Collusion on UB – UB say not

[imposter]

Hi, this is not exactly the first post I’d like to have been making on here, but anyways here goes (sorry it's so long!).

I’m 99.9% sure I’ve been the victim of collusion on UB. The purpose of this thread is threefold. Firstly, do others agree with me that collusion occurred? Secondly to ask (if you agree with me), if others have had such hassle with UB support and to see if there is anything more I can do. And thirdly (again if you agree with me), to warn others that UB despite their claims to be concerned about collusion and their claims to want to “make sure that our customers play in a fair and secure place”, that they actually either have no interest in dealing with collusion or their staff are too incompetent to recognise it when it happens.

Now to what happened (Hand histories: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showp...p;postcount=47 ):

I was playing on the Edgewater 3/6 shorthanded table. Two players at the table, autiger2000 and mic maple, seemed to be raising and reraising each other a lot preflop and also on the flop. They also played very passively when the only two left in the hand (relative to how they were playing against others). I was initially suspicious of this fairly constant raise-rerasie action and then I lost what was a large pot to a hand from mic maple which he 4-bet preflop after my initial raise and autiger’s reraise. What did he have? A monster J8s.

I contacted support after this hand reporting the two and they are adamant that no collusion occurred. The initial response from UB was “As you requested, we have reviewed the game in question and everything seems to be correct”.

I replied outlining the hands I found suspicious and what I thought (pretty much as I’ve outlined above). They replied “Our poker experts' checked the hand logs again and they came out with the conclusion that everything is according to their hands, please remember that we can see everybody's cards and that it is one of our tools to determine if there is collusion or not”. They never once actually addressed any of the accusations I made.

My next mail contained the following snippet, trying to get them to discuss these player’s actions:
“So you are telling me that your poker experts don't see anything
unusual in the fact that these pair were constantly raising and
reraising building pots for each other. Of the hands I can see, I can
see one of them make it 4 bets preflop with J8, but only after his
mate made it 3 bets. This is not normal poker play. If players did
this at the 0.25/0.5 level it would raise eyebrows but at 3/6 such a
move is obviously cheating. The case where they both had AK is another
great example. How come they didn't max the betting preflop with those
hands? Maybe it had something to do with the fact that there was only
two of them involved! Similarly hand 2062 where they again used this
tactic or raising and reraising and then playing passive against each
other once everyone else was driven out.”

There reply: “We have send you an attach from the hands 2040 to 2070, please take a look at the way that everybody played, if you are right, everybody were colluding”. These were the hands I was involved in and what I based my complaints on. The attachment they sent was an spreadsheet where they highlighted some of what I mentioned and also play from others or when both of these were not in the pot. Mostly what they drew attention too was irrelevant. I replied putting my opinions alongside theirs. Again I didn’t get a reply addressing my points but instead got a ‘lesson’ in how to play poker from them.

Here is a snippets from the word doc they sent:
“People play in so many different ways that first you have to establish how they play or what their style is, what we were trying to show you was the fact that they play their hands the same way when they played together or when they played with other players, and how other players did the same too, for example:”
They then proceeded to show me examples of what others had done but suprisingly (or not) didn’t use an example where these two both played the pot.

Now this reply had me really annoyed. They never once directly addressed any of the accusations I made. Then they think they should teach me how to play poker. So I wrote a reply but first I analysed all the hands right up to when the two of these left the table.

There are two other things I haven’t mentioned as of yet. The first is that autiger was taking a longer amount of time to act preflop (when he bet) than he was when he folded. This looks like the two were communicating with each other but this can obviously not be seen in the hand histories. I also presume that UB wouldn’t have this information.

The other thing that I haven’t mentioned yet, is that another player also accused them of collusion or of being idiots as a result of hand 2106. I was still watching at this stage but for some reason had stopped recording hands. After his accusation, I wrote in the chat that I had already reported them for collusion. I’ve got the hand histories since, but comments don’t seem to be included. This player claimed to be a pro and following a series of challenges on this claim he brought 7k to the table. So to the email I sent:

******,

I am getting very tired of this. You'll be glad to know that this is
my last email to you on the matter, unless you accept that collusion
occurred.

Firstly thank you for your explanations, but i know people play hands
in different ways. I already had pegged dmeyer as someone who was
liable to raise with anything but thanks for the tip anyway. The last
example however does not fit in with my theory and I’ll agree this one
example makes a small point in your favour.

