props to Pokerstars

[tennis_balls]

I play a fair number of low roller sit n goes, and I always check to see if any players are from the same town or general area before the tourney begins.

I was in a $5 sit n go a few weeks back at Pokerstars, and I did notice a couple of players were from the Philly area so I made a mental note of that.
I'm no poker expert so I'm not really good at spotting soft-play or collusion. Although I didn't notice anything in this particular tourney, I did get knocked out so I was steamed enough to investigate further. I searched the Philly players and found that 2 of them were actually playing in another sit n go at the same time. One was omaha and one was hold'em so that raised some major flags as the chances of two players in the same sitngoes both holdem and omaha are pretty slim.

I made a report of my observations to Pokerstars support. It took about 2 weeks for them to conclude their investigation, but they actually booted these two miscreant low-roller cheats from the site. How schweet is that? I love it! (they creditted me $5.50 as well) also quite schweeeeeeeet!!!

Pokerstars commitment to enforcing fair play is impressive. I doubt this sort of matter would have received such scrutiny at most if not all other poker sites.

[NoMouthToScream]

I couldn't agree more, the people at Pokerstars are really good at what they do and will take reasonable approachs to situations. Definitely a great poker site to join.

[sweetdenny]

While i admit its good to see two cheats being booted i believe PS are not as good at this as you may think.
How do you know that they have been booted the last i knew PS would not tell you the results of thier investigation quoting player confidentiality.
Did they tell you they were booted or have you just not seen them around for a while.
Also im taking it that the $5.50 was a refund for your stt entry having reported cheating going on in $100 dollar stt i never received any refund.
Could this be that they tolerate high rolling cheats as it generates them more rake seems the only difference here is stake size.

[tennis_balls]

How do you know that they have been booted the last i knew PS would not tell you the results of thier investigation quoting player confidentiality.

Here is a quote from their reply:

"Suffice to say that we have deemed their play to be a detriment to our
games and have decided they will no longer be welcome to play on our
site.
On top of this restriction, certain reparations were made at their
expense
to make up for the damage done through their activities."

The letter also contained a disclaimer saying PS couldn't name the players, but of course having made the report I do know their "former" usernames.

I have no experience with sit n goes higher than $10, but I would assume that PS would scrutinize possible collusion even more closely at higher levels as that would certainly be in their best interest.

[sweetdenny]

Well it looks like they have changed the way they deal with collusion when it is reported.
What you have been told about the investigation is nothing like what used to happen you were never given the results of it.
Guess they finally took notice of all the complaints judging by the letter you got also good to see they deducted the money they got from cheating and redistrubuted it.
Also them taking 2 weeks shows they are doing good checks unlike olden days you got the response back in a day saying they dealt with it.
Im thinking they must have just brushed it under the carpet.

[pokeraddict]

Many players have reported in the past receiving money out of the blue from Stars from investigations they never knew about. Stars could easily have kept the money but did the fair thing. I cannot say it enough, PokerStars is a class act that many sites could learn from.

[ace4suited]

Poker stars support are very good at dealing with collusion / cheating issues that are drawn to their attension.

Wisely they will be a bit cagey about going into details but if they do find collusion to have taken place and there is money in the cheats account then they will freeze the account and transfer money to players that they feel have been aggreived.

They do the same if an account is being used by a bot.

What i would say though is that they are not the only ones. I think their policy though of refunding those who they see as the aggreived players does set them a bit appart from some other sites. That and the good and detailed ways that they deal with the problem.

The same does seem to happen at higher stakes as well.

The real lesson from this is dont just sit back if you think someone is a bot or is colluding. There is nothing at all wrong with reporting it. Very often their systems (any site) will miss suspect play that is obvious to someone in the game. Players need to take some responsibility for policing the sites they play on. Players need to act like a neighbourhood watch. If you are reluctant to contact admin because you are unsure you can always post details or HH's here and get a second opinion.