Cheating follow-up

Yesterday Ultimate Bet released the results of their investigation into the alleged cheating situation. Full text is here. Here's the short and not-so-sweet:

The investigation has concluded that certain player accounts did in fact have an unfair advantage, and that these accounts targeted the highest limit games on the site. The individuals responsible were found to have worked for the previous ownership of UltimateBet prior to the sale of the business to Tokwiro in October 2006. Tokwiro is taking full responsibility for this situation and will immediately begin refunding UltimateBet customers for any losses that were incurred as a result of unfair play.

The fraudulent activity was enabled by unauthorized software code that allowed the perpetrators to obtain hole card information during live play. The existence of this vulnerability was unknown to Tokwiro until February 2008 and existed prior to UltimateBet's acquisition by Tokwiro in October 2006. Our investigation has confirmed that the code was part of a legacy auditing system that was manipulated by the perpetrators. Gaming Associates, independent auditors hired by the KGC, have confirmed that the software code that provided the unfair advantage has been permanently removed.

If one is to take Tokwiro at their word, and I have no reason not to, they appear to be dealing with this in a very reasonable manner. It would have been nice to have seen a bit more due diligence on their part before buying UB in 2006. And it would have been very smart on their part to launch a full investigation immediately following the Absolute scandal. But I've made more than my fair share of mistakes in the business world, so it's hard for me to be too critical. If they carry through with making cheated players whole and complete all the security tasks they've outlined in the full news release, it would appear they've acted in good faith. I may yet take advantage of that free $100.

Not much happened on The Quest front this week. Tuesday I just felt like taking a break. Wednesday I was in a mood and experience told me playing poker would be setting myself up for mega-tilt. So instead of poker I watched that awful Andromeda Strain remake that was on A&E. Thursday I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up just in time to go to bed. I think I'm becoming my father.

I've been playing with the new Version 3 of Poker Tracker. The tighter integration between PT and the HUD is nice. The couple times I've tried it the display has worked well. The Table Tracker portion could be quite useful, though I'm a bit bothered that it will be a monthly fee add-on and that they haven't settled on pricing yet. Plus, it doesn't work at PokerStars and the details on when it might be working are a bit sketchy. I'd hate to become dependent on a feature and then have it become too expensive.

Tonight is Katitude's $1 rebuy donkament at Full Tilt. Saturday is Dr. Pauly's PLO tourney at Stars. If recent weeks' progression is any predictor, I'm due to win this week. If karma is involved, Change100 will bust me out in a horrible suckout before the end of the first level. Should be fun to see which is stronger.

Cheating

Dr. Pauly linked to an interesting thread at 2+2 today and suggested that other bloggers do the same so the story gets the coverage it deserves. Hard to imagine my link will pick up much that his misses, but I've posted it anyway because I want to comment on it.

I've seen the video of the Absolute Poker cheating. Even posted it here a week or two ago. I thought that pretty damning evidence.

Perhaps a video recreation of the Ultimate Bet situation would convince me as well, but I have to say that based on the statistical evidence posted at 2+2 I'm not convinced. Fewer than 3000 hands is insufficient to base any statistically valid conclusion. Of anyone, the folks who hang out at 2+2 should be among those most familiar with the long run consisting of hundreds of thousands of hands, not a couple thousand.

I believe I've written before about one particular guy I used to run into at Poker Room back in my bonus chasing days. I absolutely could not win against this guy. No matter what happened, if the two of us got into a hand together, it was about a 98% probability that he'd win. I don't have access to the Poker Tracker data, but I know this was over a several month period of me playing two to three hours a night. I'm sure I played well over 5000 hands against this guy.

This fellow was my number one nemesis. I lost more money to him, by a wide margin, than any other player in my Poker Tracker database. And here's the kicker -- he was a major losing player. He was bleeding money at an incredible rate, at least at the tables we played together. I must have been the only guy at the whole site that he was in plus territory against.

