Ultimatebet and Absolute Poker - why are they still around?

[The Dude]

I was just thinking about Ultimatebet and Absolute Poker's cheating scandal that has been covered in just about every nook and cranny on the Internet, not to forget just about every major publication to include 60 Minutes, and I'm wondering why are they still in business?

Was it because they had a such a huge player base which permitted them to weather the storm? Have they pushed their marketing efforts offline? Chipleader still seems to be hanging in there via affiliates. Any clue on why they seem to be so resilient?

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[bb28]

I think that it's sad to say that a lot of people who it didn't personally touch (in the pocket, of course) just don't care that they were caught with their pants down. Greed, apathy and a lack of ethics most likely explains it. That's really sad isn't it?

 

[The Dude]

I think that it's sad to say that a lot of people who it didn't personally touch (in the pocket, of course) just don't care that they were caught with their pants down. Greed, apathy and a lack of ethics most likely explains it. That's really sad isn't it?

It's the players who keep them in business - so I don't think greed really plays a big part unless AP and UB are making offers that their competitors can't beat.

 

[Setsuna]

They are still running , and running well , not far from taking over Ongame (who lost a good chunk of their players due to their new software being a true pain for many players , servers crashing nearly every day , not reimbursing properly players) in number of average players per day

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However , it's only Ultimatebet who gets exposure - mostly thanks to their two superstars Hellmuth and Annie Duke (being The Apprentice finalist helps) and new players added to their pro team during WSOP.

And they didn't forget how to make bad business - recently , rakeback players have been screwed of a good part of their earnings with bonuses deducted from their gross rake , and also by retroactively cancelling bonuses dollars thanks to a new term limiting their validity in time .

 

[bb28]

It's the players who keep them in business - so I don't think greed really plays a big part unless AP and UB are making offers that their competitors can't beat.

I see your point but I was speaking more of individual greed, it's comparable to folks who keep playing at the rogues, just as long as it doesn't effect them or they think they are the one's who are getting screwed, (that is the way they justify it.)

Maybe some people honestly think they cleaned up their act and it was a forgivable offense. I don't, but it's possible some feel that way.

 

[vinylweatherman]

Despite the negative exposure, time is a great healer. They are helped by having those "superstars" on the team, and it these high profile players that bear a lot of responsibility by endorsing these operators DESPITE knowing what went on. Their regulators assisted by allowing a "whitewash" to take place, making it even easier for the healing process of time to be effective.

It will be far harder to "heal" long standing board members though, who remember the scandals so well that the names immediately bring to mind the cheating before it even brings to mind anything else about them. I know very little about this pair, but I DO recall the cheating scandal every time their names are mentioned.

Their next step may be to change their names completely, even the software - this will be hard enough to track for casual forum members, and will remove any chance that casual checks on their new name will bring up threads from their past (until that is, experienced members post a few threads creating links between the old and the new for Google to collect).

I do not recall any coverage here in the UK about this scandal, so whatever coverage there was must have been confined to "special interest" programming, and the inside pages of newspapers. This means many new to online poker will have no idea about this, and are likely to judge the brands on the present.

The near destruction of the Prima network, with the attendant scandal of players losing EVERYTHING they had in their accounts probably eclipses the cheating that went on with the AP and UB skins, and they are probably now picking up the debris of poker players who lost everything with Prima, perhaps twice over (Tusk and then Eurolinx), who are looking for an alternative network with a big enough existing player base.

There may also be a bit of disillusionment, of the form "cheating is everywhere", so players will feel they are asking too much to find a "perfect" network, and accept the risks, and maybe overestimate their ability to spot if they themselves are being cheated.

The scandal of poker bots has NOT dented the wilingness of players to play, indeed many feel they have an advantage over the bots, and relish cleaning them out if they spot them. Poker operators are very concerned about bots, doing everything they can think of to detect and deter, but they do not seem to be losing the confidence of players, even though they are by no means catching all the bots and colluding players, who are engaged in an "arms race" to develop ever better bots and means of colluding to evade detection.

 

[secret2]

I used to play BJ mostly at UB but when they changed from Bet21 to UB it changed dramatically. The drealer had an amazing amount of aces and 10's ...I witnessed 6 dealer bj's in a row. Some newbies were betting $100 hands in a multi player table and I witnessed thousands of dollars lost so fast it was astonishing why they still came back for more losses.

