Cheating in Poker

[J_V]

I have a few questions for some of the higher limit veteran players around here. I know these types of questions have been broached before. However, I'd like to keep this somewhat civil and don't want to have to wade through tons of accusations and rumors.

However, recently I have heard from multiple sources (friends, who play very high, w/ the players in questions) that has been several issues w/ cheating in the big commerce holdem games. Now these are not just accusations, as these players have been permanently barred from playing at Commerce. Without getting into details, these players are very, very good (much better than me) and pretty famous live players. If they were cheating in any game I played it, I would assume that the edge would be too much to overcome, regardless of my edge over the other players.

How serious of a threat is cheating in B&M? Is it unwise to play games 5-6 handed above the 100-200 level? I can't say that the first 100-200 game I played w/ 9 vietamese players passing chips back and forth to each other like they were candy (and talking their native tounge, routinely), made me feel any better.

I've entertained the idea of working harder on my game, so that I can take to the next level of limits, but these types of thoughts always disheartens me.

Plus, if cheating were going on, I would be almost unable to spot even the most obvious forms.

Snakehead, mike l., zee, or any of you high limit adventurors want to give me some advice?

God only knows what type of colluding is going on online, if I hear this much about B&M.

[HiatusOver]

Interesting topic indeed...

[BassMasterK]

I would think it would be so much easier to do online that it wouldn't be worth the effort to try it in a B&M.

[swami]

I think there are many advantages to doing it at a B&M. First no record of play, cards are mucked and not recorded, can make it very difficult to show collusion. Online easy to analyze after the fact and ban or seize funds from certain accounts.

[FeliciaLee]

I am neither high limit, nor a veteran. I can only report what I have heard by reputable sources, and what I have seen myself.

In one example, a very good source was upset during the series because two novice players were given time penalties for softplaying each other (ignorance of this rule is no excuse), yet two well known players were only WARNED for softplaying each other. They were reputed to be sharing the same bankroll. One of these players has been barred from playing at Foxwoods and was physically removed from a large tournament by security at another casino.

I have seen his behavior in several large tournaments, and it is a disgrace that he is even allowed to play in events which follow TDA rules. I hated playing at the same table with him, it was disgusting.

All of these incidents of cheating have been well documented on several sites, such at Final Table and RGP. Naturally, they are from the perspective of other players and/or tournament officials, so some may say they should be considered gossip or rumors, but where there is that much smoke, I generally suspect there is a fire. It is one thing for Russ to be accusing everyone and his dog of cheating, but when some of the top players and sources in the world to constantly accuse the "Vietnamese Mafia" of cheating in large tournaments, I tend to listen.

Players like Negreanu and Ferguson, with their entire reputations at risk, wouldn't "out" other top players for nothing, if there was no grain of truth to these allegations.

Felicia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
www.felicialee.net

[Sully]

Sorry to be naive, but as an Internet guy, I'm not too familiar with the different methods of B&M cheating. (For the record, I'm not too familiar with Internet collusion either.) What type of cheating are you talking about? You mentioned softplaying, but does it go beyond that? Using signals at the table to indicate hand strength or cards held? Even worse?

Please enlighten me. I love a good scandal.

[FeliciaLee]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry to be naive, but as an Internet guy, I'm not too familiar with the different methods of B&M cheating. (For the record, I'm not too familiar with Internet collusion either.) What type of cheating are you talking about? You mentioned softplaying, but does it go beyond that? Using signals at the table to indicate hand strength or cards held? Even worse?

Please enlighten me. I love a good scandal.

[/ QUOTE ]
Chip palming is the offense that got him banned at Foxwoods. People chip palm from the smallest tourneys all the way up to the biggest buy-in tourneys. Another site reported that a chip scanning device has been invented, so someday we will hopefully see an end to palming.

Chip dumping is an extension of soft playing, and seems to be used by that particular group, as well.

Stalling happens live as well as online. I hate it in both venues, but there seems to be little preventing it until the tables are played hand-for-hand.

Shorting the pot is something I see quite frequently in small buy-in tourneys where the majority of the players and dealers are not paying attention.

Being whip-sawed between two cheating players is something that seems to be coming to an end. TDA rules, combined with players asking to be shown hands has cut down on that type of cheating, in my experience.

A lot of times, players have no idea that they are cheating. Truly. I find this to be particularly true in the case of novice players, friends, family, spouses and retirees.

I was playing in a NLHE tourney between two friends. They were the only two left in the pot after the flop. One said to the other, "I flopped a set of fives, so I will check it down to you." He was serious. Now if these guys knew what they were doing, would they actually say it? And play it that way? No, the one who said it had never played a poker tournament in his life. Ignorance is no excuse, but the fact remains that they had no idea that they were cheating.

The same goes for spouses who refuse to bet into each other. They just don't want any hurt feelings, they have no idea that this is 100% against the rules.

When I used to play at the same table as my husband (we no longer do, he got interested in cash games only, while I went the tourney route), we always showed our hands when whipsawing a player in between. While I hate to show my hand, under any circumstances, here it was just common sense. I never wanted a player to think we were colluding. Naturally we both had premium hands, so the player in the middle was shown that in no way were we cheating him.

Felicia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[J_V]

I can live w/ almost all of these offenses and they dont BURY the game. I have heard rumors (backed by top notch names) where very complicated and indetectable cheating forms were being used in cash games and major tournies. I have no clue what is true and what is not. But whereever the money is big enough, cheaing is a threat.

I'm essentially of the belief that you cannot play bigger than 1-2 w/out being "in the know" - and that SUCKS.

[mike l.]

ok im certainly no authority having only recently taken regular plunges into the top top section at commerce and even then in limited hours.

but

nah im not too worried about it all. these games are just too extremely good. there was one top name tournament player i played with who had a buddy in the same game and i monitored the hands they played closely to see if i saw anything i didnt like and nothing stange seemed to be afoot at all. in fact they both played pretty awful, as did the majority of the other players in the game (and again im only talking about the 80, 100, and one brief hour in a 200, i havent played the 150 or 300 games they seem to have pretty regularly), although some more consistently than others.

so my analysis, limited as it is, finds that the games are exceptionally good and that if i actually had any sort of an A game or even B game that i could play for more than 1.5 rounds at a time i would be playing there every day and doing quite well.

[mike l.]

" I have no clue what is true and what is not. But whereever the money is big enough, cheaing is a threat."

i think what youre referring to is very big games like the 4 figure games at bellagio and stuff. i could see where it would be easy to have cheating going on there.