Collusion on Internet

Imposter

Has anyone here ever been the victim of collusion on the internet? If so what joy did you get out of the casino?

I was the victim of 2 guys playing together on a shorthanded table (3-6 Limit). They were pretty obvious about it but after the first mail from the casino they claim there was nothing wrong. I've sent them a more detailed complaint with all the hand numbers etc now so we'll see what they come back with.

Am I likely to get any of the money I lost back as a result of this? One hand, I lost 126$ when the guy, with what I assume was the crap hand (of the 2), 4 bet with J8s preflop and proceeded to hit a straight. What was funny was that, as I kept watching the table another player accused them of collusion in the chat window. He claimed to be a pro who played at higher levels and when he was challenged on this by one of the colluders he brought 7k to the table :eek: . So it's quite possible that he's not an idiot.

padser

im fascinated by the question, i wouldnt have thought collusion was that big a problem on the internet simply because the edge gained is too small to make it worth while. Most players wouldnt be able to make the small edge count. I thought casinos monitor to see if players are constantly playing on the same table??????

Imposter

I would hope casinos monitor these things too, but what happens when you're the victim? What these guys were doing was so obvious once you've seen a reasonable number of hands with them involved. The were building large pots by raising and then reraising, they were playing very passively against each other. Their constant rasing/reraising strategy also bought them pots they wouldn't have got on their own. If left unchecked it was far from a small advantage they were gaining.

OilBeefHooked2

correct me if i'm wrong but in order to pull off collusion succesfully one has to have the winning hand?
or are you saying that these guys get you to fold after raising and reraising?

Imposter

david-k wrote:

correct me if i'm wrong but in order to pull off collusion succesfully one has to have the winning hand?
or are you saying that these guys get you to fold after raising and reraising?

Partly. They were trying to get people to fold as well as building pots with their good hands. The first guy was taking ages to act almost every time he called/raised. They lost some pots but overall they were making money. They also had the advantage that they knew 2 hands every time. They never played a pot between themselves with anywhere near the same intensity that they played against others.

Also the bit about the other guy who accuesed them of collusion (see my first post).

There was only 2 hands I have recorded that both of their hands were shown. The first one they had T9o and A7o yet raised reraised preflop and on flop. They checked each other once everyone else was out.

The other both of them had AKo. The first guy was BB, his mate raised, everyone folded to the BB who called. This was from the guy who raises with T9o! Single bets then on flop and turn and then checked the river.

I'll attach the Hand Histories for anyone who wants to have a look. I didn't want to name the site, but the casino (UB) have been back on and this is what they've said:
"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."

Now the 2 hands I can see look very suspect. The other hands I noted in my mail to UB also look suspect but I don't know all the cards. I've requested this from them so I shall have to wait and see.

Actually this is really pissing me off. I'd be grateful to anyone who could have a look at these hands to see do they think i'm right. The histories work fine in PT. Allow a pause for autiger before he acts to recreate the hand a bit better. Below are the hands of interest but all the hands while I was sitting at the table are in the file.

Hands the hands of interest (taken from the mail I sent UB):
6029924-2040 - raise-reraise and then passive against each other
6029924-2044 - raise-reraise and autiger2000 folds
6029924-2046 - raise reraise fold on flop
6029924-2057 - played very passively between the 2 for such good starting hands
6029924-2059 - raise reraise fold on flop
6029924-2062 - BEST example - raise reraise preflop, flop and turn, checked when only 2 of them left on river
6029924-0264 - raise reraise preflop - they bet against each other here on flop
6029924 - 2070 - reraise (after my raise), reraise preflop (4-bet with J8s!!)
6029924 - 2071 - call, reraise, reraise preflop
6029924 - 2072 - raise, reraise on flop - trying to buy pot

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Some of those hands seem strange - there seems to be a few cases where there is three players in a hand and post-flop the first guy raises, the next guy reraises, and the third innocent player folds. Then the first guy who raised initially doesn't call the (minor) re-raise of the other person. Strange!

