Cheating Online

Would someone please explain to me why:


1. Every time someone puts up a post that suggests/accuses online sites of cheating, that the poster gets flamed, mocked, scolded, etc.?


2. Few people seem to think there is cheating going on online?


It would be so easy for players to collude that I would be shocked if there ISN'T a great deal of cheating going on. Whether the sites are actively rigging the cards is a different issue, and I am not suggesting that they are... but it wouldn't shock me. Collusion, on the other hand, I would have to guess is rampant.


Am I the only one that thinks this way? Because based on many of the posts I have read on here, it sure seems that way.

Sites rigging cards: Same deal as early days in Vegas -- some may be doing it but the big ones (like Paradise) almost surely realize they can make MORE money for a LONGER time by running a straight game. It's just dumb to run a crooked game when you can get paid millions upon millions year in and year out to run a straight one.


Players colluding: Definitely possible. The problem is (as in live games) the advantages aren't that great and you've got two mouths to feed. If you are very, very skilled at collusion you have to be a good cardplayer and if you are good, you can beat the low limits without colluding. At higher limits, I'd definitely be suspicious - and in fact low limit play dominates on line.

"It's just dumb to run a crooked game when you can get paid millions upon millions year in and year out to run a straight one."


this isn't a logical argument.

i would say collusion in online games is more common than not. it's just too easy for two people to share information by using instant messenger. but i think this is the extent of the majority of cheating. most players don't know enough about poker to collude properly.


just keep an eye out. if you think you are being tag teamed, email support.

"It would be so easy for players to collude that I would be shocked if there ISN'T a great deal of cheating going on."


This smacks a little of the Christian who says that without God's moral guidance, we'd all be running around robbing and killing each other.


I give our species more credit than that, even at poker.


Tommy

1. Every time someone puts up a post that suggests/accuses online sites of cheating, that the poster gets flamed, mocked, scolded, etc.?


Probably because the vast majority of such posts are rants which contain no evidence to support the poster's claim. Also, if a poster uses a handle like "Paradise Sux" and the post is fraught with spelling and grammatical errors (a post should _not_ have to conform to Strunk & White, but should, IMO, at least be somewhat coherent) then it is less likely to be taken seriously.


2. Few people seem to think there is cheating going on online?


Have you read this somewhere? I have never read this anywhere that I can remember.


With rare (no?) exception, even the most strident supporters of online poker acknowledge that there _must_ be some amount of cheating going on - online, and in B & M rooms. If you could provide a cite of any poker authority, or even a semi-authority saying that there is NO cheating, I'd be interested in reading it.

Its not easy to cheat online. i play in a regular game. i see many regular players. there were two pretty good players who consistently played in the same game, came on at the same time, and who lived in the same city. there is obviously some communication going on there. i saw no evidence of collusion, but the oppurtunity was there.


i emailed support at the site expressing my concerns and these players were immediately disallowed from playing at the same table. paradise had already noted their playing patterns and my email made them take action.


also, you cant do things like go and fold KK when someone has AA, the site knows and will throw you out.

There may be collusion online, but I'd be surprised if it's more rampant than the implicit collusion that goes on in many casino games with players that are good friends and don't bet each other, or players who never make a move on another player.


I've played in plenty of games where it was clear that the "good" players would not move on each other and just play against the fish. I think there's a strong possibility there is more cheating live than online.

"we'd all be running around robbing and killing each other"


On robbing, see the headlines daily.


On killing, between 1900 and 1950, 44 out of every 1,000 people on the planet was killed as a result of a war.


On poker, I suspect, but cannot prove, there has never been a money game where there was not cheating.

Great post. I actually think poker players are more honest than many other industries. But I don't disagree with your post.

