Why I wont play in poker rooms

[FlopTech]

It's kind of an older topic, but here goes...

Collusion happens in the real world as well as online. I've seen players soft-play and chip dump in tournaments and cash games in brick-and-mortar casinos. And I've heard many accusations against one well-known player claiming that this person recruits others to chip dump in tournaments.

Signaling (secretly telling a cohort what your cards are) is also done in the real world, but it requires more skill and teamwork if you want to avoid getting caught. Remember the "secret handshake mf-ers" game in Rounders? That's far worse than mere collusion: it's straight cheating.

Having said all that, I do think it's far easier for someone to attempt collusion and cheating online than in the real world. All the would-be cheaters would start practicing at the lower stakes games, wouldn't they? And if they're good, they won't get caught and they'll move up to the bigger games.

And then, if they get too greedy, they'll get caught anyway. There are fewer players at the higher limits, so therefore it's easier to track and detect cheaters. From a software engineering perspective, I think it's relatively easy to 1. detect wannabe cheaters at the low stakes because they're so obvious, and 2. detect cheaters at the higher stakes because there are fewer of them and they might get greedy and make it look too obvious.

Of course, no detection happens unless the poker site is motivated to catch cheaters. After the UB / AP scandal (which involved yet another form of cheeating: super-user access to hole cards) you'd think the online poker sites would be pretty well motivated.

[winbig]

you'd think the online poker sites would be pretty well motivated.

PokerStars is, and always has been. If I suspect anything and report it, I've always gotten a reply within minutes of sending that email....and it's always a personal response, not just a form letter. I love sites that have 0 tolerance for cheating/collusion.