Roy Cooke on Cheating and Cheaters

[stigmata]

Mason

Interesting & somewhat reassuring comments. However, I have to believe that the presence of the interent changes everything.

I have looked at the Russ Georgiev website, and whilst it is mostly hyperbole, he does give some pretty heavy hints at how online collusion can be achieved. Essentially you would need to set up multipe accounts (with different name/bank details etc.) with the major poker sites. You would then set up a "boiler-room" using proxy servers to convince the Poker site that your computers were physically distant. You would change accounts often, so that 2 colluding accounts rarely played at the same time.

Playing high-stakes online poker, you will often be in a short-handed situation of a team of 3 or 4 colluders (in the same room, or the same person) against one honest player.

All of the above is well within the means and expertise of certain East European and Russian hacker/mafia groups. I
guess the question is how much extra EV a talented team will achieve? I do not feel qualified to answer this question, but would anyone like to hazard a guess? If the reward is big enough, it is only a matter of time...

[David Sklansky]

Non obvious collusion is only profitable if the colluders are playing a tough game aside from the cheating. Thus if you stick to good games you are probably also avoiding scammed games.

[Vincent Lepore]

[ QUOTE ]
If Russ is given to hyperbole, Roy Cooke -- a guy I've known for years -- isn't. Roy measures his words carefully, and when he makes a statement of fact, or even offers an opinion, I'm prone to take a very serious look at it

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Wow! another endorsement, though indirect, of Georgiev. Are these guys nuts!

Vince

[Jedster]

Thank you both (Mason and David) for following up with the original post on this thread. You both make a compelling logical case that collusion is not (and really could not be) prevalent in major cardrooms for ring games. Some people will always suspect that a two-outer was the result of a mechanic, not random chance, and hopefully the spread of automatic shufflers will reassure those folks.

I'm wondering if it would be harder or easier to collude in a major tournament? I assume that it would be harder in the sense that colluders would have no control over whether they appear at the same table or not. But let's take the case of a 400 person tournament where 10 players have been backed by a single source and two of them reach the final table with average stack sizes. Or is that not the right place to be looking for cheating/collusion in tournaments? Have either of you written at all on this topic?

Thanks,
Jed

[andyfox]

Guys involved with poker, it would seem to me, would be very hesitant to name names in public. Based on their writings, I give credence to what Roy Cooke and David Sklansky say about poker. The fact that Cooke has never played with Russ or in the $4K-$8K game doesn't mean he doesn't know something about them. And, IIRC, I believe an email from David to Russ posted by Russ in his RGP heyday said that David knew some of the things Russ said to be true. Mike Caro must also have at least suspected some of the things to be true; thus his initial cooperation with Russ.

What turned Mike off, and a lot of others (most especially you, as I recall), is that Russ practically accused everybody everywhere of cheating. And, so, of course this (along with his poor writing and combative style) put a negative light on everything he said. So whatever truth there may have been in some of the things was drowned in the flood of poorly written accusations.

I do especially agree with one thing, though: to just say, as Cooke says, that some of what Russ says should be listened to, can be a disservice without specifics. Russ accused a lot of big names of being a cheater. To just say that some of what Russ said is true lends credence to those accusations and that's a sin if the accusations are untrue. So which specific accusations Cooke believes to be true, and why he so believes, would be, for me, a welcome revelation.

But, as I say, I don't think you'll never see such a revelation.

[JohnG]

[ QUOTE ]
What turned Mike off, and a lot of others (most especially you, as I recall), is that Russ practically accused everybody everywhere of cheating.

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I can think of numerous people he didn't accuse, and numerous people he has mentioned as being honest.

[ QUOTE ]
I do especially agree with one thing, though: to just say, as Cooke says, that some of what Russ says should be listened to, can be a disservice without specifics. Russ accused a lot of big names of being a cheater. To just say that some of what Russ said is true lends credence to those accusations and that's a sin if the accusations are untrue. So which specific accusations Cooke believes to be true, and why he so believes, would be, for me, a welcome revelation.

[/ QUOTE ]

Roy Cooke is not stupid, and a lot of thought would have gone in to what he posted. He would have known exactly what people would read into it.

[andyfox]

"I can think of numerous people he didn't accuse, and numerous people he has mentioned as being honest."

I said "practically." There were a lot of names on his "cheater" list, and some very famous ones. Obviously, he didn't accuse "everybody," but he did accuse enough so that his accusations began to ring hollow.

"Roy Cooke is not stupid, and a lot of thought would have gone in to what he posted. He would have known exactly what people would read into it."

I agree; I said I respect what Cooke writes. But by saying that some of what Russ writes is so, it causes me to wonder exactly what. And since Russ named names, it lends credence to suspicion of those names.

[JohnG]

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you both (Mason and David) for following up with the original post on this thread. You both make a compelling logical case that collusion is not (and really could not be) prevalent in major cardrooms for ring games.

[/ QUOTE ]

At lower levels.

What I read into Sklanksy words is that collusion makes a lot of sense for world class players playing at very high limits where games are scarce. Basically, implying the same thing as Roy Cooke, but these guys hide it behind the creative use of language.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm wondering if it would be harder or easier to collude in a major tournament? I assume that it would be harder in the sense that colluders would have no control over whether they appear at the same table or not. But let's take the case of a 400 person tournament where 10 players have been backed by a single source and two of them reach the final table with average stack sizes. Or is that not the right place to be looking for cheating/collusion in tournaments? Have either of you written at all on this topic?

[/ QUOTE ]

Tournament cheating is nothing new. Whether the very large fields nowadays affects things, I don't know. I don't think it makes much difference.

I recommend you google search Russ G's posts on the methods. Daniel negreanu made a post about it a few years back too, concerning men the master. Maybe Sklansky posted in one of those threads.

[JohnG]

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And since Russ named names, it lends credence to suspicion of those names.

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And Cooke knows that. In fact, he outright supports what Russ says about those names, albeit using language tricks to disguise it. Anyone that reads between the lines can see what Cooke is saying. But a lot of them just don't want to believe it, so they find ways to avoid facing it.

If what Cooke has said has any major impact, I expect him to post a follow up explaining he didn't mean to give the wrong impression about certain names. He will then go on to clear them. Not because they are honest, but because pressure has been applied. If he truly thought they were honest (the very major names at the top of the pile that everyone remembers has been accused), he would have made sure to mention them in his original article to avoid any misunderstanding. Hopefully, he holds firm if pressure is applied.

[JohnG]

[ QUOTE ]
Guys involved with poker, it would seem to me, would be very hesitant to name names in public.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what would they do instead?

Either never comment, outright lie, or tell the truth in a disguised way. Cooke chose the former for a number of years, and now the latter. I believe Sklansky has usually chosen the latter also, if pressed.