Tommy,


Maybe this should be moved to the Other Topics forum but I can’t help but comment (maybe it was the vodka martini that I had tonight). You wrote: ”This smacks a little of the Christian who says that without God's moral guidance, we'd all be running around robbing and killing each other. - - I give our species more credit than that…”


I have little doubt that the average attendee of an “Atheists United” or “Secular Humanist” meeting or whatever such a gathering might be called is more likely to be moral and live a righteous life then the average churchgoer. All too often, the ostensibly religious is not that committed to his faith, and attends church or temple for social reasons or because of inertia – i.e., he attends because he was brought up to attend. OTOH, someone who is a committed atheist usually has thought deeply about these great moral and spiritual issues and tends to live a good life on his own account or simply because he is the type of person who thinks about the great issues.


Still, IMO, religion, faith, and churchgoing helps the average man consider the consequences of his actions and that he is ultimate accountable for his deeds. Sure, wars have been fought over religion and faith but wars have been fought over many other things too. And those that try to follow “God’s moral guidance” still sin and hurt others, but do they do it as often if they had no religious guidance? I don’t think so.


Here is a variant of something you may have heard before. Let’s say you are walking down a deserted dark alley and a group of young men suddenly approach you from the other end. Would you feel more secure if you:


1) Somehow knew that they were just leaving a voluntary bible study class?


2) Somehow knew that they were just leaving an organized group discussion of their atheistic or secular humanist beliefs”


3) Knew nothing of there activities of the previous hour?


We could argue about who is less likely to mug you, but clearly it has to one of the first two groups. Can both the religious** and secular humanist agree on that?


Regards,


Rick


** I’m saying this as a person who is not that religious.

The sorriest thing is people who go around saying that God is imaginary, I don't believe in him, so therefore I am not religious. What these people are is arrogant.


They assume that other people don't know why they do the things they do, and so use God to explain it. But they do understand and have an explantion for everything.


Tommy Angelo and Andy Fox are extremely religious, their brains are perhaps better at absorbing and reproducing religion than the average moron at a Hitler rally.


Another sorry thing is statements like this:


"atheist has thought deeply about these great moral and spiritual issues and tends to live a good life on his own account or simply because he is the type of person who thinks about the great issues"


I'm sure Karl Marx thought deeply about economics, and yet he was still absurdly wrong about very simple things. I am sure Marie Curie thought deeply about radioactivity, and yet she still died of cancer.


Honestly, if religion was just believing that an animate overseer exists, whether God or Alan Greenspan, it would certainly offer no survival advantage over non-religious societies. Since religion does offer a survival benefit, but this narrow aspect would seem to confer a disadvantage, there must be something else that comprises the main body of "religion" but which is overlooked!


Saying religion is invalid is like saying Bill Gates is dead and, therefore, the Windows operating system must be nothing but useless 1's and 0's. Or that if someone who hates Bill Gates has an operating system that works, he must be a really thoughtful programmer! Anyway, I don't have the energy to explain just now...


But in the meantime, let's have some atheist out there explain what he thinks "religion" is.


eLROY

I AM NOT AFFILIATED WITH ANY ONLINE POKER SITE.


Just on 2+2 alone, there have been volumes of posts regarding "rigged" online sites. Here's how I see it:


Given (to the best of my knowledge) that these sites are under no outside independent regulation or oversight, there is always the POTENTIAL for any site operator(s) to "rig" the game. If you take ethics out of the equation, and look at it simply as a bottom line business decision, then the issue becomes one of "how much greater is the sites profit potential if the operator(s) discover a way to do it that is undetectable?


Rather than get into that morass, I'd liken it to my experiences in "live" B&M rooms. My experience has been that I have made money in most of them, and lost money in some of them. I then do my best at attempting to understand why this happens. There are a number of variables (quality of opposition, game selection, SD, my own quality of play, timing, etc.) that will factor into why this happens. The bottom line for me is that if an observable pattern emerges, then I should pay attention to it. If I am a consistent loser in a particular room, there comes a point that I will make a decision and it's a pretty simple one: I don't play that room anymore.


