago and got flamed to holly hell and back for it.

crap like this is one of the reasons i stoped playing poker.

said what?

that people were cheating. It seemed every now and then you would get someoen who knew what cards everyone had.


a few said the same thing and we got flaimed for it. saying there was no way that anyone can cheat.

Who said there was no way anyone could cheat? What you are describing is a very common feeling when you are at a table with better players than yourself. Generally, when you ask someone to provide proof they produce one or two hands, which basically proves nothing.

In this case however, there is a tremendous amount of proof that cheating took place. This was never the case before.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: waggy
a few of us said this months ago and got flamed to holly hell and back for it.

crap like this is one of the reasons i stoped playing poker.

said what?

that people were cheating. It seemed every now and then you would get someoen who knew what cards everyone had.


a few said the same thing and we got flaimed for it. saying there was no way that anyone can cheat.

Who said there was no way anyone could cheat? What you are describing is a very common feeling when you are at a table with better players than yourself. Generally, when you ask someone to provide proof they produce one or two hands, which basically proves nothing.

In this case however, there is a tremendous amount of proof that cheating took place. This was never the case before.

many said ther ewas no way to cheat. it was a big flamefest.


i have been waiting for something to break. though i was expecting it months ago or so.

 

[jandrews]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: waggy
a few of us said this months ago and got flamed to holly hell and back for it.

crap like this is one of the reasons i stoped playing poker.

said what?

that people were cheating. It seemed every now and then you would get someoen who knew what cards everyone had.


a few said the same thing and we got flaimed for it. saying there was no way that anyone can cheat.

Who said there was no way anyone could cheat? What you are describing is a very common feeling when you are at a table with better players than yourself. Generally, when you ask someone to provide proof they produce one or two hands, which basically proves nothing.

In this case however, there is a tremendous amount of proof that cheating took place. This was never the case before.

many said ther ewas no way to cheat. it was a big flamefest.


i have been waiting for something to break. though i was expecting it months ago or so.

This is one guy who has access to their entire infrastructure, tough beats are hard to deal with and regardless of how good you think you are there are a ton of people who are better or just luckier. This story is about one guy and one guy only, I find it very unlikely they is even a small amount of people cheating outside of external tools that help calculate hand odds etc.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: jandrews

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: DBL

Originally posted by: waggy
a few of us said this months ago and got flamed to holly hell and back for it.

crap like this is one of the reasons i stoped playing poker.

said what?

that people were cheating. It seemed every now and then you would get someoen who knew what cards everyone had.


a few said the same thing and we got flaimed for it. saying there was no way that anyone can cheat.

Who said there was no way anyone could cheat? What you are describing is a very common feeling when you are at a table with better players than yourself. Generally, when you ask someone to provide proof they produce one or two hands, which basically proves nothing.

In this case however, there is a tremendous amount of proof that cheating took place. This was never the case before.

many said ther ewas no way to cheat. it was a big flamefest.


i have been waiting for something to break. though i was expecting it months ago or so.

This is one guy who has access to their entire infrastructure, tough beats are hard to deal with and regardless of how good you think you are there are a ton of people who are better or just luckier. This story is about one guy and one guy only, I find it very unlikely they is even a small amount of people cheating outside of external tools that help calculate hand odds etc.

if you think this is the only one you are insane. this is just the first tha was caught.

there have been rumors for years.

 

[pray4mojo]

you guys need to keep in mind that this is taking place at very high stakes, at the very least $100/$200 blinds. it just wouldn't be worth it for them to cheat at the lower blinds. i highly doubt that many atoters are playing at that level. unless you're playing with a guy that can call you with 10 high and win, they aren't cheating.

 

[Cuda1447]

Wow, this thread went from a good discussion about a problem with absolute poker, to that beers guy being a complete moron. Damnit. Back to the swearing at work thread, fucking yea!

