All In Abuse - would this be a practical solution?

[Sheriff Fatman]

Reading the posts on the TR4RAIDERS1 issue has got me thinking about the issues in general. Its obvious that there's no ideal solution at present. Just wondering what users (and TGC/TrueCEO from a site point of view) think of this as a possible way forward:

Tournaments:
The best solution seems pretty clear cut from all the previous debate - no all ins in tournaments. I'm sure most players would accept this and the occasional genuine disconnect would have to be treated as a risk of entering the tournament.

Ring Games:
Much trickier. Most people appear to want some form of protection but this opens up the system to abuse. The sites' preferred sanctions of removing the all-in facility for a period of time, to me, doesn't do enough to discourage the practice (the frequent abusers will no doubt just go elsewhere while the ban is in place).

Perhaps one solution would be for the hand to be played out but for the side pot created by a time out/disconnect to not be paid out immediately at the end, but to instead be held in suspense pending review. The circumstances of the all-in would then reviewed automatically by a member of the site staff before the pay out was made. The dodgy cases are generally easy to spot and, in such events, action could be taken against the offenders.

Hopefully, without the incentive of an immediate payout without review, the practice of all-in abuse would diminish. However, those persisting would not receive payment without a review of the circumstances, would have their actions automatically reviewed (and would therefore become known by the frequency of their actions) and the system would avoid other players having to report suspicious activity in order for reviews to take place.

Of course there are a number of assumptions needed for this to be feasible. One would be that the software would have to detect the timeouts and be able to hold back the side pots (I assume, with some development this would be possible). The second is that the sites would need someone dedicated to doing this job. My view is that if they can afford to pay observers to watch chat for potential 'advertising' of other sites then this would surely be a much more worthwhile utilisation of someone's time.

Of course, the players would have to accept a delay in payment on these hands while the review took place. Personally I'd live with this if I was comfortable that they were ultimately going to the right people.

Just a thought - perhaps a unrealistic one. Would be interested in what others think.

Sherriff

[Bill Haywood]

The house actively seeks to identify all-in abusers.

When they find one, they revoke the all-in privilege completely.

Another possibility: when they identify clear all-in abuse, they deduct illgotten pots from the culprit and return them to the rightful owner.

[eMarkM]

For tourneys and NL/PL cash games, there are no all-ins at Stars. They have a time clock and just give you extra time when you disconnect. You don't get back in time, you're folded. The more money you have in the pot when disconnected, the more time given for you to reconnect. The time clock also serves to stop the interminable delaying players resort to to survive into the money in tourneys. It also lets you have time to make an important descision. All-in abuse is basically a non-issue at Stars in these games. Time clock is the way to go and I hope the other sites--Party in particular--can go this route.

[PokerDummy]

I always thought they should kick a person off the table for an all-in for the first time offense, second time in one day is a 24-hour no-play penalty, and three times in one day is a 3-day ban. Some people have dial-ups AND surf at the same time...this usually accounts for the huge delays that always come from a lot of the same players. Just my thoughts...

[Bill Haywood]

The problem with setting a limit is that then everyone will go all-in up to the number of times that sets off a penalty. Mgt. should examine the records of suspects so they can make allowances for genuine dialup problems, and quickly jump on the sleaze bags.