Wonder how much of the hands are collusion; or just bad play?

OilBeefHooked2

Also the bit about the other guy who accuesed them of collusion (see my first post).

Just because some other guy accuses them aswell doesn't make so.

"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."

What does this mean. They are not saying anything here.

Actually this is really pissing me off. I'd be grateful to anyone who could have a look at these hands to see do they think i'm right. The histories work fine in PT. Allow a pause for autiger before he acts to recreate the hand a bit better. Below are the hands of interest but all the hands while I was sitting at the table are in the file.

Seems strange to play J8s so strong preflop. personally I dont but this guy did and hit his st8 on the turn, whats really strange is the way you reraised him on the river with only 2 pair! :eek:

tbh you lost about $100 and this is why your pissed. Quit pointed the finger and looking for someone to blame for your bad play.

Pog-Mahone on ppp
Phil helmuth is a whining muppet!

henbane

david-k wrote:

tbh you lost about $100 and this is why your pissed. Quit pointed the finger and looking for someone to blame for your bad play.

plyd!

Dr_Colossus

I heard of a similar instance involving PokerStars. I was playing in a cash game and chatting to a guy about collusion and he said he was victim to it in a sit and go. I forget some of the details as it was a good while ago but as far as I remember the buy in was relatively expensive and there was at least two players involved. When it got down to 4 or 5 players he said he suspected collusion as some of the betting patterns were unusual. Anyway he busted out 4th with a zero payout in a suspecious play.
After the sit and go was finished he contacted PokerStars' support and reported the instance and his suspecions. He didn't hear anything from them for a while but then they got back to him stating that their records and investigations also led to the conclusion that collusion was involved. They credited his account with 1st place money and confirmed that the other parties would be appropriately dealt with. Overall the guy seemed pretty surprised with the action PokerStars had taken by crediting his account but obviously he was delighted with the result and seemed pretty confident that the site was proactively managed.
I also heard of an unrelated instance where someones account was frozen due to the suspecion of collusion. Aparently the site's management (don't know what site was involved here) had tracked the activity in their account. They had traced similar activity coming from another account with the same ISP address and had blocked both accounts. Don't know if it's possible that they can trace your ISP address but this is what I heard on the grape vine.

roryc

I still dont get how it can be that much of a problem when there is only 2 of them at it. Fair enough if theres 3 or 4 they can affect the game a lot, but with only 2 at it surely they can't do much?

Other than raising other players out of a pot to ensure one of them wins it, and telling each other what cards they have, what else can they do?

Oh and thats true about being able to trace your ISP address but theres ways around that. Anyway I think it can only narrow it to like Dublin, Ireland, not your exact location, so they can't really accuse you of collusion because you are always playing with someone else from Dublin. Apparently they do moniter betting habits and that to try and stop collusion. Ask Pitboss who i'm sure will know the full story.

Imposter

david-k wrote:

Just because some other guy accuses them aswell doesn't make so.

It serves to prove that their play was not normal and someone else noticed it as well.

"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."

What does this mean. They are not saying anything here.

Exactly. They have said nothing. I've asked them for a detailed analysis about why 2 players would constantly raise, reraise together yet play passively against each other. They declined to comment but I now have all the hands which I have yet ot look at.

Seems strange to play J8s so strong preflop. personally I dont but this guy did and hit his st8 on the turn, whats really strange is the way you reraised him on the river with only 2 pair! :eek:

tbh you lost about $100 and this is why your pissed. Quit pointed the finger and looking for someone to blame for your bad play.

If you follow the hand and the betting patterns, which is all any of us can do as poker players, you would not put this guy on J8s. If he had a pair that made trips then fair enough I was beaten and I played the hand badly. I didn't have him on that hand and I was right. This unusual betting pattern taken together with all the other hands is the problem. If that was a standalone once off hand, I'd have marked him as a muppet and thought nothing more of it, but taking it in context with the other hands it is highly suspicious.

