Collusion Detected - Question

[JDErickson]

very interesting.

This same thing happened at Absolute a while back and me and another 2+2er caught the idiots red handed. We had 10 clear as day hands to prove it.

AP did ban the players and we did get $50 bonus. But as far as I know no one was ever given any money from the actual hands back.

Jim

[arkady]

I think they were Jim, I'll need to look at the emails, but I am pretty sure some distribution did happen.

[Jim Kuhn]

Rightfully they should try to distribute the money based on who would have won without the collusion. At the very least they should give everyone their bets back and distribute the colluders bets among all of the players. To confiscate the money and give to 'their marketing department' pretty much equates to stealing.

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4U
[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

[Daliman]

Interesting read. Lee Jones makes a few good points, but this here is simply ludicrous;
[ QUOTE ]
Okay, sambot needs some chips to insure his survival. He watches his
friend schmattes and realizes what he's up to. He's out there collecting
the blinds that everybody is leaving out on the table. sambot has found
his way to collect the chips he needs. At some point, schmattes makes
his normal "give me the blinds" raise. sambot pushes all-in, knowing
that unless he runs into AA or KK (elsewhere on the table or schmattes'
hand, and maybe not even then), he picks up the blinds *plus* schmattes'
raise. He did this two times, and it worked both times. I will tell you
that, in both cases, schmattes had small-medium pairs - hands that are a
very reasonable semi-steal. Your plan is to win the blinds. If you
don't, then you plan to flop a set. But you're definitely not calling a
big re-raise. In particular, you are not going to call a big (or even
medium) re-raise in a super-satellite. Remember, 15th place is exactly
as good as 1st. For instance, in hand #312184584, schmattes is getting
a little better than 3:1 to call sambot's all-in, and he's holding a
smallish pocket pair. He's a 4:1 dog if sambot has a bigger pocket pair,
5:4 ahead against two overcards (very likely), and 7:3 ahead if sambot has
ace-little where "little" is smaller than his pair. So is this a clear
call given 3:1 odds? No. In a regular percentage payoff tournament, it
might well be an easy call, because it would be important to accumulate
chips, and he's almost definitely got a +EV (chip unit) call. But because
there's no value in moving from 15th place to 1st, protecting his fairly
large stack, and growing it slowly at low risk is far more important than
take a big gamble for 12% of his chips, even a gamble +EV in chip units.


[/ QUOTE ]
So, lemme get this straight;
He's MOST likely 5/4 favorite, possibly a 7/3 favorite, depending on his specific pocket pair a slightly possible 4.25-1 favorite(i added this part in, as it must be true unless he has 22), and sometimes a 4.25-1 dog.

and A LITTLE OVER 3-1 IS NOT WORTH CALLING FOR 12% OF YOUR STACK!
ARE YOU F'ING KIDDING ME!!!!!!

This is the easiest call ever. Lee's defense of it even in the face of KNOWING the people know each other well is reprehensible, as is his excuse making.

Why call allin with kings when you are only getting 2-1 then, as you stand a 25-35% chance of being KO'd.


I am removing my $$$ from pokerstars as i type this.

[GrannyMae]

I am removing my $$$ from pokerstars as i type this.


the post you are replying to was from 7 months ago.

*however*, there recently has been a large ring busted up at stars that apparently operated for a long time without detection. refunds were made to the tune of 15 cents on the dollar because it was so widespread that they could not (or would not) pay out the full amount cheated from players.

[La Brujita]

Granny do you have more info on the ring, who the players were, what amounts etc? I had not heard about it.

[Daliman]

Yah, i noticed that it was old, but it's still the same inference and staff. Whatta joke.

Also, in reference to the same scenario, there is a significant chance he immediately comes in 15th or better if he wins the hand, which makes the call SUPER easy.

[LinusKS]

This makes my blood boil.

What poor customer service! What dishonesty.

AND they're trying to turn the tables on you, to make you feel bad about it.

[ QUOTE ]
Here is Pacific's response.

This is the reply from your Pacific Poker Investigation team. First I will copy your response and then I will respond with my comments.

This message is not flagged. [ Flag Message - Mark as Unread ]

Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 12:43:38 +0000 (GMT)
From: "Operations" <operations@cassava.net> Add to Address Book
To: "Jim Kuhn" <xxx_xx@yahoo.com>
Subject: Pacific Poker Investigation (KMM12074343I1817L0KM)


Dear Jim,

I am Russell Medley from the Operations Department at Cassava
Enterprises (Gibraltar) Ltd. I am writing in response to your previous
e-mail.

We were disappointed that you chose to contact ourselves with your
concerns, and publish these on the forums at the same time.

[/ QUOTE ]

What crap. Would you even have heard from this guy without posting to the forum?

The previous responses indicate "no."

[ QUOTE ]
We had
hoped that your previous experiences on Pacific Poker and membership loyalty
would count for more than this, and that you would have allowed us the
time to respond fully to your concerns.

[/ QUOTE ]

So, uh, the thousands of dollars in rake you've paid them make YOU obligated to THEM.

Huh.

[ QUOTE ]

These issues need to be
investigated before we can form a full response to your concerns, and
we would have appreciated your patience in this matter. Please be assured
that these are isolated incidents on our site.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pure pap. "Isolated incidents." They must think you're stupid.

