Online cheaters

[shawn_p]

Seeing this site made me raise an eyebrow. What do you guys think about this?
This (http://pokermafia.com/boiler_room.php)

[Bill Smith]

He's using eMachines. He can't be that smart.

[astroglide]

it needs a couple mini fridges and a urinal trough, they're way inefficient

[largeeyes]

WTF is it?

[Grisgra]

Massive collusion network apparently. Wonder what games they hit. And whether it really works. I can certainly see it working in the AA vs KK instance, but . . .

As an obvious side note, this Russ guy seems like quite the ass.

[augie00]

Here at school a guy was telling me about two guys that collude on party sng's. I said to tell the guys that if they ever meet me, they're getting a beat down. That's how I deal with online cheaters.

[elindauer]

[ QUOTE ]
Here at school a guy was telling me about two guys that collude on party sng's.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't worry about it, they're probably doing it wrong anyways. I've spent far too many hours looking at tournament mathematics, and to sum up, cheating in tournaments can be highly counter-intuitive.


Good luck.
Eric

[NLSoldier]

Didnt someone post that link a few weeks ago?

FWIW I think the advantage of colluding is WAY overrated by most players. This is probably because most colluders don't know much about the game in the first place which is why they resort to cheating.

[OnlinePokerCoach]

He has said that he does not cheat the 15/30 games at Party/Empire (because the stakes are too small), so lower limit players clearly need not worry. Of course, you cannot trust a cheater, so he could very well be lying with this statement too.

OPC

[shawn_p]

Boiler room artical (http://pokermafia.com/index.php?tid=free&artid=43&action=zoom)

[augie00]

I'm happy he's doing this. Now, I can crush one donk eight times instead of crushing eight different donks.

[Sponger15SB]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm happy he's doing this. Now, I can crush one donk eight times instead of crushing eight different donks.

[/ QUOTE ]

You do not stand a change playing against 1 person with 8 seats at the table.

Also this guy is better at poker than you anyways.

[lacky]

just wondering, why is he selling the secret to 6 figures a month for $5000? Sounds like the everyone gets rich real estate seminar.

[DEvice]

Thats alot of computers--similar to a setup of the run of the mill Gaming/LAN center that you'd see in any metropolitan city. One major thing I noticed from the pictures...no networking (no RJ-45 cables plugged in the back of ANY of the machines).

Any shmoe can buy a slew of crappy pre-manufactured computers on credit from BestBuy and some overpriced 21inch flat pannel monitors (19inch Viewsonic/Trinitron at 1600x1200 does just fine for multi table poker and you will save a bit of money in the process).

The real key to avoiding getting caught by collusion is networking, can you spoof ALL of the outgoing packets and bottleneck it through one DSL/Cable connection or can you connect to 12 individual proxys? I think not but maybe I am wrong--I have only finished a little bit of my Networking Degree.

Online poker rooms aren't stupid, I am sure they could take greater measures to detour people from doing such things but I wouldn't worry about stuff like this too much.

Usualy people who don't have enough skill to have Positive BB/Hour are the ones foaming at the mouth to cheat and it plays true in just any "game" I have come accross on the Internet (Poker is no exception).

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
One major thing I noticed from the pictures...no networking

[/ QUOTE ]

Haha, good point. Some of them don't have anything plugged in.

[nuclear500]

Considering no site lets multiple players from the same IP sit at the same table, thats a lot to be paying for Internet connections as well.

Plus I'm sure they look for similarities. If a lot of 64.38.23.x addresses suddenly are showing up at one or more tables that should trigger something in their alarm systems.

[MrMoo]

It's pretty easy to bounce connections through different hosts and still have a low enough latency for online poker.

[LionsFan20]

You are correct that the big online sites won't let the same ip sit at a table twice, but a visit to anonymizer.com or a similar site would take care of that problem.

I would certainly think that bandwidth would become an issue though running that many accounts over a single dsl or cable service.

[Luv2DriveTT]

I smell a fraudulent photo. How come he didn't take a picture with all the computers on, logged into seperate party accounts, all playing at the same table?


If I were to do something this crooked, I would use only 2 monitors and two keyboard/mice, with an auto-switcher (like they use in server farms). This setup doesn't look real at all, unless he has 5 staff members working with him in the same room at the same time. Since getting seperate IPs would be costly, he would probably have to use dialup connections (also costly per month, but more reasonable).

