Major Absolute Poker Issue

[ZFitz]

As Absolute Poker Management pointed out the data sample used is so small it could very well have been 'cherry picked' by some of the posters.

Now if Chip Dumping and some strange wins were not able to be easily explained away by other explanations, like strange unorthodox playing styles, brain farts at the table, posted hand histories that have been cherry picked, incorrect hand histories being posted or the Poker Tracker Site being hacked and the Poker Tracker data compromised... I might even agree with you.

Man, you really dont have a clue to you? Do you even play poker? I've been a pro for the last 3 years and Ive used poker tracker for some of that time although Ive never liked it as much everyone else seems to. I would actually like if it had never been invented as the games used to be alot softer and I dont like using it anyway. But anyone who knows how it works and reads the stats is in agreement on this issue....There is nothing that can explain the results someone playing 90/70 vpip/pfr has attained. What has happened isn't easily explained away by what you mentioned above, how can you just say 'its an unorthodox playing style'...Calling an all in on the turn of a mtt with 2 people left with 10 high (and being correct) is beyond orthodox, what the hell does he put his opponent on? Added to this, never showing down a losing hand, actually never even calling the river at all, just raising or folding. Because the cheater can see the opponents cards he raises with a better hand every single time no matter how marginal, or if he has a worse hand he raises when he is certain the opponent cannot call based on the board texture. He folds when he knows he cant take his opponent off the hand. I shouldnt have to say it, but I will, it is not possible to read hands this well, it's not possible to read hands remotely close to this well. Basically the cheater is playing perfect poker, which is not possible.

Why would anyone bother cherry picking hand histories? Do you know the amount of work it would take to start sifting through hand history files and deleting actual individual hands that dont fit with the picture painted? To doctor enough of them that it significantly alters the graph and stats in pokertracker? In case you say 'well players have already sifted through them to post them', they haven't actually, you don't need to sift through them with PT and it would be much much much more time consuming to go doctor HHs than to do what the players have already done which is just to copy and paste directly out of PT.

Edit: Poker addict says cherry picking cant be done and he is correct in that the amount of time it would take is massive. Theorectically you could go in and alter the hands but my god that is a crazy amount of work.

Its a nusiance even having to go looking for your own hands in HH files, it would be pointless endevour for several posters to start doctoring someone else's histories, and what would be the point as the cheater could just produce there own ones and say 'well u've doctored them' and the poker site would be in agreement. There is no reason for long time respected posters to doctor hand histories as it would void their case against the cheater.

This whole thing is real simple to resolve... If you and your friends don't trust Absolute Poker don't play there, even continue to tell people you don't trust them if you want, but don't go accusing people or business of real crimes with out some PROOF that they are guilty and what has been provided and called 'proof' by some would never be used as evidence in any court in the Western World.

For god sake, it is proof. Hand histories are proof in poker, you can have your money seized, and lots of people have, based on hand histories that should evidence of cheating.

Say you had a case against someone who owed you money and you showed bank records which proved it. And then this person starts saying 'lets see some proof'...proof which you've just shown them lol. This is what you are doing here. The proof here is more than sufficient in any court, what level of probability of guiltiness is good enough for you? If based on evidence a court decides that a suspect is 99.999999% guilty are they supossed to find him innocent because of that .000001%? One of the 2+2 guys with a masters in statistics says "off the cuff estimate I would give would be something like 10^20:1" on the odds of the events that have unfolded happening.

You know I could be wrong about this whole thing, the AP management could have went insane and lost their minds and decided to risk their hundreds of Millions of dollars a year in profits just so a hand full of player accounts could make a a few hundred thousand a year... But I don't think so.

It is either an inside job or someone has hacked into the Absolute server, it's one or the other. Management may or may not be involved. I personally think it is someone/some group without a limited amount of poker knowledge as it was way too transparent and this was gonna show up sooner or later on peoples pokertracker, the mtt with the 10 high win just brought it to the community's attention sooner. If this had've been executed by a level headed pro (or any clued in poker player who knows their opponents are using PT) it would never have been detected as they would've know hown much they could win without raising suspicions.