IMO, online sites are the same. I have had varying degrees of success in most of them, and awful results in one of them. After I go through the "due dilligence" process of trying to understand why this is so, I end up in the place that simply tells me "Why bother: just don't play on that site anymore". My gut feeling is that it probably has more to do with my "state of mind" because of my past negative experiences there, but does it really matter? I just move on and play on the sites that show me a profit.


As far as collusion goes?


Again, IMO, there are different levels of collusion that occur in both live & online games.


Without going into a dissertation on the subject, I consider the following "points" when I visit the whole collusion subject.


- If the colluders are superior players, their collusion is virtually undetectable.


- If the colluders are average or below average players, their collusion attempts are fairly easy to pick up by experienced players who are paying attention.


- Online sites have an advantage over B&M rooms, in that hand histories can be reviewed & studied and therefore the likelihood of detecting collusion by site managers is much greater than in B&M rooms, IF, the site is predisposed to do so.


- Online "active" collusion is much easier for players to attempt because colluders can actively communicate "in real time" via phone, IM, ICQ, etc. without anyone one else at the table knowing about it.


In one online room (as I outlined in an earlier post) I had suspicions about 2 players, reported them to the room manager, and, after they reviewed the hands, those two players were banned from the site for collusion.


Bottom Line? Pay attention and report anything suspicious to the site manager. Not much else U can do other than that?


Then judge the site by the level of response that U get.

Sorry, sometimes I forget that the structures which the words I post will bounce off of and be filtered through, are nothing more than synaptic trees and crude neural networks, with only the simplest stimulus-reponse catalogs.


To assume somebody out there would have any idea what my post was getting at, would be to assume some sentient consciousness exists out there in the universe - which is, of course, the animistic fallacy applied to blobs of quivering meat.


If there were a God, he would know what I am talking about. Impossible. People know nothing, and it is only to the extent they are vessels and creators of religion, that the crystal of society perpetuates in an orderly fashion.


eLROY

. . .but not as sorry as Tommy and me.


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For those of us who have brains only slightly better than those of morons, will you explain the survival advantage of religious societies over non-religious ones? And could you give an example of a non-religious society? Thank you.


Do you like the dictionary definition of religion (Random House College Edition)?:


"A set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observance and often having a moral code for the conduct of human affairs."

Sure, to say that everyone deserves equal respect is to abolish the very definition of respect. But to say nobody isn't religious does not erase the meaning of religion.


Their definition is particulary silly, given that it mentions the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. Whereas most religions provide people, not universes, with instruction sets.


Neither the Bible, nor the Koran, is addressed to universes. As there is no law of God we could break which would end the universe. The purpose of religion is, of course, self-perpetuation.


It may be that human beings are the reproductive organs of the universe, and that our purpose here is to somehow spawn new universes. But that is not really the point, anyway.


Bacically, their definition is that a religion is simply a made-up explanation of the origin of the universe. And that depending on the color of the silliness, some people might even, like, wear red.


Saying "usually" with regard to having a code of rituals and human conduct, is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, they have become completely distracted and have missed the point.


As an aside, can evolution explain the origin of the universe? No. But for some reason, evolution and creation are seen as incompatible. But this is totally silly.


Obviously, if God were to paint a picture of a wrecked car in a ditch, he would paint skid marks on the road. To give the laws of physics time-axis consistency, he paints a fossil record.


Nobody would say that people are just particles like rocks and gas molecules. Nobody is indifferent to whether he becomes rearranged. Is this different from belief in God?


Even the dumbest people are capable of questioning whether religious institutions, such as marriage, are right or wrong. Not even the smartest can answer of their own knowledge.


Religion is for stupid people. Smart people call what they know to be fact, and what they know to be wrong religion. But is the line really so clear? Is there a line?


Suppose we set an "evolution" in motion, from microbes to dogs to religious ritualistic savages, to scientific people smart enough to dispose of religion. Is there a leap?


No, there is no leap, there is no magic moment in the evolutionary simluation. The beliefs of men, no matter how smart or scientific, are along a continuum with the beliefs of dogs.


