Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 217
Not long ago I sat in a MTT on Pokerstars. During the game an observer began to talk to one of the competitors at the table. First I did not care about, but then he wrote holecard combinations into the chat. It seemed that they had nothing to do with my table and I wanted to ignore that. But during their chat another observer appeared and talked to even another person at the table and during their chat, this one also wrote holecard combinations without context. It was obviously to me, that there were something special going on.
To my shame I let these thoughts conflict with my gameplay and I began to play really worse. At the end I got kicked out before the bubble, taking away nothing than a red head and a tiny but fxxxxng hole in my bankroll. I know I should turn the chat just off, if playing such a tourney. But for somewhat reasons I have forgotten to manage that before hand on this one.
When I analysed my game later on, I came across the mysterious chat again. Noone of the chatting railers were involved into the same tourney. But - suspicious anyway! What does these holecards mean? Maybe it´s not at me to deal with those things, but does anyone else care? I can smell these special odor again, but I cannot proof for sure if there were collusion going on as the written holecard combinations did not seem to belong to my specific table. So the trick might be that they are using special tables to give away information for players involved into another game somewhere.
Don´t know how to handle that right. The best would be to forget about it. But I really can´t accept any cheating going on, because I also work hard on my game to improve. To gain a minimum of profit out of my investments or at least by trying to get even I am spending hours at the tables. Therefor I am a bit pissed off seeing others shorten things up in an unfair manner.
What should I do, forget about it because I cannot aprove for sure that any cheating were going on or don´t mind about and send in the chat report to security support? That´s really a stupid conflict to me. What would you do?
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
you need to report that incident. I bet some of them they were playing together in another table and didnt want to make it obvious there. A screenshot in these cases help but the chat is also in the hand history in most poker sites.
Joined: Jun '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 67 (M)
Posts: 318
I doub't it would be that blatent as it would be a lot easier to tell you hole cards to someone else in one of the messengers like yahoo or msn. But if your really that concerned report it to the site online support or at least email them if there is not online support they should investigate it at least
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
you think this cant be happening toxic? Ive seen it happening numerous times in sng's in the same table not in an other one and we are talking for a clear example of collusion there which i reported and nothing happened. in iPoker network
Joined: Jun '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 67 (M)
Posts: 318
Wow seems to me that should be investigated and dealt with at the very least, if it is colusion and it is happening that way its pretty stupid in my opinion. There seem to me to be much better ways of cheating if you was that way inclind I have myself seen what i percieve as colusion (or at least some strange play) One incident was when big stack raised and the small re raised and with a very small amount for the big stack to call but he folds. Well strange I thought and i did indeed report it. I have not heard anything back but at the time i folded 99 and if i was only against the small stack i would of called or just risked the all in. But this example seems to me to be real dumb but it should be reported for sure
if this bothers you so much , why didnt you report them striaght away?????, i know many mobsters here would have, we have to kick this out of the game, so report there asszz m8
Joined: Apr '11
Location: Romania
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 6669
Very weird, i mean it's pretty stupid to make colusion in the chat box of the table if you ask me, but of course you need to report this incident to pokerstars asap, cheating is a forbidden on all poker platdorms
Usually you can email them but you can also act during the play by calling a moderator and they can act asap in the game, now i'm not sure about pokerstars moderators but on full tilt poker they act pretty fast, oh well used to act
Another important aspect that you didn't mentioned is if they were talking in english or in another language, i think same happend to me in a mtt on full tilt poker, but they didn't posted about holecards, they were just talking ion their language, two russians. Of course it's really annoying, thats for sure
Joined: Apr '08
Location: Finland
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 1613
Like previous posters already said its very stupid to have a random table as a chatbox ... but hey, people are just simply dumb and its a possibility. Ofcourse you shall report it !
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
I doubt it was collusion, if the people stating hole cards weren't in the same game as you... Sure they weren't just saying what they got dealt on their tables ??
Also - as Teddy said - collusion would not likely be so blatant; people at the very least use IM (msn, etc).
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Posted by Doberhain:So the trick might be that they are using special tables to give away information for players involved into another game somewhere.