 

[buck]

Originally posted by: ManyBeers

Originally posted by: Kyteland

Originally posted by: ManyBeers
Do i sound like the kind of guy who would play any computer controlled game of chance in a casino. Have you read my posts? I never play any games in any casino ever. The only game i play in casinos is poker or extremely rarely Blackjack. I don't like the shuffle machines, and i agree with you they probably could be manipulated. So i mostly play tournaments and if they ever become automated i won't play. I only trust a human dealer and human players with cards. I won't get into the crap about ATMs. I know how much i have in my acct.

Luddite.

LOL. When real money is at stake especially at events such as the WSOP i don't want anything that would even hint at impropriety or the possibility of such possible. I believe cell phones in fact any electrical communicating devices should be barred from the tables. When i put up 2,000.00 or more dollars to play i want human dealers only because i believe it is the only way do have a resonable guarantee of a truly random deal. Which is all any player can hope for.

Just to give you an example of what i condider impropriety practiced at the WSOP is the practice of assigning seats when a player enters a tournament at the pay window. Players should have a random physical draw for their seat assignments. No big thing but it just doesn't seem right to have their computer doing the 'random' seat assignments. I'm not saying anything is improper but the possibility is there. You see.

Im surprised that you arent worried that someone would be hacking the computer that gets feed from the hole cams during the tournies. There isn't any form of poker that is %100 safe from cheating.

 

[holden j caufield]

holly hell it seems this runs really deep and people are checking in on lots of other accounts that have 1 hit wonders. Almost seems like a bunch of his old frat boys are benefiting from this. People have been checking pokerdb and are seeing a lot of outliers

Someone who was at the office sometime ago wrote this


"The reason I haven't been vocal is because I have very little to add. And because I met many people I could have easily confused names and faces, and that would mean I could be criminalizing the wrong people.

I have been to the offices of AP personally. I sat in what I believe was Scott Tom's office for hours watching him play PokerStars on the account FatRaiser (I think). He played horrendously awful and it wouldn't surprise me if he were behind the cheating incident because the arrogant and oblivious-to-being-caught ways the cheaters went about cheating would be consistent with something I would expect of just about anyone I met there, but especially the guy playing the FatRaiser account. These guys just had no clue how to play poker.

I caution once again that the person I am talking about was definitely the top guy in the office but may not have been Scott Tom. Probably 85% certain his name was Scott though.

Once incident I can share that in reality says very little about any possible cheating scandal but does say something about how much of a douchebag the guy I met was: He rando-banned a player who was playing a play money game on his site. He just opened up the table, busted out the virtual banstick and banned her right in the middle of the hand while cackling and clearly in love with this pathetic demonstration of power.

Also, FWIW, I always felt as if I were being cheated on absolute, I know a lot of others who propped there felt the same way. However, my online poker experiences post-absolute have been similarly awful and it's clear that I'm just a mediocre player. I'm not sure if I was wrong, but things definitely felt different there.

I wish I had more to contribute and I wish I had paid more attention while I was in CR, but the truth is I that while I'm not interested in protecting anybody, I just don't know anything. And I really, truly cannot be 100% certain about the names of anyone I met."

 

[DBL]

Well, it looks like AP released a statement through MSNBC. As expected, it appears their excuse is full of holes (no pun intended). They blamed a 'geek'.

AbsolutePoker.com says ?geek? hacked system to prove it could be done

 

[buck]

Originally posted by: DBL
Well, it looks like AP released a statement through MSNBC. As expected, it appears their excuse is full of holes (no pun intended). They blamed a 'geek'.

AbsolutePoker.com says ?geek? hacked system to prove it could be done

They are a business, they are trying make this blow over and pretend its business as usual. They will not go out of business over this, they are making way too much money.

Its a shame they are giving the industry a black eye over their idiocy.

 

[IEC]

The only gambling I do is on the stock market.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

My 1st time seeing how computers deal cards was playing cribbage on yahoo. Needless to say the amount of 20-24 point hands dealt are no where near what you see playing for real. I dont agree that computers can randomly generate cards to be the same as having cards dealt by a human, I have also seen things on TV about random number generators not being possible from a computer. Wether this remains to be 100% true I agree they dont seem possible.