As for the big business would never risk money like this...Well we all know how honest big business are these days, they'd never dream of screwing over their customers to make more money, just ask Enron.... If it was an endorsed Absolute scheme, which there is no evidence for (and which I have no reason as yet to believe it was, I'm just theorizing), the facility for seeing hole cards would be given to an in house team who basically be playing for Absolute and making them a couple of mil extra a year. On your statement that why would they risk millions so that "hand full of player accounts could make a a few hundred thousand a year" - obviously if the player accounts were given the facility by Absolute it would be Absolute employees themselves playing the accounts and the money would all be pocketed by Absolute...no one is suggesting that they would just hand over this ability to some random dudes as you seem to be say people have suggested. However I think if it was an inside job backed by management they wouldve not been nearly as obvious, so this makes me think if it was an inside job it was done by an employee(s) without the backing of the ste.

Are you are aware that the Poker Tracker site has been recently hacked and that makes the Poker Tracker data suspect at best.

That makes no difference to the data, someone hacking pokertracker's site is not going to be doing it to mess up your hand histories. One of the reasons they would hack the PT site is to install some kind of trojan that gets downloaded to your pc and can take a screenshot so they can see your cards. If somehow that is what has happened it still means there is cheating on Absolute. I dont this is the most likely explanation however as it is unlikely that every single opponent the cheater faced in that tourney was using PT yet he played the same against them all.

[lots0]

Quote:
Poker Tracker Site being hacked and the Poker Tracker data compromised
I think this really shows your lack of poker and industry knowledge. This is likely why you don't understand. PT's site being hacked has nothing to do with its functionality.

No I think it shows your lack of programming knowledge.

This has NOTHING to do with 'poker knowledge' it has to do with programming knowledge.

If a site is hacked, that means someone besides the owner (the hacker) has access to ALL the data and files on a site including the data bases and data transfers. That means that ALL data (including databases) housed on that site can be added, deleted or edited and it is virtually impossible to tell that what has been done. So the idea that "just some pages were messed up" is ridiculous in the extreme. FYI - I am a bit of an expert on this subject.

I think the lone fact that the Poker Tracker web site has been recently hacked (the hack happened at the same time these reports started showing up) is good reason not to believe any of the Poker Tracker data posted.

@ZFitz

Do you even play poker?

None of your business if I do or don't.

Man, you really dont have a clue to you?

As far as clues go, I got lots of them, maybe even some of yours...

The rest of your post is not worth responding too as you failed to provide any facts or evidence to support your statements.

[mg_]

Sorry for long first post . Just had to register and drop in to say some things to lots0.

But there are way too many 'other' more plausible explanations

No. No there are not. If you have looked over the Poker Tracker stats and do not believe they constitute proof, you either

1. do not understand what the numbers represent, or
2. you are not intelligent enough to appreciate their significance.

This has been pointed out to you before in this thread by other posters, but instead of responding to them or even acknowledging this at all, you just ignore them and continue to shout that "there is no proof".

The mountain of hand histories that show these accounts playing FTOP-perfect poker and continually and consistently making moves that are only explicable if they can see everyone else's cards are merely the icing on the cake.

These accounts and player(s) are cheating. This is indisputable fact.

@Pinababy69,
Are you are aware that the Poker Tracker site has been recently hacked and that makes ALL the Poker Tracker data suspect at best.

What the f*ck? No it doesn't. You have no idea what you are talking about.

The site was attacked and was taken down by PT Pat as a precaution. He has already pointed out, multiple times, that nothing malicious ever found its way onto the site, and even if it did, Poker Tracker does not automatically update, it just points out that you need to access the web page (you know, the one that had been taken down?) to download the newest patch. You're just making sh*t up now that is patently untrue to try and support your cause. I wonder why?