I missed that and you *might* be right. Be once again - why not use msn, yahoo, skype ?
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 217
Posted by jessthehuman: I missed that and you *might* be right. Be once again - why not use msn, yahoo, skype ?
I have my doubts on that, too. Therefor I am interested what others think about that. You might know that messengers are easy to detect by pokerrooms, btw. It´s even possible that the holecards they have posted belong to a match at another pokerroom. What made it suspicious was that these holecards came up inbetween their chat without context... Besides that: It also could be they were just trying to set others up - in my case it worked out, lol. Will be more careful about in the future that chat cannot infect my A-Game. Stupid beginner mistake for sure.
Joined: May '11
Location: Canada
Age: 34 (M)
Posts: 979
you can call a moderator on pokerstars, just click where you would reload the chips on the table, it has a call moderator button they will come n tell everyone to be quiet basically
Joined: May '09
Location: India
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 4873
its hard to say if they were colluding or not, only poker site can tell if they were involved on same table at that site. but why would someone use the same site to cheat, sounds too dumb. but this is no excuse to spoil your concentration and screw up your own tournament. be careful next time
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by Doberhain:
Posted by jessthehuman: I missed that and you *might* be right. Be once again - why not use msn, yahoo, skype ?
You might know that messengers are easy to detect by pokerrooms, btw.
oh I know lol. I work in IT - and major(study) Software engineering.. I understand just how easy it is .. this is also why anti-spyware programs will often crack it at poker rooms.. Since they're monitoring sys resources etc.
but what I mean is; not everyone knows this - and so I would at LEAST expect them to be trying with msn/etc rather than blatantly doing it.
You might be right about it being for another room.. I dunno, what stakes was it @? ?
If you were serious about it - its pretty easy to hide communication - simply use another laptop and preferably even a separate net connection - or at least through VPN - and speak with the other person doing likewise.
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 2387
There are several ways to collude in the game today, that if I spot players together that I suspect of colluding I will avoid that cash table or that SNG, but overall just play your game. Maybe the observers were simply guessing at hole cards.
Joined: Apr '09
Location: Australia
Age: 40 (M)
Posts: 6483
Posted by mahdrof: Maybe the observers were simply guessing at hole cards.
VERY possible. Which is actually against the rules also - its not collusion though. But you aren't supposed to say anything that "may influence the play of others at the table still in the hand" - most sites have this rule
Joined: Nov '09
Location: Canada
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 2387
Posted by jessthehuman:
Posted by mahdrof: Maybe the observers were simply guessing at hole cards.
VERY possible. Which is actually against the rules also - its not collusion though. But you aren't supposed to say anything that "may influence the play of others at the table still in the hand" - most sites have this rule
THIS annoys me to no end, whether I am in the hand or not, when somebody is guessing at the hole cards or stating what they folded. Some people need a lesson in poker etiquette, one of my regular live opponents - a lower echelon MMA fighter - would probably not hesitate to dish it out.
Joined: Mar '11
Location: Germany
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 217
Like were they(on the rail) just posting holecards and no other text ? or were they talking in a language you didn't understand?
They talked plain english, not only about holecards. These came up inbetween their chat. So if I would suppose that it was cheating than the conversation could be to cover their holecard exchange. Sure it can be they were just guessing, but then they were guessing very bad or at another game, because it rarley fit the board.
@mahdrof:
It is really annoying! Especially if you are in a hand - some need to get their kick in the ass for saying:
"OMG I just folded 22 !!!!" - DAMN - 22!?
Of course the flop shows 22A and to bluff for the deuces trips is impossible now. If they only were physically reachable (Tron-Like) - the only problem I had then would be to decide wether to kick their ass or to stamp on their small toe!
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Canada
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 1660
I agree with some of the above they were probably just observing and guessing, sometimes it's still fun if one of your friends it out, but obviously it's against the rules to coach a player or even have someone suggest false/misleading information. Best bet is to report it, although like most you will probably find you get a generic email response and nothing is done about it. Skillful playing is all you need, and if you suspect it just leave (or in this case report it while the tourney is in progress).