In short.... I'm not worried at all. If this were at all true, then why would he post his AOL address (unless he is a fool).

On a related question, is it possible to get more than one Netteller account attached to the same bank or credit card? That looks like a red flag to me!

TT /images/graemlins/club.gif

[Blarg]

A dail-up connection is only 20 bucks a month, and having a few separate phone lines is no big deal. Plenty of suburban houses have two or three lines to keep the kids out of the hair of the parents. Phone and ISP costs definitely wouldn't be a problem.

[Kimmo]

Actually There is what i suppose is an internal modem with line connected in the last picture. Also he talks about paying phone bills, i think it would be a good idea for him to have multiple phone lines and dial to a different service provider from each computer so he wouldn't have similiar IP's.

Automatically detecting that someone is doing this would be quite impossible (and i'm pretty experienced about networks and programming so i'd like to think i know what i'm talking about).

With reasonable number of accounts, let's say 200, it would be possible to find out if there are players who sometimes play on the same table at the same time but never were playing on two different tables at the same time. This would be very tricky to do and would need a huge amount of computing power for it. Also it isn't very accurate.

I guess some sort of graphical representation of players could be drawn with a little less effort and then someone would have to examine the pictures manually and see if any group of players seem to stand out. If you've seen PieSpy (http://www.jibble.org/piespy/) you know what i mean.

You don't need that much bandwidth for online poker. I've been playing using GPRS (max speed 48kbps i think, in reality much less, works over the GSM network) with no problems at all.

What i think is the difficult part is to get that many accounts registered without suspicion. Could a douchebag like that get so many (he said 50 accounts was an understatement) credit cards? Maybe in USA, but i don't think it would work where i live in.

Of course it needs some poker skills to actually profit from collusion, the largest effect for the poor guy playing against his army of evil would probably be that he sees less multiway pots and only gets one caller for anything unless the mafioso has draws on more than one hand and wants to maximize the chance of one of them hitting something (which again would be bad for him if none of them did and you took the pot). Of course it doesn't matter for him how much he loses from one account to another one of his accounts since it's all his money so he could try to push you out by raising and reraising with anything he might be holding (and not let it go to the showdown so you don't see if anyone had anything)

There are bots, there is collusion, it's not news. Still, some people manage to make profit with legitmate play.

[ihaterivers]

[ QUOTE ]
He's using eMachines. He can't be that smart.

[/ QUOTE ]
You can't be that smart saying that. If you were being sarcastic I apologize.

[ihaterivers]

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW I think the advantage of colluding is WAY overrated by most players. This is probably because most colluders don't know much about the game in the first place which is why they resort to cheating.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well if you have ever read any of Russ's articles on poker and collusion you would not feel this way about it. He may be on the nutty side but you cannot blindly dismiss what he says about collusion.

[Red_Eye_Jedi]

[ QUOTE ]


Of course it needs some poker skills to actually profit from collusion, the largest effect for the poor guy playing against his army of evil would probably be that he sees less multiway pots and only gets one caller for anything unless the mafioso has draws on more than one hand and wants to maximize the chance of one of them hitting something (which again would be bad for him if none of them did and you took the pot). Of course it doesn't matter for him how much he loses from one account to another one of his accounts since it's all his money so he could try to push you out by raising and reraising with anything he might be holding (and not let it go to the showdown so you don't see if anyone had anything)



[/ QUOTE ]

So you would feel comfortable playing me heads up, if you got the usual 2 cards, and I got 18?

[Kimmo]

[ QUOTE ]
So you would feel comfortable playing me heads up, if you got the usual 2 cards, and I got 18?

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually what i was thinking about was completely wrong, based on the thought of several guys making a pact about not playing against each other, but in this case it's all different since he can keep calling with every hand as it doesn't matter if one of his accounts loses to another one of his own accounts, unlike the situation where you're doing this with your friends and don't want to take their money.

[Luv2DriveTT]

8 phone lines @ $30 per month. 8 Dialup accounts @ $20 per month. The minimum nut is $400 per month, or $4,800 per year. This does not include time charges while using the phone line of course.