The only thing I miss at UB are the people that I met there. We had a lot of laughs.

Sad that a place such as UB with great chat and the possibility of making it a great and fair place to have fun, has turned myself and other regulars away from there.

They suck so bad now.

 

[lnspin]

I think there still in business a very few people were affected by the scandle. It only affected the highest limit players.

Most of the players on ap and ub are lower limit players, so they think no one will cheat at that level.

To be honest, i still do promote ap and a little bit of UB. signups are on par as they were to before the scandle. But were starting to get hurt on processing fees that are charged 100% to us. So its getting to the point where pulling them both really wont affect us in any way. Probelm is its hard to find poker rooms that take usa players, unless you promote some crappy rooms with no player bases, so even when you get signups people cant play.

@secret2: - I agree with you 100% about ub blackjack. That dealer is amazing. ap blackjack is somewhat better and seeems like a much farer game

 

[secret2]

Inspin...I may give AP BJ a try. I am getting a little bored with slots right now,anyway.

I really would like to know where the best place for multi-player BJ is. I miss playing it without the dealer showing off his amazing BJ capabilities.

 

[pokeraddict]

Working for a large poker affiliate and being as active in the forums as I am I have the opinion that many/most of the high volume, great players left leaving behind quite a pool of bleeding fish. These players, mostly American with few choices, found the games unbeatable or much harder at Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Poker Stars does not have rakeback, Full Tilt will not retag most existing players to rakeback (Most players with existing accounts can't get moved to rakeback and if FTP does move them they go to Rakeback Pros, widely believed to be an in house rakeback program) and Cake Poker is not HUD/PokerTracker friendly. For those with existing Microgaming account many or most will not play there because of the lack of trust, especially after Eurolinx.

After U.S. players went full circle through all of the major U.S. rooms they seem to have forgiven AP/UB of the scandals and life goes on if for no other reason the games are better at AP/UB than any other major U.S. poker room because some of the sharks will not go back for any reason.

Perhaps things would be different if U.S. players could play anywhere but with so few options it seems very unlikely things will change if for no other reason than their rakeback + loose games which to some players is all that matters.

 

[same_old]

I wonder the same thing,

The only thing I can point it down to is the massive amouont of publicity they do, every poker event you see on t/v someone is wearing an AP and UB shirt.

the big name poker players still represent them, and honestly at the end of the day a lot of online poker players I talk with still dont even know the whole story.

 

[Tengil]

Ditto what PA said. They also run soft promos and have quick cashouts. And after all the players affected were reimbursed. And many low/mid stakes players think that "it only affected the high stakes players" Im in no danger. Plyers generally dont care if it doesnt directly affect them.

And maybe the biggest reason is that affiliates didnt lose a cent. So no motivation to stop promoting them.

So one could ask the question why do players keep on playing on Microgaming network? After all over 10 million of player funds have gone in a timespan of under 2 years. I still would rather have my roll on UB/AP than on any MG room.

Edit: And some say they have good CS. Cant comment on that, but I know some players prefer Pokerstars over FullTilt because of the quality of CS even if the player field is a bit tougher. At least according to their words.

 

[jetset]

Working for a large poker affiliate and being as active in the forums as I am I have the opinion that many/most of the high volume, great players left leaving behind quite a pool of bleeding fish. These players, mostly American with few choices, found the games unbeatable or much harder at Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Poker Stars does not have rakeback, Full Tilt will not retag most existing players to rakeback (Most players with existing accounts can't get moved to rakeback and if FTP does move them they go to Rakeback Pros, widely believed to be an in house rakeback program) and Cake Poker is not HUD/PokerTracker friendly. For those with existing Microgaming account many or most will not play there because of the lack of trust, especially after Eurolinx.

After U.S. players went full circle through all of the major U.S. rooms they seem to have forgiven AP/UB of the scandals and life goes on if for no other reason the games are better at AP/UB than any other major U.S. poker room because some of the sharks will not go back for any reason.

Perhaps things would be different if U.S. players could play anywhere but with so few options it seems very unlikely things will change if for no other reason than their rakeback + loose games which to some players is all that matters.

As usual an interesting and informed view PA.

And as much as one remains suspicious of these guys, one has to admit that their damage control program and publicity was far-reaching and intensive, as one would expect in a business-threatening crisis such as they faced at the time.