Now ******, the reason I am so tired at the moment is I have been
reviewing all the histories, right up until these 2 left the table. As
you may or may not know retrieving hand histories after the fact,
gives you hand histories that does not include comments. So thankfully
I have a memory, but no doubt you have all the information on your
system. Now to my conclusions after this arduous task of reviewing all
the hands:

As I have been saying, I have been focusing my investigations on the
way this pair play when both of them are in a pot. I've been moaning
to you about how they were using this raise-reraise tactic all the
time be it to build pots or to force others out. Now you have told me
you can see both cards, so you obviously can see if they are taking
the proverbial pee.

Now here are some facts that I have noticed from hands 2031-2137:
2136: mic maple and autiger are the only 2 left, they play a hand
against each other and autiger wins. He has top pair throughout (a
jack) and only bets the river which mic maple sportingly calls, again
pretty passive I would reckon. But I digress my main point is about to
come.

Here is the hand numbers when this raise reraise tactic was used
by the pair (Please note in some hands it was used more than once):
2037, 2040, 2044, 2046, 2057, 2059, 2062, 2064, 2070, 2071, 2072, 2074, 2080, 2094, 2095, 2098, 2099 and finally 2106.
Wow was it that often! 18 times in 107 hands. Just WOW!!!

Now you might remember that I mentioned that both of them played until
hand 2136. That's right a whole 30 hands where they never once raise
reraised each other. Looking at the list above that looks like a lot
doesn't it?

Right assuming you agree with me (go on, you know you want to), you
must be saying to yourself "What could have happened at hand 2106 for
them to change this tactic?". Would you believe I know the answer to
this, but I'll need a little help from you. But before I get too
carried away you should go have a look at this hand, it's a cracker!

Right now that you've seen the ultra advanced raise reraise tactic,
I'll tell you that this is the hand that caused dragon12 to accuse
them of being muppets of the highest order and/or of colluding with
each other. Now I know I was paraphrasing there, but you have all the
history so you can see what was actually said. I would have chimed in
shortly afterwards informing dragon12 that I had already reported them
for collusion.

Now back to some numbers. Remember 18 times in 107 hands but look it's
also 18 times in 75 hands one raised and the other reraised. Now lets
look at the last 30. Yep that's right 0 out of 30, amazing,
unbelieveable even! And just after they were accused of cheating.

******, I do hope you are still reading! As you may have noticed I
have withdrawn my entire monies from my account. I trust that there
will be no problems with the last *** odd $ getting into my neteller
account!

I think what I have presented to you here and over my previous emails
is proof enough that collusion was occurring. Yes I know you know more
than me and you have "more information than you or anybody else",
including but not limited to the hands of all players, so could you
please use it?

Now i'll give you a reasonable timeframe to respond to this with
either your tail between your legs, or a DETAILED (that word is
important) explanation of why collusion was not occuring. Treat it
like school, I want the full analysis, hand by hand including the hole
cards I cannot see. Then when your hand by hand analysis is complete
take it all together and analyse that. If you opt for the tail between
your legs option I'd like to know how you intend to compensate the
victims of this collusion. That's me and also the others that were at
the table.

Now i don't mean this as a threat, so please don't take it like one,
but if you come back here spouting the same rubbish as you have over
the last few emails I will be publishing all hand histories and
correspondence we have had on some of the more popular poker forums on
the internet. Now as I said this is not a threat, because that would
be wrong, but I feel it would be only fair to warn others that UB
either have no intention of dealing with collusion or their staff and
'experts' are too stupid to be able to recognise it when it happens.

Lastly, I do hope you enjoyed this diatribe as I thoroughly enjoyed writing it.

Me.

It’s now 3 days later and still no reply. So do people agree with me or am I wrong about this?

I’ll email UB pointing them to this and inviting them to partake in the discussion. I won’t be holding my breathe for them to accept the invitation though.

[Kevin K.]

My first thought is nobody is going to read all that, unfortunately.

[Losing all]

I'm no expert on this matter (or any matter for that matter). I can't say if you're right or wrong. I will say that j8's hand proves nothing, It's not even noteworthy.

