Quest of a Closet Poker Player

Online poker is rigged.  It has become an inside joke for all of us every time we have a bad beat.  But now with the firestorm around TheV0id (PokerStars WCOOP winner) and the Absolute Poker mess.  In case you’re just waking up, it involves IP addresses within Absolute, hole cards, and an incredible breach of security to allow any of us to find out, an emailed Excel spreadsheet showing all hands and hole cards for a big portion of said tourney.

N 82 (big blogger, part of Bluff) was key to blowing up the whole detailed analysis.  You also know it is a huge deal when Steven Levitt is all over it on his Freakonomics blog now at the New York Times.  Levitt has been involved with an online site, analyzing a big data set to measure the level of skill vs. luck involved in poker.  For those of you who might not remember, Levitt had his first WSOP cash during the HU event.

What does all of this mean?  First, it again shows how seemingly porous the security of online sites are.  This is something I don’t want to be true and don’t relish in writing, but these most recent case studies follow many others that are well known.  Multi-accounts was something we thought was identified and fixed, although the Stars example shows there are still holes.

The AP situation moves us into a whole new realm.  This smacks of internal collusion, of pure, unadulterated cheating.  Third-party auditors are being brought in to find out the story.  This really smacks of the biggest problem that we really don’t speak much about:  the lack of transparency regarding sites.  I’m sitting at Caesar’s in my sweet mini-suite, and I have the utmost confidence that the Nevada Gaming Commission regularly examine the games that Harrah’s et al are operating.  Is there cheating that goes on in these live poker rooms I sit at?  Sure.  There is cheating in virtually all parts of life that every one of us lives in.  Where there is a large sum of money available, there is much greater risk for people to make unethical decisions.

Does this mean that we should abandon online sites?  I don’t think so.  There is too much at stake for the online sites not to take all of this seriously.  These sites print free money, but their rake is raked only if players deposit and sit at the table.  They will respond; they have no other choice.

My condolences for my English friends after they crashed on the “plastic turf” vs. Russia in Euro2008 qualifying.  Qualification is now out of their hands, and a new coach is in the offing if they don’t qualify (possibly if they do).

And hats off to AlCantHang for his partnership with FullTilt Poker.  They are ponying up an $18k Aussie Millions package for the winner of the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments2.  I’m speechless.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.