I would still like to have seen more transparency on and the prosecution of the major figures involved.

Edited to add an observation on the Microgaming - Absolute Poker comparison. There is a difference imo between a wholly owned operating company whose employees were directly involved in creating the debacle (Absolute/Ultimate) and a software and network provider (Microgaming) working at arms length through an inefficient/incompetent licensee.

That is not to say that I think that MGS has chosen the right course in not supporting the poker players as has been its policy in casino failures in the past. The perils of damage to reputation in the poker player community vs. the (presumably considerable) volume of licensee losses must have made that a tough judgement call which they may have erred on to their ultimate cost.

 

[RobWin]

And maybe the biggest reason is that affiliates didnt lose a cent. So no motivation to stop promoting them.

How about ethics?

And as much as one remains suspicious of these guys, one has to admit that their damage control program and publicity was far-reaching and intensive, as one would expect in a business-threatening crisis such as they faced at the time.

I guess we should consider ourselves and others lucky then that the likes of the "Virtual Group" and other Rogue Casino Groups don't use this same type of damage control program and publicity stunts to grow their business and keep on ripping off the unknowing and innocent players!
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[jetset]

That is a remarkable leap of logic from a factual observation regarding the crisis planning of this company (which in no way implied approval for what they had done originally) to dragging in the ace of rogues, RobWin

 

[RobWin]

How about ethics?


I guess we should consider ourselves and others lucky then that the likes of the "Virtual Group" and other Rogue Casino Groups don't use this same type of damage control program and publicity stunts to grow their business and keep on ripping off the unknowing and innocent players!
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That is a remarkable leap of logic from a factual observation regarding the crisis planning of this company (which in no way implied approval for what they had done originally) to dragging in the ace of rogues, RobWin

Maybe I'm not quite getting what you are alluding to here Jet...are you saying that we should not consider ourselves and others lucky then that the likes of the "Virtual Group" and other Rogue Casino Groups don't use this same type of damage control program ??

I mean, think of the impact and implications on the player community if they did...

Have you totally mis-understood what I said in the above post....

What is the "remarkable leap of logic" you are referring to there? .... That the player community is not lucky?

I don't get it...

Should I have stated that post like this...

I agree, I guess we should consider ourselves and others lucky then that the likes of the "Virtual Group" and other Rogue Casino Groups don't use this same type of damage control program and publicity stunts to grow their business and keep on ripping off the unknowing and innocent players!

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[jetset]

Maybe the prefix would have worked a little better.

The fact remains that here we are trying to figure out why the UltimateBet-Absolute Poker debacle did not put these questionable folks out of business, and you throw in a known rogue online casino group with no connection to the AB-UB issue, justifying this by observing that we're lucky they don't have an effective damage control program....and then associating that with players being ripped off?

I don't get the relevance of that either, I'm afraid.

 

[RobWin]

Maybe the prefix would have worked a little better.

The fact remains that here we are trying to figure out why the UltimateBet-Absolute Poker debacle did not put these questionable folks out of business,

Well, I actually thought that you had a great idea there and nailed it purdy well with your statement that their "damage control program and publicity was far-reaching and intensive" ...sorry you did not see or take my statement that way In hindsight, I guess I should have included the preamble "I Agree"

and you throw in a known rogue online casino group with no connection to the AB-UB issue

I don't see it that way, sorry to disagree with you on that one but I still see UltimateBet and Absolute Poker as known Rogues also, therein the connection...I'm actually surprised that you don't!

justifying this by observing that we're lucky they don't have an effective damage control program

I do think that the player community is lucky that the likes of other Rogue Groups do not have that same level of damage control program implemented into their crisis management. I never said that they did not have any damage control program...only the fact that they don't use this same type of damage control program which has proven to be very effective in their (UltimateBets-Absolute Pokers) player retention program...hence the reason they have not gone down the tubes.

....and then associating that with players being ripped off?

Players were ripped off there originally, how is that any different from being ripped off by a Rogue casino?

I don't get the relevance of that either, I'm afraid.

Hope some of that helps you to see the connection and relevance that I am referring to there. I do have to admit though that I was 'taken aback' and really surprised by your disdain you showed toward my post there. But that's cool, we can't always see eye to eye on each and every issue now can we. We wouldn't be the individuals we are, if we did that..
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[jetset]

Cool!