I think we've all felt teamed up on a few times. it's frustrating, but all you can do is report it (if you're close to certain) and hope the site snuffs it out if it is in fact cheating. You have no choice but to live with UB's decision.

[imposter]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm no expert on this matter (or any matter for that matter). I can't say if you're right or wrong. I will say that j8's hand proves nothing, It's not even noteworthy.

[/ QUOTE ]Taken on it's own I agree but mixed in with eveything else I think it is.
[ QUOTE ]
I think we've all felt teamed up on a few times. it's frustrating, but all you can do is report it (if you're close to certain) and hope the site snuffs it out if it is in fact cheating. You have no choice but to live with UB's decision.

[/ QUOTE ]That's where I dissagree. These sites exist because players trust them to be fair and to sniff out cheating if it occurs. If other sites have an interest in dealing with such things then surely we should pay our rake to them and not a site who does nothing to stop it?

[bigalt]

[ QUOTE ]
My first thought is nobody is going to read all that, unfortunately.

[/ QUOTE ]

actually it was extraordinarily well written, compared to a lot of the posts we get on the board, whether they be about collusion or bots or rigged-ness or not. and this is a much more plausible accusation, to boot.

given the length and in-depth-ness of your email, though, I wouldn't be surprised that if they are taking your challenge and performing an in-depth analysis and providing a write-up of the session, it will take them several days. though one would hope that if they are they'd let you know first.

i haven't looked at the hand histories but kudos on your well argued complaint and good luck.

[DCWGaming]

OK honestly.

What is the most you could have lost to these guys? If you kept sitting there after they were 'obviously' scamming you could have lost well over 50, but that would have been from stupidity alone. I'll say that 10 bets is a reasonable amount to lose before you should smell something funny and leave.

All the time you've spent trying to uncover this horrible crime could have made you those 10 bets back, if you're a decent player.

If they actually were cheating - what are you going to do about it? Start a boycott site and quit UB forever? They wont feel that at all. And you're not going to convince the rest of the 2+2ers to join you. Since you obviously have no -proof- at all, there isnt anything in the law you can do to change things.

So all you can really do is post on a forum about how a couple guys may have been colluding and took your money.

Seriously man, you have to see how insignificant this is to all of us. Especially considering "I was cheated!" posts are barely even read nowadays.

[imposter]

That's a fair point DCWGaming and you are mostly correct but these sites exist because people trust them. If it is obvious that they do nothing (or at least not enough) to prevent collusion, what's to prevent it from becoming a larger problem? Would you be happy if you were the victim and lost money? What would you do if it happened once a week for example? What would you do if it became so widespread that by the time you've made the 50 back they're at it again? Would you deposit money with a site you don't trust? Would you warn others about why you think thy can't be trusted?

[DCWGaming]

1) I would leave a table the second i thought there were colluders who actually knew what they were doing.

2) I wouldnt start a new thread because of a possible scam that lost me pocket change

3) After the site itself told me that collusion was not involved, id drop it because id know that nothing I could do would help.

[imposter]

I did leave the table the minute I was sure they were colluding. They were hardly experts at it, but what they were doing was cheating.

This pocket change you describe could be as much as 4% of a persons bankroll if they are using 300BB's as their bankroll (I know it was shorthand).

Your attitude is seriously messed up if you are content to ignore collusion.

[b0000000000m]

[ QUOTE ]


2) I wouldnt start a new thread because of a possible scam that lost me pocket change

3) After the site itself told me that collusion was not involved, id drop it because id know that nothing I could do would help.

[/ QUOTE ]

2) While it may be the OP's pocket change, it's all of our pocket change (and more) if there actually is collusion going on that the site is turning a blind eye to. Collusion is a serious issue, and if someone strongly believes that a site is being less-than-thorough in their handling of a situation, there's no reason it shouldn't be brought to the relevant public's attention. (Side-note: Even if it was just his pocket change, he has every right to start a new thread on the topic. I'm not sure what forums you come from, but earnest threads on even tangentially-related subject-matter are quite accepted at 2+2. And his topic wasn't even tangentially-related, it was directly related.)

3) You happen to be wrong about there being nothing he can do. He can post about it on 2+2, and see if people agree with him that the site didn't handle the situation properly. If people don't agree, he can drop it. If people do agree, the site may be forced to change its ways. It would not be the first time a site has changed its operating procedures as a result of public outcry on 2+2.