[ QUOTE ]
Your initial e-mail was forwarded to our department by the Pacific
Poker Member Support Team. We take all complaints of this nature very
seriously and perform an investigation using all of the tools
available. I can inform you that we had already become aware of the two players
you mentioned through our own surveillance, and these games were under
review. Your detailed complaint certainly helped us to confirm what we
were already suspicious of.

Our usual response time for Security E-mails is 48 hours, as this
allows the investigation to be undertaken and any results to be confirmed. Our
tools for investigating these types of concerns are multiple and
complex, we run different programmes on the hands concerned, which can
be many themselves.

I can inform you that the two members you informed us of have been
blocked by our security team, and will never return to our site. Any
funds gained through these collusion activities have been confiscated
by ourselves, and will not be paid out to the colluders. I would stress
though that these funds will not be kept by us, since it is not our
money. These funds will form part of our tournament and raffle prizes
which are redistributed back to our members, in accordance with our
sites philosophy.

[/ QUOTE ]

OMG. This just about takes the cake. "These funds will not be kept by us," but we'll use them for OUR PROMOTIONS??!!

Again. The only thing I can come up with is that they think their players are complete morons.

What they do with the money after they keep it is beside the point. They can burn it, use it for promotions, advertising, or they can stuff it up their butts.

The point is they're keeping it. They're not giving it back to you.

[ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately I will not be able to refund the money that you lost
through these actions. It cannot be clear how these actions effected
the outcome of these hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's funny. Stars does it all the time.

[ QUOTE ]
Therefore the funds that you contributed to
these raked hands will form part of the amount redistributed to our
members.

As of your alertness and cooperation in this matter, and because you
helped in our constant campaign against this type of activity, I will
be able to issue your account with a $50 bonus for you to wager on our
tables.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what that means. I take it it's a cheap bonus, with a wagering requirement, just like all the sites put out for everybody.

[ QUOTE ]
We would have preferred you not to have posted your concerns on the
public forums,

[/ QUOTE ]

No doubt.

You know, anybody with the tiniest amount of marketing savvy would have said, "Thank you for giving us the opportunity to demonstrate our committment to fair play publicly," instead of, "You bastard, why didn't you let us sweep this under the rug?"

[ QUOTE ]
but to have allowed us the time and courtesy of doing
our security investigations. If you could please contact us and only us
regarding these unfortunate incidents.

If you require any more assistance with this matter, please do not
hesitate to contact us, we will be happy to help.

Kind Regards,

Russell Medley

Operations Department,
Cassava Enterprises (Gibraltar) Ltd
operations@cassava.net

My responses are as follows:

'We were disappointed that you chose to contact ourselves with your
concerns, and publish these on the forums at the same time. '

You should be thankful for the opportunity to receive free publicity and show that you are harsh with colluders and ensure your customers are treated fairly 'when colluders steal their money'. On several forums you could have gained alot of respect.

'I can inform you that we had already become aware of the two players
you mentioned through our own surveillance, and these games were under
review.'

So you were already aware these player had been cheating? How long had they been cheating? How long were you going to let them cheat? What is the normal process? Do you normally wait for someone to complain?

'Any funds gained through these collusion activities have been confiscated by ourselves, and will not be paid out to the colluders.' 'Unfortunately I will not be able to refund the money that you lost through these actions. It cannot be clear how these actions effected the outcome of these hands. '

I am providing you the opportunity to reconsider prior to posting this on all of those poker forums. There are two viewpoints for this situation. Looking at my viewpoint, I was clearly cheated out of $367. You admit this in your response. I would like my $367 back. You can check my playing history over the past 18 months. I have clearly been one of your top 100 rake generating players. I am not a flea looking for a quick buck. From your viewpoint, you admit they were cheating and I lost the $367 pot. If the pot is rightfully returned to me I will post your new and better response on those poker forums. This will gain you much more than $367 worth of advertising and credibility in the online poker world. Your previous response sure does not look very good as you admit they were cheating and you knew they were cheating prior to my complaint.

This is totally unacceptable! It is very clear how their actions cost me this $367 pot. There were only three of us in the pot. The two colluders and myself. They were cheating and had their funds confiscated. Who else is left to give the funds to? I had the best hand and clearly would have won this pot if the cheaters would not have check raised and reraised me out of the pot! Furthermore you admit that you knew they were cheating prior to this hand. You knew they were cheating, let them continue, I get cheated out of $367 and you confiscate and keep their funds? This certainly does not seem fair to me. I feel you still owe me the $317 that was in my pot that you confiscated from the cheaters. At least please tell me why I would not have won that hand. I had the best hand and was obviously calling until the cheaters pulled their antics! I ask you to please reconsider and pay me the $317 that is owed to me. This will provide your site with much more respect in the eyes of thousands of poker playing readers of these poker forums. Thank you for reconsidering these actions.

Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4U
(xxx)xxx-xxxx




[/ QUOTE ]

[LinusKS]

Bottom line:

Pacific's policy is to take money from people who've been cheated and use it to fund their bottom line.

And then to reprimand players who bring this policy to the attention of other players.

Amazing.

[GrannyMae]

one thread here

this thread spawned another monster thread that discussed the fact that the amounts were too high to refund 100%. i can't find that one, but if you look in this date range, it will be there.