I play poker online once and a while also. Ive played at party poker and poker stars but always for play money. I see the same type of things from computers dealing in those games and something doesnt seem right as compared to a real life person dealing. My belief is that the computer knows the cards dealt and what its going to deal, its not random the only thing random is how you play the hand, it gives you the options to fold raise etc.


I dont know if I would ever play for real money or not its very hard to trust what goes on when you cant see anything, but hey if people that do play have no issue with it then good for them. Something is fishy when it comes to computers dealing and well thats enough for me to be scared to give them real money. The youtube thing well thats like icing on the cake cause no doubt if one guy did it there will be more.

 

[Stiganator]

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
My 1st time seeing how computers deal cards was playing cribbage on yahoo. Needless to say the amount of 20-24 point hands dealt are no where near what you see playing for real. I dont agree that computers can randomly generate cards to be the same as having cards dealt by a human, I have also seen things on TV about random number generators not being possible from a computer. Wether this remains to be 100% true I agree they dont seem possible.

I play poker online once and a while also. Ive played at party poker and poker stars but always for play money. I see the same type of things from computers dealing in those games and something doesnt seem right as compared to a real life person dealing. My belief is that the computer knows the cards dealt and what its going to deal, its not random the only thing random is how you play the hand, it gives you the options to fold raise etc.


I dont know if I would ever play for real money or not its very hard to trust what goes on when you cant see anything, but hey if people that do play have no issue with it then good for them. Something is fishy when it comes to computers dealing and well thats enough for me to be scared to give them real money. The youtube thing well thats like icing on the cake cause no doubt if one guy did it there will be more.

Nothing can be truly random, but computers' random number generators are pretty good if implemented correctly i.e. using some outside input to assist randomization.

The computer does "know" what cards you have, but the software will only do as its told.

It's really no different than online banking or anything of that nature, someone on the inside would screw you over bad if they wanted to.

And that is why you should treat programmers and network admins nicely. For they are subtle and quick to anger (and could dramatically reduce your site traffic for the foreseeable future).

 

[WaTaGuMp]

Originally posted by: Stiganator

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
My 1st time seeing how computers deal cards was playing cribbage on yahoo. Needless to say the amount of 20-24 point hands dealt are no where near what you see playing for real. I dont agree that computers can randomly generate cards to be the same as having cards dealt by a human, I have also seen things on TV about random number generators not being possible from a computer. Wether this remains to be 100% true I agree they dont seem possible.

I play poker online once and a while also. Ive played at party poker and poker stars but always for play money. I see the same type of things from computers dealing in those games and something doesnt seem right as compared to a real life person dealing. My belief is that the computer knows the cards dealt and what its going to deal, its not random the only thing random is how you play the hand, it gives you the options to fold raise etc.


I dont know if I would ever play for real money or not its very hard to trust what goes on when you cant see anything, but hey if people that do play have no issue with it then good for them. Something is fishy when it comes to computers dealing and well thats enough for me to be scared to give them real money. The youtube thing well thats like icing on the cake cause no doubt if one guy did it there will be more.

Nothing can be truly random, but computers' random number generators are pretty good if implemented correctly i.e. using some outside input to assist randomization.

The computer does "know" what cards you have, but the software will only do as its told.

It's really no different than online banking or anything of that nature, someone on the inside would screw you over bad if they wanted to.

And that is why you should treat programmers and network admins nicely. For they are subtle and quick to anger (and could dramatically reduce your site traffic for the foreseeable future).

The thing I saw on TV was about a guy who figured out how to beat video poker machines, he is the one that said random number generators are not possible when its being controlled by a computer. I can see it being true based on what I have seen all computer based games do when it comes to dealing cards. I am sure someone would argue that they do exsist but I guess it doesnt matter, people still can choose to play games online and use real money or not, thats the beauty of freedom of choice. In the end its all good but I just get the gut feeling when playing cards games dealt by a machine that something is just strange.