We can agree to disagree on the question of relevance. I think your choice of the word 'disdain' may be a little strong though - I was puzzled rather than pissed off.

 

[RobWin]

Cool!

We can agree to disagree on the question of relevance. I think your choice of the word 'disdain' may be a little strong though - I was puzzled rather than pissed off.

Yea, you may be right...I used that more or less for the "theatrical effect". I don't get to go out much anymore so I am practicing for the day that I do

OK, back on topic now..
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[pokeraddict]

They also run soft promos and have quick cashouts.

This is another great point. AP/UB will cash you out by WU/MG for $25 and you can have it the same day. You can also pay $8 for a check and get it within a week. Their processing has been almost flawless since the UIGEA passed where Stars and FTP have issues that come and go once a month.

They also have reload bonuses multiple times a week and although their bonus is next to worthless many players just see that there is a bonus offer there and not one at FTP/Stars or Cake and they take that one.

If you go back 3 years traffic at AP was very low and UB was bigger but nowhere near the size it is today. It exploded after the UIGEA passed and I really think that of all the reasons out there it is near the top or the #1 reason. There is a lack of competition out there and since AP/UB have good promos and Stars and FTP do not that by itself is a reason for their continued growth.

FWIW I have not played there in many years for reasons that were well before the scandals but when I have asked my friends "Why do you play on Cereus?" I often get a reply "Because sharks like you don't". Maybe it is as simple as that.

It will probably be impossible for another major player to make it in the U.S. market so as long as states don't get into the business and major networks like iPoker and Ongame refuse to serve U.S. players I don't see any major shift in traffic, they will likely continue to grow much like Poker Stars and Full Tilt do.

 

[JHV]

Working for a large poker affiliate and being as active in the forums as I am I have the opinion that many/most of the high volume, great players left leaving behind quite a pool of bleeding fish. These players, mostly American with few choices, found the games unbeatable or much harder at Full Tilt and Poker Stars. Poker Stars does not have rakeback, Full Tilt will not retag most existing players to rakeback (Most players with existing accounts can't get moved to rakeback and if FTP does move them they go to Rakeback Pros, widely believed to be an in house rakeback program) and Cake Poker is not HUD/PokerTracker friendly. For those with existing Microgaming account many or most will not play there because of the lack of trust, especially after Eurolinx.

After U.S. players went full circle through all of the major U.S. rooms they seem to have forgiven AP/UB of the scandals and life goes on if for no other reason the games are better at AP/UB than any other major U.S. poker room because some of the sharks will not go back for any reason.

Perhaps things would be different if U.S. players could play anywhere but with so few options it seems very unlikely things will change if for no other reason than their rakeback + loose games which to some players is all that matters.

As a poker affiliate myself, I think PokerAddict has nailed it pretty much.

One thing worth adding, is that when they paid out the millions in "compensation", it was paid to players AP/UB accounts and, for a short time, the games there were the softest online. I had literally dozens of close friends signup for rakeback accounts during that time who did very well - I'm kinda kicking myself for not playing there myself during that time.

In regards to why I continued to offer AP/UB rakeback, I went through the same ethical dilemmas I'm sure most ethical rakeback affiliates went through - do I delist them or continue to list them?

I decided to delist them would be tantamount to Prohibition in that it would have no positive impact, just negative ones. Players will simply get rakeback there from another provider, likely one FAR less ethical than I consider myself to be. So I settled on what I thought was the best solution: Continue to list them, but STRONGLY advise players that they have a 'history' and not to keep a lot of funds on there, and perhaps not play > MSNL and to really be on EXTRA lookout for anything suspicious - and if in doubt, take the safe option and don't play that game.

------

Now, to be objective and fair, CEREUS has REALLY lifted their game since then. CS quality makes FTP support look terrible. If I have a concern, I can be speaking to a Live Chat agent in seconds most of the time. Whilst I wouldn't be in the same league as PA above, I'm not exactly a small FTP affiliate - doing 1mil MGR annually, I still have to wait 3-4 days sometimes for an FTP email response. (can't call them, no Live Chat, all you can do is email and cross your fingers)

Do I think play at CEREUS is completely fair now? No, frankly, I do not. But I don't think play at FTP is completely fair either - and the same goes for Microgaming. iPokerNetwork I just don't know...seems straight up to me.

