a titulo de curiosidade somente:
Hello Ricardo,
Thanks for your report.
Although we do monitor the games for collusion, we always appreciate
it when players report any strange or unusual play to us for review.
Compared to live poker venues, one of the advantages of online poker
is that every hand is recorded, including each player's hole cards and
how they play them. If any play is considered suspicious, we can then
review the hands with all cards and play showing, so as a result,
cooperating players are immediately obvious.
When checking for collusion we simply replay the tournament with the
cards face up. We look for several things which include, but are not
limited to:
1. Best hand play - the players will not play hands that duplicate
one another before the flop (eg. AK & AQ), and once the flop is dealt,
only the better hand will continue any further. This can only be done
by sharing hole card information, and is difficult to spot even for
the trained eye. To look for this form of collusion we actually try
to find examples that don't fit the mould; for instance the better
hand folding on the flop, whilst the weaker hand continues, is usually
a pretty good indication that the players are not adopting a best hand
strategy.
2. Pot building - the players put in small bets that entice others
to call when one of them makes a big hand, in the hope of building a
larger pot, and perhaps commit a player.
3. Squeeze play - the players reraise each other in an effort to
drive a third from the pot.
4. Stack balancing - the player with the larger stack purposely
loses to the smaller stack to ensure both players remain in the game.
5. Softplay - this is where one player who holds a really strong
hand decides not to bet his hand against another. It is very similar
to (3) stack balancing, and many stack balances are also softplays.
(1) and (2) above usually requires the sharing of hole card
information externally to the game, however for (4) and (5), if two
players just happen to have a policy of not clashing against one
another, then they do not necessarily need to have any knowledge of
one another's cards.
Following your report, we have completed an investigation into the
accounts of the players 'KingRat' and 'merchdude'.
What we look for in such cases is a relationship between the players.
One of the most obvious ways to determine a relationship is location.
In this case both players line in the United States, but location is
generally not a good indicator as to whether cooperative play is
occurring. With communication technology these days, two players can
be on opposite sides of the world and still be cooperating.
Instead, we prefer to use a number of technological tools to assist us
in finding relationships between players. Please understand though,
for collusion prevention reasons, we cannot provide you with details
about the tools and their methods of relationship detection. However,
in this case, the reports produced by those tools, suggest these
players DO NOT have any relationship.
That is not all. We also look at how often players play with each
other, to see if they are playing together more often than might be
expected. As you may understand, cooperating players would certainly
prefer to play with each other. On a site the size of PokerStars
however, it might be considered a little unusual if two players played
together frequently. In this case, this is the only tournament they
have played together recently, which also indicates no suspicious
relationship exists.
We also review the actual hands between the players, looking for any
unusual play. In this case, no suspicious play could be found. In
fact, the players continued to demonstrate no relationship by playing
aggressively towards each other. I reviewed the 41 hands that they played
together on this event, and I did not find evidence that these players
are working together as a team. There were many opportunities for stack
balancing and pot building, but none of these opportunities were taken
advantage of.
However; merchdude's comment was inappropriate and violated the tournament
rules listed at Poker Stars - Poker Tournament Rules. Although
many of our players are not aware of all proper tournament rules and
etiquette, this player has been informed of the rules now. A future
infraction by this player is potential grounds for chat revocation or
even disqualification.
Additionally, a multi-table tournament such as this offers a very poor
platform for cooperative play. 'KingRat' and 'merchdude' participated in
this tournament, so for two players who want to help each other, the
chance they will be seated at the same table together is very low.
This is certainly not an ideal situation for players wanting to cheat.
Thus, given the lack of any previous play together, the lack of any
relationship between their two accounts and only the one questionable hand
to note - there is nothing to indicate that these two players are
colluding in any way. I will however place notes in both players' accounts
detailing this review and your concerns. If any future suspicious play is
noted between them, there will be a record of your email for reference.
Once again, thanks for your report, and best of luck at the tables!
Regards,
Federic O.
PokerStars Support Team.
----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
Sent: 2009/07/20 20:26:27
To: [email protected]
Subject: naive collusion attempt?
>not really sure what this means but you may want to take a look into it as
>it seemed inappropriate:
>merchdude: want to check it down?
>
>tourney 180540581, table 21, around 21:23 BRT
>
>thanks
>
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