|
The story broke one week ago today and to this point so I figure it is a good time for a summary:
1. A massive amount of evidence has been compiled against the cheats. Mods at 2+2 have compiled a database in Poker Tracker, a popular software which tracks your results as well as the other players you play against and in the case of many sites games you observe. These stats prove to virtually everybody in the online poker community that the accused players were cheating by being able to see the hole cards of the other players.
2. AP reacted very slowly in locking the cheat accounts, even allowing one to chip dump several days after this broke.
3. AP has still not made a public comment. An affiliate manager at Chipleader has but claimed they had not found any odd play as of yet. Considering just the number of chip dump hands posted this seems impossible. IMO it is safe to say that this statement was not made by management, especially since it was signed by the Chipleader.com employee. To this point nobody has disputed that and the response has been widely ignored since the most obvious chip dumping was not acknowledged.
4. AP has asked a poker affiliate forum to not allow discussion of this and the thread was removed from their forum by the owner (shame on them).
5. Support sends out form emails to players asking questions about this situation. Even players that lost tens of thousands to the cheats cannot get any info out of AP.
6. AP's security department has told a player that were taken "We are unable to find any hands involving you and x player". AP had to be emailed hand #'s/histories from the player which hardly gives confidence in the investigation or the anti collusion/cheating procedures.
7. AP ignored initial emails from players tipping them off to the cheating and first chip dumping. Their lack of response leads to this exposure.
8. The amount stolen by the cheats range from $400,000-$600,000.
9. The community seems split on whether AP is involved in the cheating ring. Some feel the site was hacked, others feel an AP insider is in on it while others feel AP management has known about this all along.
10. The consensus has become that the cheating started on the day of the last major upgrade about a month ago.
Other interesting things that have come out of this that don't help AP's cause.
1. The razz game awards a pot to the wrong person. After repeated emails AP still claims the pot was awarded to the correct person when obviously it was not. The email exchange was humorous as multiple people at AP (and obviously the software developer) are unable to grasp the rules of the game.
2. Mark Seif had been accused of this same thing in the past (with no real evidence). Mark Seif comes out denying any involvement and publicly asks AP to investigate and resolve this situation. Most in the community do not feel Mark Seif is involved. In fact, Mark claims in his statement that he is likely the biggest loser in AP history. Many players agree with his admission of losses.
3. Several former props have come out claiming AP did this same type of cheating to them about 2 years ago. I once propped for them but it seems the time frame AP has been accused of this was after I left the program. I worked for AP for about 2 years as a prop and left on great terms. In fact I'm probably still listed officially as a prop. IMO AP did not start the downward spiral until the UIGEA passed which was long after my last hand. AFAIK the props making this accusation have never brought up any proof, at least not up to the magnitude of the current accusations.
I'm sure I've missed some good points but this is a good halftime summary. It's time for Absolute Poker to step up to the plate and enlighten us as to what they have found. Obviously they are in an awful situation. Either they have been caught cheating or they have allowed a backdoor that allowed cheating to take place on their site, even after being presented with the proof it was going on.
|