Scratch that about having the hands. They've just sent me the hand histories that I already have.

Imposter

roryc wrote:

I still dont get how it can be that much of a problem when there is only 2 of them at it. Fair enough if theres 3 or 4 they can affect the game a lot, but with only 2 at it surely they can't do much?

Other than raising other players out of a pot to ensure one of them wins it, and telling each other what cards they have, what else can they do?

So you'd have no problem sitting at a table if you knew that 2 players (out of max 6) knew each others hands and were raising reraising constantly yet not playing against each other?

Imposter

henbane wrote:

plyd!

Funny kid. I bet you haven't even looked at the hands I posted.

NickyOD

Imposter wrote:

Has anyone here ever been the victim of collusion on the internet? If so what joy did you get out of the casino?

Don't be surprised if you have to wait for a very long time for Stars to get back to you. I was the victim of a blatant squeezeplay in a $50 SnG and it took them 6 weeks and 5 e-mails to finally sort it out but to be fair they did freeze their accounts and send me the money.... eventually.

I had an email once where I was refunded a small amount because of collusion going on in a cash game that I was never aware of. I didn't even remember the game. Just goes to show how much collusion is really going on.

Imposter

NickyOD wrote:

Don't be surprised if you have to wait for a very long time for Stars to get back to you.

It's not Stars it's UB.

NickyOD

Imposter wrote:

It's not Stars it's UB.

Whoops! I play a lot of 3-6 and 5-10 myself and I see a lot of crazy plays particularly when loose players make position raises/reraises but when an aggressive player starts softplaying a particllar player postflop and makes squeezeplays whenever the same players is onvolved multihanded its pretty obvious they are working together. Whether thay actually know eachother's holding or just play together a lot and want to do eachother a favour is dificult to know but either way I'd just leave the table and e-mail the HH to support. That's all you can do. That was a pretty lame response from UB.

Imposter

NickyOD wrote:

Whoops! I play a lot of 3-6 and 5-10 myself and I see a lot of crazy plays particularly when loose players make position raises/reraises but when an aggressive player starts softplaying a particllar player postflop and makes squeezeplays whenever the same players is onvolved multihanded its pretty obvious they are working together. Whether thay actually know eachother's holding or just play together a lot and want to do eachother a favour is dificult to know but either way I'd just leave the table and e-mail the HH to support. That's all you can do. That was a pretty lame response from UB.

They've sent me an excel spreadsheet of the hand histories minus the hidden hand info which basically highlights all major raising in the game and not the play of these two players. They've not commented other than to say:

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.

and they seem to have missed/ignored my point completely. In 10 of 32 hands they raise reraised at least once, yet UB don't think this is suspicious. UB also failed to comment on how they played against each other compared to how they played against others.

If I don't get any joy from them soon I'm going to start a thread over at twoplustwo and maybe rgp to get a wider set of opinions.

PPP-Pit Boss

My two cents.
It does happen. It has happened to me. I have been know to get so pissed I wait for an opportunity then take them both out. Play them at their own game. It is a VERY serious issue. At PPP we run reports several times a day looking for "Players playing together" if players show up.. hands are reviewed, if parties are guilty they are completely banned from the site. We dont wait for the complaints to come in.. To use a bit of wordy boardroom bingo. We are "proactive" about it. Before you ask what for instance about people who simply like to play together? When reviewed no suspicious play is found, end of story.
The same applies to Fraud. Numerous auto generated reports per day are checked to try elliminate the launderers. Held funding kicks in instantly giving us sufficient time to weed out any prospective cheaters and retrieve funding.
Both these are serious issues. Thankfully we have a way to tackle it.

Dub13

PPP Pit Boss,

What would happen if the two "suspects" were playing on Doyles Room or one of the other sites on the network...?