Of... we forgot to figure in the horrible lag time from a dialup... I would pull out my hair!

TT /images/graemlins/club.gif

[Bill Smith]

[ QUOTE ]
You can't be that smart saying that. If you were being sarcastic I apologize.

[/ QUOTE ]

eMachines have a terrible performance and service record.

I don't know whether to even take this article seriously or not. 8 computers in a room isn't anything new, nor is collusion in poker. If they were actually decent players that were colluding, I would probably leave the room in short order anyway. I would also hope that the poker sites would notice if the same 7-9 people were repeatedly entering the same public room.

Sit-n-Go's might be a problem - can't just get up and leave. Again, I would think this could be caught over time.

[FishBurger]

Think about it: the online sites see everyone's hole cards everytime. How many unusual plays could these guys make while sitting at the same table before a very simple "cheat-catcher" program catches them? I think online sites can catch colluders way easier than B&M.

The first time one of the colluders raises a tiny bit pre-flop with 2,4 offsuit into one of his buddies AA, then folds to the re-raise, a red flag will go up. Plus, the software will track how often these guys play together.

To ease your mind, send an e-mail to your sites support saying that two or more people seem to being playing in an unusual manner. I have done this twice on Party, and their checks are extensive.

The first time I did it, some jackass had used his disconnect (what I sarcastically refer to as "allin") protection in a SNG (back when Party still had disconnect protect at SNGs) to avoid calling my allin and still see the cards. The site looked at his history, and sure enough he had a pattern of doing the same thing in other SNGs. PP then removed his disconnect protect for SNGs (shortly before removing everyone's).

The next time, I was at a 0.5/1 limit game (0.5/1! - who cares about that?) and a guy in front of me raised PF, I called, the guy behind me re-raised, then first guy re-raised, I called, and guy behind me capped. They then did the same thing on the flop and I folded. When one of them folded on the turn to a single bet I e-mailed PP support.

They sent me back an e-mail saying these guys had never played together before and that the hand itself wasn't that unusual (I had just arrived at the table, so maybe the raiser-folder had done that with other hands against other opponents). They then said that neither players hand histories at other tables looked unusual.

Think about ways you would cheat, and then think about how even a simple program could catch you if it always sees your hole cards.

[MrMoo]

You can get shell accounts for $5 a month that would support bouncing a connection. That's $100/month + the cost of a cable modem hookup for 20 unique IP connections.

[MrMoo]

[ QUOTE ]

The first time one of the colluders raises a tiny bit pre-flop with 2,4 offsuit into one of his buddies AA, then folds to the re-raise, a red flag will go up. Plus, the software will track how often these guys play together.

[/ QUOTE ]

That would be one way to collude. And I agree it would be relatively easy to catch programatically.

Another way I think could be very profitable is via opponent modeling. I wouldn't think sending 9 players into a room to bust one guy would be very profitable for very long. So let's assume you throw in 7 guys colluding in one room. Thats now 14 cards of a 52 card deck you know are already "in play". At the flop stage that leaves 35 possible cards your opponent can hold. Narrow that down even further by considering the players previous playing standards (unlikely they'd call a raise with 27o) and you have a pretty accurate model of the players possible cards. Compute the hand strength of each likely possible opponent hand and you've got a very detailed probability of whether you or one of your 6 other cohorts will win the hand.

[crazzy187]

To me this just looks like a computer lab at a small school but what do I know. I will send you a picture of my computer lab at school if you want. It is the same stuff just more advanced.

[lacky]

If a player is that good he can make far more money playing lots of individual tables and not cheating.

[CanKid]

Could do some nice MMORPG raids or Counter-strike matches in that mother

[Bill Smith]

[ QUOTE ]
You can get shell accounts for $5 a month that would support bouncing a connection. That's $100/month + the cost of a cable modem hookup for 20 unique IP connections.

[/ QUOTE ]

Umm... duh?

The point is that they can still catch collusion regardless of IP address. Yes, they can.

[shawn_p]

This is the e-mail I sent to Poker Stars security reguarding this matter. It is followed by their response.

