Getting desperate for help

[shemp]

I think it's time that those of us who play a lot of poker campaign for poker software that somehow detects and is incompatible with IM software. I'm willing to accept that many of you have used it in good faith and benefitted from it and resent having your use of IM for wholly unrelated purposes restricted, but it seems to me that the longer view is that we need to continually erect barriers to collusion.

It seems to me that rejection of this idea would be partly rooted in the fact that what is occurring is collusion -- because doesn't the better player benefit the most from each new barrier to collusion (unless he is the colluder)?

[bicyclekick]

The people who want to collude are going to do it, messaging software or not.

That, and blocking something like AIM would affect so many people and many of the crappy players probably wouldn't play. they are there to relax and probably are having conversations with people on aim and would be pissed if they couldn't.

Collusion is pretty ez to notice online anyhow.

[mikelow]

[img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[shemp]

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The people who want to collude are going to do it, messaging software or not.

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I'd guess that there are a large class of opportunistic colluders and any new hindrance would reduce the amount of collusion.

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That, and blocking something like AIM would affect so many people and many of the crappy players probably wouldn't play. they are there to relax and probably are having conversations with people on aim and would be pissed if they couldn't.

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If they want to gamble they will get over it.

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Collusion is pretty ez to notice online anyhow.

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I've spotted inept colluders, but I'd never say that collusion is easy to spot. I think Sklansky has said he could device schemes that no one could detect even if they knew to look for him colluding.

[SA125]

It's funny how naive I am sometimes. Every once in a while I'm in a hand with 2 others and they both take a ridiculously long time to act on what seem to be simple decisions. I never thought for a minute about them IM'ing each other.

[Hoi Polloi]

David,

Check out this coaching offer from James282. He has a great rep here and what sounds like a good way to coach "over your shoulder". You'll see some testamonials from players on the thread.

Good luck.

[mrbaseball]

web page

Read this article

Exerpt

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One of my favorite defenses is sniffers. There are lots of different types of sniffers, and they sniff out lots of different things. One kind is an itty-bitty program on your client base that determines whether you’re running instant messaging software. It matches what you’re running to what other players at your table are running. A match moves you up the flagging list. With such computer technology, it is possible to be proactive, ferreting out the cheaters and bouncing their butts from the site.



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Easily bypassed though with 2 computers. Play on your desktop and collude on your laptop. Cheaters are gonna cheat and the higher end internet game is highly vulnerable.

[Danielih]

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David,

Check out this coaching offer from James282. He has a great rep here and what sounds like a good way to coach "over your shoulder". You'll see some testamonials from players on the thread.

Good luck.

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I have to say I have never talked to James282 but he seems to be one of the better players here at limit holdem and I would recommend him as a coach.

Also I've found, both from being the coach many times and a student, that good coaching over your shoulder from an expert player is the fastest way to improve ones game.

That being said I think you should buy as much time as you can afford because it's worth it.

[bicyclekick]

James is no longer coaching.

[Lawrence Ng]

First off,

My apologies to David for also hijacking this thread and going off on this collusion/detection tangent here.

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The people who want to collude are going to do it, messaging software or not.

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First off, using IM software to chat and play poker and collude is about as stupid as robbing a bank vault and not wearing gloves thus leaving fingerprints all over the vault.

Secondly if you are 4 tabling, I don't know how you can manage to type in real time what to do on a 4 flush board when you hold the King to that flush are are wondering if you should raise while all in time trying to discuss if your partner in crime had the Ace. It is impractical and a time waster.

If you are colluding at the 30/60 level and higher, then you can easily afford to purchase a 2nd computer at a lower cost, as well as a second internet connection (for a different IP address) registered under a different name. This second computer and Internet connection would not be used for IM. Just jumping back from computer to computer is a big hassle.

You would load something up like TeamSpeak 2. It's a voice chat program that is used for online gaming (I used it for World of Warcraft and Dark Age of Camelot) and it saves a ton of typing and re-typing.

Likewise your partner(s) in crime would do the same. If you are too cheap or can't afford to this, you can use the phone, but if you and your partner(s) live in different States or countries, then your phone bill is really going to rack up and in the long haul cost you more than this set up.
You also shouldn't be colluding 30/60 and higher if you can't afford an extra 1k system and an extra $20/month on the broadband.

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Collusion is pretty ez to notice online anyhow.

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I don't fully agreew with this. At an expert level of cheating, I believe it is not that easy to detect and I believe both online and live games have been colluded for well in the millions over the past few years.

I don't mean people would cheat and collude with an elmentary thought of the following:

Colluder 1: flops the nut straight straight
Colluder 2: flops dicksquat
Fish: Caught in between colluder 1 and colluder 2 with Top pair and gutshot draw.

Colluder 1 bets, fish calls, Colluder 2 raises. This goes on to the river and then colluder 2 folds.

This is stupid, obvious, and instantly sets up flags.

On a more intermediate level cheating I could see two colluders doing the following:

Fish: Has K [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]K [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and raises UTG
Colluder 1: Has A [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]Q [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and calls in MP.
Colluder 2: Has 4 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]5 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] in BB and calls.

Flop is 7 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]T [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]2 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

On the flop, Fish bets, Colluder 1 raises. Colluder one talks to Colluder 2 on TeamSpeak and tells him/her that he gots a bigger flush draw. Both agree that the Fish very likely has a pocket pair and depending on the pair is a favorite in the hand. Colluder 2 decides to fold, knowing obviously well he is drawing dead, but more he does not give out more money to the favorite of the hand who is the fish, thus if the Fish's hand does stand up, he is going to win less money. Whereas has Colluder 1 and Colluder 2 did not know each other's hands, the Fish very likely would make at least 2 or 3 more BB throughout the course of the hand if the Ace or flush or some wacked up runner runner doesn't get there. In short the fish is cheated out of a bigger pot.

Anyways I'm sure the poker sites have got all this figured out and have extreme security measures to counter and detect even this type of set up... at least I hope. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Lawrence