I wasn't losing to him because I was playing poor poker or he was playing great poker. As can be seen by his overall results, he was not a good player. I wasn't losing to him because I was seeking to even the score or because he was targeting me. I was losing to him because of variance, plain and simple. It just happened that when we got in a hand together, he would almost always end up with better cards.

I'm sure had he not wisely given up on playing poker, at least at Poker Room, I would have eventually evened the score and most likely taken a lot of money from him just like everyone else had.

All this said, some of the other things outlined in the 2+2 thread go a long way to convincing me that something not right was going on. The account name changes at very suspicious times, the deletion of accounts immediately after they've been outed at 2+2, the tie-in between Absolute and UB, all these make me rather glad I did not take advantage of the free $100 at UB. Not like somebody would be using super-user mode at the $0.01/$0.02 tables, but I don't want to play at a site where it appears systematic cheating is going on at any level.

Following my second place finish in Dr. Pauly's PLO tournament on Saturday, my poker karma had apparently not been properly balanced. I played a two-table SnG where I built up a nice stack early, only to bust out after back to back very bad beats. Monday I played a very cheap tournament at Poker.com, staying near the top of the pack much of the time, again to miss the final table due to a couple really bad beats. One of them was the type where all you can do is scratch your head trying to figure what the other guy was thinking when he pushed all his chips in, only to watch your chips heading in his direction when it's over. I profited a big $0.57 in that one. Well worth the three hours.

The Quest had some ups and downs over the weekend. The bankroll gained $5 this week, which seems to be about average since I rejoined The Quest in earnest. I'm going to have to find a way to step things up a bit. At $20 a month gain it's going to be another ten months before I have the bankroll to move up. I can't spend another ten months at $0.01/$0.02.

Not much new

The Quest was joined for just a short while last night. I got home later than usual and after dinner I couldn't pry my ass off the couch. Before heading to bed I played for maybe 20 minutes. It almost turned into a rather lucrative 20 minutes.

My table had two of those crazy people who keep betting way more than is called for and then raise each other as if the size of the raise was indicative of the size of their cajones. It took less than two rotations to figure one of these two guys was going to over-raise pretty much every hand and then the other would come back over the top.

I made a couple half-assed attempts to play mediocre hands, as much to openly demonstrate that I was a weak fish as anything else. Then I kept folding until I caught some good cards. Flopped a set on one hand, just tagging along with the crazy guys on the flop and then pushing all-in on the turn. They backed down and I took a rather nice pot.

Crazy guy #1 seemed a bit less crazy than crazy guy #2. #1 was clearly wary of me after than first hand. #2 had no such fear. We got it all in with me holding AK and him holding AQ. I'd have ended up with a very nice stack if the board didn't river a second pair, neutering my king. I think I actually lost money on the hand due to the rake.

After that hand both of the crazy guys settled down quite a bit, betting amounts that were more in line with the size of the pot. I realize everyone is entitled to bet however much they want, but it still irritates me to see players who insist on open-raising $0.20 into a pot with $0.03 in it. Go play $0.02/$0.05 if you want to bet that much into an unraised pot. (I know it sounds stupid to get concerned about such small amounts, but I'm trying to approach this seriously and in proportion to the stakes. I've not played $1/$2 NL, but I'm guessing you don't see a whole lot of open-raises to $20. Or am I wrong?)

I've come upon an offer of free money to sign up at some new (to me) sites. Ultimate Bet is one of the few big sites I've never signed up with, so I'm eligible to get $100 free money to play with there. I'm debating whether I should take advantage of this, moving The Quest to UB and adding the $100 to the bankroll. It kind of cheats the idea of turning $5 into $5000, yet is still in line with the basic idea of starting very small and building the bankroll to a decent size. I'm conflicted on whether I should sign up and add this to the bankroll or not.

I just went off to look up some things about UB before finishing this entry. I guess during my time mostly away from poker over the last year there were some big doings at Absolute and now allegations of the same thing at UB. I had read a number of different allegations of cheating at Absolute but was unaware at least one such incident had been proven beyond doubt and they've been fined and put on probation with the oversight body. This YouTube video is quite revealing, pun intended.