A friend of mine e-mailed this URL to me a couple of days ago. I'm
just
curious what measures Pokers Stars takes to thwart such activities on
your
site.
>
>pokermafia.com/index.php?tid=free&artid=43&action=zoom
>
>pokermafia.com/boiler_room.php


[ QUOTE ]
Hello Shawn,

In order for this program to be successful, one must play on a site
that
does not have the tools available for detection. Let me explain.

What this "gentleman" is propogating, is that he can teach you how to
play
with others without getting caught and he is charging a substantial
amount
of money to do so. I suspect that he is charging a high price to make
it
sound more "real" than it actually is.

The problem with his sales pitch, is that he doesn't explain what
collusion
is. So I will take care of that for him.

Collusion is the use of one or more techniques designed to maximize
profits
with the assistance of a partner. These techniques include softplaying,
pot
building, whipsawing, chipdumping (used mostly in tournaments),
squeezing
and best hand play. Any of these techniques on their own, if
undetected,
could help to increase a players profits.

Here is something else that Mr. Giorgiev neglects to mention. Even an
extremely successful collusion team can only raise their EV by a
marginal
amount. It would take a great deal longer than he suggests to pay off
his "program". For example, if you are a strong solid player making
$1000 a
week, his program might help you to increase that win to $1,100 per
week.
Therefore, it will take you about about 80 weeks to pay for his
program,
assuming that you have been undetected.

Therein lies the other problem. Collusion is detectable. Pokerstars
has numerous tools at its disposal to catch even the best of colluders.
We
have access to absolutely every hand ever played on the site and can
review
them using both automated systems and manually with all cards shown
face
up. We also have a poker team that possesses over 100 years of
experience
and is completely versed in the detection of cheating.

Now, what are the risks? Once a player is caught attempting to cheat
our
games, we immediately close their account and confiscate any ill-gotten
funds. In other words, a player stands to risk a substantial amount of
money when caught.

He claims it is not about the money but I wonder if he will offer you a
refund if the program is unsuccessful for you.

Regards,

Larry
PokerStars Support Team

[/ QUOTE ]

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
8 phone lines @ $30 per month. 8 Dialup accounts @ $20 per month. The minimum nut is $400 per month, or $4,800 per year. This does not include time charges while using the phone line of course.

Of... we forgot to figure in the horrible lag time from a dialup... I would pull out my hair!


[/ QUOTE ]

Yup, a completely trivial amount.

There are no time charges when using a modem. You call a local number.

And there's no lag on dial-up. Not playing poker. I'm on a 44k dial-up modem and never get any lag even playing four tables.

It's all well and good to love your broadband, but let's not go too far overboard overstating the case. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[pokerjo22]

It looks fake to me. A KVM switch would be way cheaper than ten monitors, and would stop you having to run round the table.

[illunious]

[ QUOTE ]
It looks fake to me. A KVM switch would be way cheaper than ten monitors, and would stop you having to run round the table.

[/ QUOTE ]

Way off topic, but VNC (Virtual Network Console) beats a KVM switch any day. I used to have my 3 computers on a KVM, it sucked.

[astroglide]

and synergy2 (http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/) beats vnc. try it, you'll be blown away.

[NLfool]

I've graduated a couple of years ago but some of my roomates and friends are still in school. Well we visited a friend at a dorm one weekend at a UC school and these guy are supposedly pretty smart but they had the door wide open 3 guys on laptops playing. I watched and was not impressed. They really got no extra bets but the only decent advantage I saw was the extra info of what other cards were out there.

But this is also done via IM so there really isn't much of a need for such a setup. It's expected there's lots of easy money to be made and lots of pretty clever kids around

[Blarg]

That looks pretty damn cool, Astro.

[astroglide]

i use it constantly at work. my windows box has 2 monitors, a 22" mitsubishi 2040u crt and a dell 2001fp lcd. each takes 2 inputs, and i use the mits from time to time for other stuff. i've also got a 15" lg lcd connected to a 4-port kvm. that has a freebsd box showing on it by default, a linux usermodelinux development server, a dedicated hardware testing box, and open cables for whatever else i need.

i use windows primarily with both monitors, but the lg lcd is a "third monitor" on the freebsd box running fluxbox. if i scroll off of my right monitor, it seamlessly begins controlling the freebsd box and i use that for various purposes. the screen savers are synced between the two, and the shared clipboard across oses is VERY useful.