Ironically, Cake network is where I feel safest (as a poker player). And, I think their decision NOT to be HUD-friendly or even PT3/HEM friendly is the RIGHT and CORRECT decision for two reasons:

1. It makes life incredibly hard for bot-runners, for whom the success/failure of their bots largely depends on collating millions of hands worth of individual opponent statistics. *For the record, I actually have no moral problem with bots. I think they're bad for the game long-term (they could be very good for the game short-term if they're losing, which I believe a great deal of them are [think blackjack card-counting in this regard], and steps must be taken to prevent them from running over the lower limits, but I would not be aghast if a close friend told me they ran bots. In terms of morality, imo it's far worse for 5 M/HSNL pros to be sitting together playing one account HU at high stakes against a single opponent - something I've seen with my own eyes many times, and expressed my opposition on moral / principle grounds.

2. I believe the advancements in HEM/PT3 functionality and capability is bad for the long-term future of online poker. It creates a different game - it's still a game that everyone is playing, but it's not poker. I know winning players who aren't poker players - they multi-table with 300 finely tuned statistics overlaid on EVERY 6max table. At the height of my own HEM use, I had 200 or so statistics on every 6max table and I didn't feel like I was playing poker - I was playing mathematics or something.

It's sad (to me personally) that Cake's decision not to make their network HUD/PT3/HEM friendly for these reasons is potentially costing them heavily.

(apologies for slight hijack)

 

[pokeraddict]

It's sad (to me personally) that Cake's decision not to make their network HUD/PT3/HEM friendly for these reasons is potentially costing them heavily.

Cake Poker's problems run far deeper than just trying to make their games playable by banning tracking software. They have the right idea and I think with Lee Jones at their helm they can do good things. They know their software and processing could use a major overhaul and I expect it to happen sooner rather than later.

 

[JHV]

Cake Poker's problems run far deeper than just trying to make their games playable by banning tracking software. They have the right idea and I think with Lee Jones at their helm they can do good things. They know their software and processing could use a major overhaul and I expect it to happen sooner rather than later.

As it's very much a hijack, I've responded requesting your opinions on this in a new thread: https://www.casinomeister.com/forum...ilst-prima-amazingly-continues-to-grow.33427/

 

[ScamKiller]

Scam Them All

lol I see there commercials on Tv this is not a gambling website free play only what BS .. from the begining they start to scam ya as far as the poker pros who endorse these scamming sites i agree wth many bloggers to ban buying thier books dvd's etc.. wow what a way to go to rip off people with all these gambling websites and no one can do nothng about it but Btch and gripe what a penalty to risk for millions of dollars..

 

[pokeraddict]

lol I see there commercials on Tv this is not a gambling website free play only what BS .. from the begining they start to scam ya as far as the poker pros who endorse these scamming sites i agree wth many bloggers to ban buying thier books dvd's etc.. wow what a way to go to rip off people with all these gambling websites and no one can do nothng about it but Btch and gripe what a penalty to risk for millions of dollars..

I'm guessing they are advertising the .net site which is only play money. I would think they would hope you would punch in .com by accident.

 

[lots0]

I was just thinking about Ultimatebet and Absolute Poker's cheating scandal that has been covered in just about every nook and cranny on the Internet, not to forget just about every major publication to include 60 Minutes, and I'm wondering why are they still in business?

Was it because they had a such a huge player base which permitted them to weather the storm? Have they pushed their marketing efforts offline? Chipleader still seems to be hanging in there via affiliates. Any clue on why they seem to be so resilient?

Bryan, you might as well ask why people are still replying to spam emails...


For myself... I've quit playing poker online...

If it's not the sites themselves cheating, it's players/bots colluding.

Just came back from Reno... had some very good days at the TABLE... very very unlike the losing streak I had going online.

After playing online and getting regularly beaten over the last couple of years, I thought I had lost my poker... But after playing at some live tables... I know I have not lost it...
I am never playing online again.

I am now in the process of dropping all the poker rooms I used to promote. I will no longer promote online poker.

 

[JHV]

For myself... I've quit playing poker online...

If it's not the sites themselves cheating, it's players/bots colluding.

What stakes / limits were you playing online? And what poker sites do you believe cheating is occurring at? (if you don't mind me asking...)

 

[lots0]

What stakes / limits were you playing online? And what poker sites do you believe cheating is occurring at? (if you don't mind me asking...)