Of course, people are no more conscious of their religion than dogs are, only of the religion of others. For everyone, someone else is as a dog with his silly habits and rituals.


To use a math analogy, our religious beliefs and habits are infinite. No matter how many parts of science or "reason" we add, the unrecgonized residual is still infinite in comparison.


The rationality of new substitute reasons, or the illusions of new purposes, may displace the causes of our actions. But all our actions, and all our conduct, is still on a continuum.


Anyway, all these paragraphs are still incomplete, and miss the main point. As my earlier post said, I am not of a mind to explain these matters further right now.


eLROY

I just want to go on the record about something. I am always going around telling people that they're not actually "thinking." And without further explanation, I guess it might sound like I am trying to say something deep, but who knows what the heck I mean!?


And so the simplest way I can think to put it is this. The illusion of thinking is the idea that two equally-smart people, put in the same situation, will draw the same conclusions, or take the same actions. That may be true of something of such contrived simplicity as a math problem. But in any real-life situation, such as involving the nuances of human interaction, nothing can be further from the truth.


Meaning, two equally-smart people, who grew up in two different parts of the world, will react differently, and perceive different things, in an identical situation. Meaning, one's "thoughts" are completely a product of prior stimulus and feedback pruning down neurological associations in the brain. Meaning, the perceived unlimited freedom to make decisions and take actions is an illusion, or else two people would arrive at the same decision, given the same information.


This may sound dreadfully mundane but, to me, it is interesting. Even something so simple as steering around a chair, to avoid tripping over it when walking through a room, is not a product of reason or analysis, but of similar prior experience or instruction in the catalog. And so it is the ability to model, and analyze, and cope with situations, that is an illusion. At its core, is the illusion that our experience is all experience, that it is somehow complete.


A better way of saying this is that it appears to us that we are different from rigidly-constructed robots, that we have the power to choose. It appears to us that we select from an infinite spectrum of alternative decisions. But in reality, the spectrum which to us - from inside of it - appears infinite, is tragically narrow. In reality, there may be little or no overlap between tiny slivers of the infinite spectrum of possible ideas within two different individuals.


And so 99.99% of what we do is completely robotic. We cannot possibly leave the path which has been constructed for us. And moreover the path which from our point of view appears wide, is hopelessly narrow. It is simply that the mind is blind to its own boundaries, and cannot see itself choosing branches in the road when the alternative branches are not included in its map.


More simply, we are not aware of our own habits, or that they are habits, or that there are alternative habits, while the momentum of our habits carries us forward, even as we think we are thinking...


eLROY

This is a pretty good example. Start with what you are focused on, what is at the center of your vision, and consider what is to the right of it. And what is to the right of that?


Eventually, you get past your visual range, behind it. Similarly, people are unable to see the blackness, where their own "reason" ends, and where religion fills in.


eLROY

i think you have too much faith in humanity...

While I've never flamed anyone who has accused online poker sites of being rigged, I generally support those that do. The reason is simple. I win online. I've won online for three years. I only play at work so I usually devote only 60 to 70% of my attention to the game(s) I'm in. If these sites were rigged and/or skilled colluders were ubiquitous, someone like me (a decent, FAR from world class player) would lose.

E,


Seriously, do have really have any clue what you are writing about? I'm not trying to insult you here, but I'm just wondering if your ramblings are the product of a mind attempting to discover what it thinks.


John

John,


Well then, do you understand what I am talking about?


Regards,


Rick

Yes. You're coherent, Rick. eLROY, on the other hand, really cannot maintain coherence through any post of some length. Perhaps he's better off sticking to epigrammatic *NM* stuff.


John

sorry, but i just read all of elroy's posts in this thread, and i found them to be quite coherent. maybe im just as stupid as he is, or maybe the two of us have some weird psychological connection, or something. but i have never found anything he's written to be incoherent. perhaps you find my posts incoherent?

well, I do..


that makes 1000 out of 1000 money games being cheated, if I translate Andy's post correctly...


Just a LITTLE high, wouldn't you think, Mr Fox?