PPP-Pit Boss

Hi Dub. Can't speak for their process but they certainly have the same collusion reporting tool that we have. "players playing together" reports are network wide so we can catch them even if they are playing on different sites within the network.

Imposter

What protections do you have in place for the victims should such a thing occur? I'm assuming you get a report, decide they were colluding and then what?

Of course my problem is different in that I cannot even get UB to discuss the matter in detail, or get them to admit collusion actually occured. It is also past their 48hr mark for withdrawals now too.

Dub13

PPP-Pit Boss wrote:

Hi Dub. Can't speak for their process but they certainly have the same collusion reporting tool that we have. "players playing together" reports are network wide so we can catch them even if they are playing on different sites within the network.

Thats reassuring, Thanks.

PPP-Pit Boss

Hiya imp.. can I call you Imp. I feel more comfortable using cute names. It takes the edge off you know? ;0)
We take every situation on a case by case basis. To be honest we have never had a formal complaint of collusion (ie anything similar to your story). Any cases I have come accross have been few and far between and nipped in the bud before any damage was done as a result. In trying to answer your question.. your case would most likely be escalated to me I would review and make a decision from there. These things are clear.
Collusion and Fraud investigation occurs several times a day with PPP. It is taken very seriously and a lot of resource is invested in it.
Players caught colluding on paddy power poker will be banned completely from playing on all Tribeca sites.
Any player who suspects collusion should immediatley contact live customer service via ping and we will act at once.
Any particular case of abuse or victimisation should be brought immediately to our attantion and we will review and act accordingly.

okidoki987

I heard of a similar instance involving PokerStars. I was playing in a cash game and chatting to a guy about collusion and he said he was victim to it in a sit and go. I forget some of the details as it was a good while ago but as far as I remember the buy in was relatively expensive and there was at least two players involved. When it got down to 4 or 5 players he said he suspected collusion as some of the betting patterns were unusual. Anyway he busted out 4th with a zero payout in a suspecious play.
After the sit and go was finished he contacted PokerStars' support and reported the instance and his suspecions. He didn't hear anything from them for a while but then they got back to him stating that their records and investigations also led to the conclusion that collusion was involved. They credited his account with 1st place money and confirmed that the other parties would be appropriately dealt with. Overall the guy seemed pretty surprised with the action PokerStars had taken by crediting his account but obviously he was delighted with the result and seemed pretty confident that the site was proactively managed.
I also heard of an unrelated instance where someones account was frozen due to the suspecion of collusion. Aparently the site's management (don't know what site was involved here) had tracked the activity in their account. They had traced similar activity coming from another account with the same ISP address and had blocked both accounts. Don't know if it's possible that they can trace your ISP address but this is what I heard on the grape vine.

I also heard the same type of story about Pokerstars and how they go out of their way to make sure people aren't been scammed (as much as they can)
and that is one of the reasons i would play all the time.

Had a brief time on PartyPoker but some of the beats were unbeliveable
and I just stopped playing there.

If you think you are the victim of collusion, walk away from the site immediately. Doesn't matter how easy the players are, it's your money they're stealing :mad:

padser

just a question for ppp pit boss. I had only ever played on pokerroom, pacific poker and vc up to yesterday when i opened a ppp account not realising until afterwards that its the same tables as VC. It set me wondering how the rake is divided up between the different sites. Also who pays out??? (sorry if this has been dealt with in a previous thread).

The reason i ask is just curiosity, it must be a very difficult thing to manage fairly and to everyones satisfaction

Rodge

Party Poker do absolutely nothing if you report collusion to them. I sat down at a 6 seater cash table a few weeks ago and when I was checking where everyone was from I noticed that three players all sitting beside each other were from Valhalla!

Every single hand was raised by one of them and folded by the other two, the only time they got in a pot was in SB and BB when it was folded to them.

