Cheating in Poker

[J_V]

I have a few questions for some of the higher limit veteran players around here. I know these types of questions have been broached before. However, I'd like to keep this somewhat civil and don't want to have to wade through tons of accusations and rumors.

However, recently I have heard from multiple sources (friends, who play very high, w/ the players in questions) that has been several issues w/ cheating in the big commerce holdem games. Now these are not just accusations, as these players have been permanently barred from playing at Commerce. Without getting into details, these players are very, very good (much better than me) and pretty famous live players. If they were cheating in any game I played it, I would assume that the edge would be too much to overcome, regardless of my edge over the other players.

How serious of a threat is cheating in B&M? Is it unwise to play games 5-6 handed above the 100-200 level? I can't say that the first 100-200 game I played w/ 9 vietamese players passing chips back and forth to each other like they were candy (and talking their native tounge, routinely), made me feel any better.

I've entertained the idea of working harder on my game, so that I can take to the next level of limits, but these types of thoughts always disheartens me.

Plus, if cheating were going on, I would be almost unable to spot even the most obvious forms.

Snakehead, mike l., zee, or any of you high limit adventurors want to give me some advice?

God only knows what type of colluding is going on online, if I hear this much about B&M.