All of this aside, PT data has been contributed by a whole bunch of different people (iirc, at least ten) who played with these accounts, and all the data shows the same thing - accounts that play nearly every hand, have a near-infinite river aggression factor, mysteriously "know" to fold preflop only when someone else has JJ+, call allins whenever they have the best hand (no matter how bad their hand may be) but never if they do not, and have an unbelievably colossal winrate which has never been seen before (or even anything remotely close to it) in the history of online poker.

Unless all the people who have contributed this data have somehow been magically compromised by your hack-that-never-was - and for some bizarre reason all that this imaginary hack does is make it appear that some random guys on Absolute are the winningest players ever - then this data is legitimate.


From an earlier post of yours;

MY understanding (as an Affiliate of AP's)

What a surprise. The reason for your indefensible stance in the face of utterly blatant cheating suddenly becomes apparent.

and then Pokeraddict there is the fact that you personally have an axe to grind with Absolute Poker

Even if you believe Pokeraddict's integrity on this issue to be compromised - and let's not forget that yours also quite obviously is - what about the hundreds of people who are equally convinced (having, after all, viewed a mountain of proof) that these accounts are cheating? Numbering among these hundreds of people are some of the very best limit hold'em and no-limit hold'em players in the world. These are people who have run the full gamut of variance, many times, over many years and millions of hands, and know damn well that what has happened at AP cannot be rationally explained. These are people who are much better placed to assess Poker Tracker data and draw conclusions about cheating than you are. What does it say that they are all unified in their belief that there is simply no other possible explanation for all of this than holecard cheating?

Regardless, your take on this issue is so stalwartly blind to fact (due most likely to your affiliate status to Absolute) that I do not expect to change your mind. I'd just like to add my voice to the masses of other knowledgable poker players who are well aware that cheating, fraud and theft have taken place on a massive scale at Absolute, and to point out to other readers of this forum that you are either shilling or stupid (whether the one, the other or a combination of the two, I don't really care) and your ill-informed opinions on this matter should be summarily ignored.

[ZFitz]

No I think it shows your lack of programming knowledge.

This has NOTHING to do with 'poker knowledge' it has to do with programming knowledge.

If a site is hacked, that means someone besides the owner (the hacker) has access to ALL the data and files on a site including the data bases. That means that ALL data (including databases) housed on that site can be added, deleted or edited and it is virtually impossible to tell that what has been done. So the idea that "just some pages were messed up" is ridiculous in the extreme. FYI - I am a bit of an expert on this subject.

I think the lone fact that the Poker Tracker web site has been recently hacked (the hack happened at the same time these reports started showing up) is good reason not to believe any of the Poker Tracker data posted.

OK, you have to be trolling. I take as you didn't contest anything else, that you are now in agreement on the issue of cheating.

I have plenty of programming knowledge as well as poker knowledge and Poker Addict is completely correct that the site being hacked has nothing to do with the pokertracker softwares functionality. In case you don't know, pokertracker stores its data locally on your hard drive so hacking the site makes no difference to it. Nothing is being added, deleted or edited database-wise. Why the hell would someone want to hack into and alter hand history databases anyway, whats that going to achieve? As I've said already, the only thing of any use to a hacker concerning your poker playing is being able to see your hole cards, not pricking about with your database.

The rest of your post is not worth responding too as you failed to provide any facts or evidence to support your statements.

Nice reply. Not worth responding to lol....Show me one thing in my post that is incorrect, that's right you can't. My god you are dumb as f&*^. If you are trolling which looks likey, congratulations, you have succeeded in pissing me off as your ignorance is just too much for me. I too am beginning to wonder have you an agenda here. It's either that or you don't understand the stats or are trolling.

As I've said, what you are doing is the same as saying "ok whatever show me the proof" after the prosecution had just shown the murder weapon with the accused's fingerprints all over it and a cctv camera with him committing the act. YOU HAVE BEEN SHOWN THE FUCKING PROOF IDIOT! The whole poker community is on agreement on it. Ok, I'm done.