IMO collusion by software and by human teams is going on at ALL the online poker rooms at NL tables at all Blind levels.

There are far too many ways to create a software program that will collude that the poker rooms can not detect. Or have a group of people colluding by phone.

And most poker rooms don't care to do more than lip service to stopping collusion by Bot or by human teams... after all Bots and colluding teams pay Rakes too.

 

[JHV]

IMO collusion by software and by human teams is going on at ALL the online poker rooms at NL tables at all Blind levels.

There are far too many ways to create a software program that will collude that the poker rooms can not detect. Or have a group of people colluding by phone.

And most poker rooms don't care to do more than lip service to stopping collusion by Bot or by human teams... after all Bots and colluding teams pay Rakes too.

Whilst I'm in no way trying to devalue your concerns or say you should not be worried or try to convince you to play poker again (stupid game imo), collusion for the most part is very small edge stuff and VASTLY more likely to get screwed up by the colluders than anything else.

There are some spots where collusion is a real concern - say in a PLO game where a bunch of colluders might be on Skype sharing all their holecard info, that's obviously pretty serious edge - or tourney players who play in teams and who are very talented at...well both playing and cheating...and the 'leader' will effectively control the team in terms of organising mild dumps to players about to bust (in a tournament a stack of say 10000 chips at 600/1200 blinds is worth a HELL of a lot more than 10% of 100000 chips at those blinds).

But as someone who's played over 2,000,000 poker hands, seriously, collusion is not your main concern. This is not to say there aren't serious concerns you should be worried about, just that collusion is not one of them.

At the lower stakes, the bot issue is over-sensationalised. The absolute VAST majority of bots are breakeven or slight losers from what I'm told (and I'm told by people who *know* these things). In some ways, they're very good for the game. This is not to say that every site shouldn't be doing their darnedest to negate the bot threat - like Cake is trying to do with their anti PT3/HEM/HUD policy...because it won't be long (if those programs are allowed to continue to be used) where the bots will get VERY advanced and then you have a serious problem because they can collate tens of millions of hands of opponent info very quickly and the "AI" (not technically AI, but for want of a better term) will eventually get advanced enough to really start owning SSNL - then eventually move up higher and who knows where they'll stop, if all at (in terms of rising through the limits).

At the higher stakes, you should have valid concerns about game fairness - but collusion isn't one of them. 5 great players playing a single account at high stakes is a powerful force to battle. Or flat-out SuperUser type stuff, but conducted in such a way that they can never be caught because they're not stone-cold brain-dead retarded like the AP SuperUsers.

 

[lots0]

At the lower stakes, the bot issue is over-sensationalised. The absolute VAST majority of bots are breakeven or slight losers from what I'm told (and I'm told by people who *know* these things).

LOL... the people your talking too must not be the brightest bulbs...
More than one group of people are getting rich off these colluding software programs.

But as someone who's played over 2,000,000 poker hands, seriously, collusion is not your main concern.

At this time, collusion is my main concern.

I never counted every hand I ever played, so I have no clue how many hands I've played, but I been playing poker regular (home games-tournaments-road-Vegas-Reno-Tahoe) for forty years... Not to mention I was among the first people to actually promote online poker. So please don't talk down to me about poker.

 

[JHV]

LOL... the people your talking too must not be the brightest bulbs...
More than one group of people are getting rich off these colluding software programs.


At this time, collusion is my main concern.

I never counted every hand I ever played, so I have no clue how many hands I've played, but I been playing poker regular (home games-tournaments-road-Vegas-Reno-Tahoe) for forty years... Not to mention I was among the first people to actually promote online poker. So please don't talk down to me about poker.

Sorry buddy - was just trying to help. Didn't it mean it come across that way. GL with your future projects.

 

[Pinababy69]

Just a couple of quick points...

One, I understand why Rob referenced Virtual in a thread relating to AP/UB. Rogue is rogue. Bad behaviour is bad behaviour. Cheating is cheating. Why do so many affiliates continue to promote Virtual Casinos? MONEY!! Why do affiliates continue to promote AP/UB? MONEY!! And as someone so astutely stated, the cheating that went on at the poker rooms didn't affect them directly...so hey, no problems. Same as Virtual. As long as the affiliates get paid, no problem. Very few affiliates or webmasters (besides Bryan), ever said a word about Grand Prive and the underage player issue (the same player they accepted deposits from, and paid out small wins..until they won big..20K or more). But when GP cancelled their affy contracts....then we have the wagons circled.

