Sattelite Collusion
Here is what happened today. I participated in a level 1 Sattelite on one of the Cryptologic skins ( Sun poker) 200 frequent player points, one entry to the 2 seat WSOP tournament at the end of the month for every 25 participants (ie: that tournament has a 5,000 player point buy in). There were just over 150 players so 6 spots.
In the end I qualified though when there were 7 left (tables were 6 max, mine had 4 players other had 3), the other table openly colluded and soft played to avoid anyone being knocked out. They even said what hands they had at times and how the other table would do the work for them.Â
My table went at it full throttle, and even though I did get a spot I could not help but feel cheated and I did contact their customer support about it with screenshots of some of the blatant conversations.
The thing is I bet those guys thought they did nothing wrong, and this was hardly a huge buy in tournament.Â
Pokerstars disables all chat and goes hand to hand when there are a few spots to go in a sattelite and this seems to have eliminated most of the problems (except for the enlightened small stacks who still stall even in hand for hand mode :P).
I am wondering what people think other rooms should do when this type of collusion takes place. It was disappointing to watch (I am sure it would have been even more so if I finished 7th)
In the end I qualified though when there were 7 left (tables were 6 max, mine had 4 players other had 3), the other table openly colluded and soft played to avoid anyone being knocked out. They even said what hands they had at times and how the other table would do the work for them.Â
My table went at it full throttle, and even though I did get a spot I could not help but feel cheated and I did contact their customer support about it with screenshots of some of the blatant conversations.
The thing is I bet those guys thought they did nothing wrong, and this was hardly a huge buy in tournament.Â
Pokerstars disables all chat and goes hand to hand when there are a few spots to go in a sattelite and this seems to have eliminated most of the problems (except for the enlightened small stacks who still stall even in hand for hand mode :P).
I am wondering what people think other rooms should do when this type of collusion takes place. It was disappointing to watch (I am sure it would have been even more so if I finished 7th)
Comments
BTW, how does one take screenshots?
Nothing is worse than when people do it hand for hand. They don't realize that it is serving no purpose. Howerver, it is their right, so nothing is wrong with that.
As for your situation, it sucks when it happens. Luckily you won a seat. I'm not sure what steps support should take in terms of punishment, but something is def. needed.
ALT & Print Screen buttons together.
Right click, Paste
That sucks.
Thank you for taking the time to report this incident. The integrity of our site is of the utmost importance to us and therefore all such reports are fully investigated by one of our poker specialists.
After conducting a full investigation I can conclude that the accounts (stairboy1 and berto ) are not involved in collusion. We investigated every hand which the two accounts played together as well as the accounts game play together against other players. When checking for collusion we look for the following:
-     Squeezing. Where the players involved continually raise the pot in order to scare the other players into folding. This is normally done when neither player is holding a good hand.
-     Pot building – When one player is holding a strong hand and the other not so strong. Both players raise in order to trap another player in the middle and at the same time increase the size of the pot.
-     Best hand play – This is where the players involved would only play the better of their two hands.
There is no evidence of the accounts doing any of the above that would signify collusion. In all of the hands played together both players betting action was justified and the players always played in their best individual interests. There was no evidence that the players were playing as a ‘team’.
This was the first time that the accounts had played together. There are no links between the accounts and the accounts are not from the same location.
We have many tools that are used for checking the gaming activity of our players to ensure that our site is a fair place for our customers to enjoy playing poker. We also appreciate our players taking the time to report to us any incidents that they are not happy with which helps us to monitor our site and players. If you find anything else that you are not completely satisfied with please feel free to report this to us and once again we will conduct a thorough investigation.
Kind regards,
Alexandros
Always refreshing to see a semi large poker room incapable of figuring out a fairly simple situation. Anyways I sent back this reply
Umm, interesting reply though it completely ignored my entire point.
I am not claiming they were playing hands in the standard ways you check as listed.
What I am stating (as I did rather clearly in my original email) is that they openly spoke about their hands and openly spoke about playing soft on their table so that NOONE on that table would be eliminated at it when there were 7 players
left for 6 spots.
They were not squeezing, they were not pot building, they were not doing best hand play, and I would not expect they had any history playing together. However, what they were doing though was a very blatant form of collusion that can be found in sattelites if the software does nothing to prevent it.
Pokerstars for instance goes to hand for hand and blocks all chat once it is close to the cut off point in sattelites. This greatly eliminates the potential for complete table soft play that was clearly evident here.
Please look at that table again and carefully read what they are saying and consider the context of the situation which was:
- 6 players receive a spot to the next level
- There were 7 players left in the tournament, only 3 of which were at their table.
Please try to look beyond your definitions to see how one table of players in that situation can agree to all soft play so that the other table ends up knocking someone out. This is what happened here.
I thank you for your further input on this matter in advance.
Keep at them.
And that is COLLUSION in a big way....
Gotta luv ESL support.
ESL = English as a Second Language.
Hobbes
anyway, I've found with every support question i have ever had for online poker, that the support staff were completely and entirely incapable of answering even the most simple question. especially Titan poker support. sure, they have online support, but I wne up waiting half an hour or more for them on occasion, to get copy / paste answers rom someone who obviously doesn't knwo what they're doing