[lots0]

Just gotta love these drive by slammers...

you are not intelligent enough to appreciate their significance.

Start with the personal flames and then move on to what can best be called "fuzzy logic" and you question my intelligence... Now that is funny.

Call me a troller... Hmmm and just who is the new guy here... Who shows up and starts calling names.

And no not the whole Poker Community is in agreement on this issue.

Did any of you new posters happen to read the TOS here at CasinoMeister before you posted? Name calling and personal attacks are not allowed here. How about trying to hold an adult discussion of the issues without the childish personal attacks?

[Adanthar]

Hi,

I'd normally just ignore this, but this particular forum/site is important enough that all misconceptions need to be dispelled ASAP.

I think the lone fact that the Poker Tracker web site has been recently hacked (the hack happened at the same time these reports started showing up) is good reason not to believe any of the Poker Tracker data posted.

The hack *did not* happen at the same time. I have a hand history of a hole card cam user winning the Absolute 1K on 8/23. The PT hack did not happen until about a week ago, and when it did, no files were altered, especially not on my system, which currently contains about 1K hands from various people. All of these hands are not even PT compatible, so in order to prove cheating, I have to look at them manually, but they are there and will be emailed to anyone on request.

In fact, we have a staggering amount of proof completely unrelated to PT. In addition to all of the NL hands and limit hands whose *summaries* are in PT, we have Payup's (the 8/23 winner) final table HH from two different sources at the FT with him, including the second place finisher; we also have some of Potripper's (the 9/13 winner) HH from two sources and a lot more of it from one. Again, the formatting on these files is messed up and they have never been imported into PT, but I received them from the affected players, who in turn got them directly from AP support.

From 8 handed to 3 handed, when the person providing my HH was knocked out, the 9/13 final table took 28 hands to play through. I have manually reviewed each of these hands and, again, will email anyone who asks copies of the history. Potripper played 21 out of the final 26 of these hands (that is, raising or calling PF), never showed down a losing hand and displayed a fascinating 100% consistency in checking down or folding if someone had top pair or better, while betting every flop they missed. In at least four out of the remaining five hands, someone at the table had JJ or higher in the hole, and in two of those cases, Potripper made his only two open folds (folding before anyone acted) of the entire hand history; in the other two, he made his only two folds to a single raise. Of course, the whole thing ends with the call with T high no draw on the turn.

Again, we have a *staggering* amount of proof that is not at all related to Poker Tracker - it's hard to read, but it's all there, and the hand history numbers are requestable from AP support (better hurry up if you want to see the 8/23 ones, though - they only keep them for a month.) I don't know if you have any kind of agenda since there's already been one AP shill trying to discredit me in this thread, but if you do not, by all means email them or myself and ask for HH copies; they will be provided.

[mg_]

what can best be called "fuzzy logic"

Everything I posted is fact. It does not surprise me that you are trying as hard as you can not to acknowledge it, because you have no answer to any of it.

Call me a troller...

I didn't call you a troller.

Hmmm and just who is the new guy here...

I don't see why that should matter.

Who shows up and starts calling names.

I didn't call you any names.


Your desperation to avoid actually addressing any of the points I made is comical.

And no not the whole Poker Community is in agreement on this issue.

Other than you, and a small handful of others who are likely affiliates too, yes, they really are.

[lots0]

mg_ my last post was not about you.

I know its hard to believe, but I really don't think your post is/was worth answering.

[mg_]

mg_ my last post was not about you.

I know its hard to believe, but I really don't think your post is/was worth answering.

....

Your desperation to avoid actually addressing any of the points I made is comical.

[lots0]

Adanthar said:

In fact, we have a staggering amount of proof completely unrelated to PT.

Then lets see it.


We are talking Proof right? Some fact that can not be explained in any other way than Absolute Poker is cheating?

Well lets all take a look see at your proof....

And just who is this "we" you speak of?