One of the times, one of them checked down AA after hitting trips on the flop.

I reported them and got the hell out of there with about two dollars profit. Nothing was ever done though that I am aware of, not even a reply to me.

PPP-Pit Boss

padser wrote:

just a question for ppp pit boss. I had only ever played on pokerroom, pacific poker and vc up to yesterday when i opened a ppp account not realising until afterwards that its the same tables as VC. It set me wondering how the rake is divided up between the different sites. Also who pays out??? (sorry if this has been dealt with in a previous thread).

The reason i ask is just curiosity, it must be a very difficult thing to manage fairly and to everyones satisfaction

The answer is simple really. Our customers pay rake to us in turn we pay a percentage of that to the network. VC customers pay VC rake who in turn pay a percentage to the network. Network = Tribeca Tables.
http://www.paddypowerpoker.com/si_rake.php
Above is a link about how much rake our site takes etc.
Hope this answers your question
;0)

PPP-Pit Boss

Rodge wrote:

Party Poker do absolutely nothing if you report collusion to them. I sat down at a 6 seater cash table a few weeks ago and when I was checking where everyone was from I noticed that three players all sitting beside each other were from Valhalla!

Every single hand was raised by one of them and folded by the other two, the only time they got in a pot was in SB and BB when it was folded to them.

One of the times, one of them checked down AA after hitting trips on the flop.

I reported them and got the hell out of there with about two dollars profit. Nothing was ever done though that I am aware of, not even a reply to me.

Can't comment on the particular case but the lack of reply is an absolute disgrace in my opinion

padser

PPP-Pit Boss wrote:

The answer is simple really. Our customers pay rake to us in turn we pay a percentage of that to the network. VC customers pay VC rake who in turn pay a percentage to the network. Network = Tribeca Tables.
http://www.paddypowerpoker.com/si_rake.php
Above is a link about how much rake our site takes etc.
Hope this answers your question
;0)

Im still confused. The rake in a table for example might be $1. But some of the money has been contributed by VC players and some by PPP players (im assuming). How do you decide on what proportion to divide up the money.

Also is there not a danger that one site will get screwed. For example if PPP players are on average better then VC players, then VC will be taking in all the money (through the weaker players topping up accounts) while PPP will be making all the pay outs (through stronger players cashing out).

Or maybe im missing something??? :rolleyes: Again

PPP-Pit Boss

padser wrote:

Im still confused. The rake in a table for example might be $1. But some of the money has been contributed by VC players and some by PPP players (im assuming). How do you decide on what proportion to divide up the money.

Also is there not a danger that one site will get screwed. For example if PPP players are on average better then VC players, then VC will be taking in all the money (through the weaker players topping up accounts) while PPP will be making all the pay outs (through stronger players cashing out).

Or maybe im missing something??? :rolleyes: Again

:0) We calculate what the players have contributed. In other words If Pit Boss were allowed to play on PPP and was PPP player and pit boss contributed on any given session x amount in rake + x amount in tourney fees that would be PPP rake contribution. The same applies for all of the other members of Tribeca. The table rake is a total of all rake contributed by all participating RAKED players. They are broken down then by Site Member. Individual rake contribution is counted.

On second Q. Sites dont really get screwed. It is very fair to say that some players are better than others. But that is not restricted to PPP verses other sites on the network. There are good and bad players on all sites. The OBJECTIVE of course is to educate your customers. Help them get better at poker and win more.
Another point is that weaker players (GENERALLY) tend to play lower stake games and stronger players are not afraid to play for higher stakes. Of course the education element comes back here and you try to help players to become better lose less win more.. rather than jump into a $50 cash table with 3 years five card stud experience gained at the age of ten against two older brothers staking cola bottles, texan bars and chores.

Culchie

I'd say the piece of the puzzle you are missing padser, is that you logged in under whatever Partner, be it PPP or VC etc ... for that session you are that partners customer, you contribute to their rake.