Two, I read threads on here every single day re: rigging of software. I've been playing online casinos going on nine years, and never felt cheated. But the flops, turns, rivers and assinine calls I've seen playing online poker just baffle my mind. I won't say rigged, cause I have no proof. But I don't put a whole lot of money into poker. I'm with Lots0...some of the stuff (and hands) I've seen, defy belief. Too funky for me. I'll stick to my Saturday night face to face poker games with friends. And the odd tourney here and there for fun.

 

[lots0]

Sorry buddy - was just trying to help. Didn't it mean it come across that way. GL with your future projects.

Not a problem.

 

[JHV]

But the flops, turns, rivers and assinine calls I've seen playing online poker just baffle my mind. I won't say rigged, cause I have no proof. But I don't put a whole lot of money into poker. I'm with Lots0...some of the stuff (and hands) I've seen, defy belief. Too funky for me. I'll stick to my Saturday night face to face poker games with friends. And the odd tourney here and there for fun.

Aiya, I hate that I'm 'defending' online poker here - I'm not really - I'm defending / explaining variance. In some ways, the nature of poker variance is such that it's a negative thing should cheating exist. It makes it almost, no it makes it TOTALLY impossible to 'prove' unless the cheaters are moronic.

First, here is a graph of 130,000 hands I played in 2007 over 4 months on 5/10nl mostly:

I mean, that's pretty sick obv. You can look at it one way and say "hey, at least you're making 15/20k a month, pretty hard to complain" and that's valid - but I worked pretty hard for many, many years to get to that level of skill - neutral luck over that sample (this is purely All-in luck, and merely a fraction of the big picture) - I should have won $130,000 during those 4 months. But here's the kicker: my friend, playing same stakes, and about same volume, ran 60k ABOVE expectation for those 4 months - with almost identical all-in expectation. So we both should have gotten $130k - I got 60k, he got 195k - and 130k hands is a tiny sample. But please don't think I was sitting there thinking "oh this is cool" whistling to myself - I was certain insanity was going on, and that graph is representing sickness that 99.9% of players will never experience.

It's about to get a whole lot sicker though.

When I was a far better player, and doing a lot more volume the next year (i.e. last year), I had a graph which makes that graph look meh. I didn't mind the 2nd horrid downswing as I'd upswung incredibly hard prior so I felt it was only 'fair' - but if you're a player who just walks straight into one of those two downswings, you'd be a fool NOT to suspect the games of being rigg.

And hell, they may totally be rigged - I just don't know. All I know is variance.

And now for the sickness - I pulled / stole this graphs off a forum where they were stolen / pulled from 2+2 (apologies to the creator that I can't credit them to him - they're amazing - check this out):

Here are graphs showing expected ranges of results for 5/10PLO for players where ALL players are 6bb/100 winners (very big winners, if lower the lines would be even more insanely scattered) with a standard deviation of 140 (which was the average of the respondents participating in the study:

After 100,000 hands (note: most live players, playing every day, for decades, won't play 100,000 hands - 20-25 hands/hr, etc maths are easy to work out there):

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Insane. 100,000 hands doesn't even allow for a readable graph, the expected lines are so skewed (each coloured line represents an individual player)

After 500,000 hands:

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Equally skilled players, playing identical styles, just PURE LUCK - one guy will win 700k, the other wins 0. Over half a million hands. Sick.

After 1,000,000 hands:

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Finally! After a million hands, we start to see some 'convergence'. Still about $1,000,000 difference in earnings between the LUCKIEST player and the UNLUCKIEST player. Nauseating.

After 5,000,000 hands (I don't know any online players who've played 5 million hands in their life):

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Some nice convergence here. Even after FIVE MILLION hands, the difference between LUCKY and UNLUCKY is $2,000,000 or so. *shiver*

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Well, so ends the very crude lesson in poker variance. The only point I'm trying to make is that if you're in ANY part of the "unlucky" half of that side, you're gonna feel like the games aren't straight up. If you're in the bottom 1/4, you'd swear the rigg is in. Bottom 10%, I wonder why you'd keep playing....

Poker is a sick, sick game. imo.

(Clear hijack - but I got the feeling this thread had run it's course re UB/AP? If not, sincere apologies, and slap me....!)