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: WaTaGuMp
My 1st time seeing how computers deal cards was playing cribbage on yahoo. Needless to say the amount of 20-24 point hands dealt are no where near what you see playing for real. I dont agree that computers can randomly generate cards to be the same as having cards dealt by a human, I have also seen things on TV about random number generators not being possible from a computer. Wether this remains to be 100% true I agree they dont seem possible.

I play poker online once and a while also. Ive played at party poker and poker stars but always for play money. I see the same type of things from computers dealing in those games and something doesnt seem right as compared to a real life person dealing. My belief is that the computer knows the cards dealt and what its going to deal, its not random the only thing random is how you play the hand, it gives you the options to fold raise etc.


I dont know if I would ever play for real money or not its very hard to trust what goes on when you cant see anything, but hey if people that do play have no issue with it then good for them. Something is fishy when it comes to computers dealing and well thats enough for me to be scared to give them real money. The youtube thing well thats like icing on the cake cause no doubt if one guy did it there will be more.

You're wrong. These algorithms are truly random and have been verified to be so. However, as somebody else mentioned, they do use outside input from clients (such as mouse movements) to guarantee randomization. In a closed system, you would likely be correct but since this is understood, measures have been taken to correct this.

Besides, if what you say is true, it would be pretty trivial to prove a real lack of randomization by an analysis of any number of different statistics over a sampling of 10k hands or so. This type of analysis has been done numerous times on the algorithms used by most of the big poker sites and there has never been shown to be a result other than what would be predicted by random chance.

Read this for a little more detail.
Text

 

[DBL]

Originally posted by: buck

Originally posted by: DBL
Well, it looks like AP released a statement through MSNBC. As expected, it appears their excuse is full of holes (no pun intended). They blamed a 'geek'.

AbsolutePoker.com says ?geek? hacked system to prove it could be done

They are a business, they are trying make this blow over and pretend its business as usual. They will not go out of business over this, they are making way too much money.

Its a shame they are giving the industry a black eye over their idiocy.

Perhaps, but their excuses have no merit at all. Things do not check out or follow based on their version of the events. They may survive (although I'm not so sure) but I'd expect this to get a lot worse before it gets better.

 

[CrazyDe1]

Originally posted by: ManyBeers

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Freerolls? You got to be kidding me. Yeah, that's good practice. Playing with people that have nothing to lose and can be play as loose and stupidly as they want b/c there's no risk.

I have played in many real money tournamentds including ten or more at the WSOP over the last 4 years and people play just as badly as they do in play money tourneys. Not everybody who plays poker for real money knows how to play poker. That is why some are winners and others are losers. End of story

Pretty ignorant statements...

I can't imagine how profitable online poker will become if the government ever decides to regulate it. All the idiots who think like you and think it's rigged will come out in masses.

 

[CrazyDe1]

Originally posted by: aplefka
Casinos are way better anyway, tell your brother to step it up to the real game if it's at all an option for him. Makes you a much better player.

The "real" game???

Casinos are horrible. You have to deal with degenerate gamblers and slow placed games. a .25-50 cent player online can kill a live 1-2 game and it's not even close. Live games are so soft it's not even funny (obviously some of the bigger Bellagio games aren't, but in general live games are much softer).

 

[ManyBeers]

Originally posted by: CrazyDe1

Originally posted by: ManyBeers

Originally posted by: Capt Caveman

Freerolls? You got to be kidding me. Yeah, that's good practice. Playing with people that have nothing to lose and can be play as loose and stupidly as they want b/c there's no risk.

I have played in many real money tournamentds including ten or more at the WSOP over the last 4 years and people play just as badly as they do in play money tourneys. Not everybody who plays poker for real money knows how to play poker. That is why some are winners and others are losers. End of story

Pretty ignorant statements...

I can't imagine how profitable online poker will become if the government ever decides to regulate it. All the idiots who think like you and think it's rigged will come out in masses.

Why is my statement ignorant?

Uh..no. I don't care who regulates it i still won't play for real money online.