Collusion/Cheating at PartyPoker

John_Kerry · Sep 13, 2004

or any online poker game.

I was thinking about starting up an account and playing a little, but I am wary of the cheating potential.

I played cards at yahoo for a while and there is no money involved and yet cheating is so prevalent its unreal. So I am thinking when money is involved there will DEFINITELY be big time cheating.

You can find a table with only 1 or 2 players sitting at it, and have yourself and 5 buddies sit at the same table. Now the advantage these cheaters have is that they will always know each others cards. If one of the cheaters has Jack, Jack and he is going heads up with 1 of the "targets" ( player not involved with the cheats). The cheater asks his buddies if they have any jacks. He now knows 10 cards if he has 5 others working with him. If 2 of his buddies are holding a jack he knows he doesnt have a good chance because both jacks are gone. If none of the buddies has any Jack, the cheater knows he has a pretty good chance to get a 3rd jack.

It may seem like a small advantage for the cheaters but I think it turns into big money over the long haul. 10 extra cards known = almost 20% of the deck.

I see no way a poker site could stop this. Is there any defnses the sites have for it ?

People are doing this I can almost guarantee it. People will cheat at cards when no money is at stake, just play at yahoo for a while. They will definitely cheat when they can get rich off of it.

Anonymous1 · Sep 13, 2004

yeah..and they also likely have programs that give them exact odds...which you would not find at a table of live players...i agree its death playing online...never have...never will...

John_Kerry · Sep 13, 2004

It seems pretty obvious that if they are communicating with each other so they know 10 additional cards, the target has really no long term chance. He may get lucky every once in a while, but when I know 10 extra cards and you dont know any cards except the 2 you are holding, I will definitely beat you in the long run.

Buffalo66 · Sep 13, 2004

The other big problem for me is the excessively high rakes. Those sites must be making a ton of money.

bucsfan67 · Sep 13, 2004

I would think the more advantage to collusion, rather than knowing your partners cards would be the raising....say you are sitting on opp sides of table, your friend im's you says he has the nuts, so you raise for him, and get the other players to spend more money....gives him a chance to raise back...

would build much bigger pots if you have other players in....then of course you would split the money later on...

TheGeneral+ · Sep 13, 2004

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR> Those sites must be making a ton of money. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I do not think I have ever received a Poker Room complaint. I may have forgotten, but those who are getting in now are taking good advantage of timing. We will see the rogue ones eventually.

TheGeneral+ · Sep 13, 2004

To the post, yes I think there is collusion, but I think you can see it and, as well, I think there is alot of money to be made at poker sites tonight if you know how to play.

sherman · Sep 13, 2004

I played on partypoker.com for the first time yesterday and lost $200. The fact that people can cheat was on my mind alot of the time. Must be pretty easy to do.

nhoj · Sep 13, 2004

The best part of online poker is when they give you 4 of a kind and another guy gets a straight flush. I have played poker for 25 years at least once a week and I see 4 of a kind about once or twice a month. Online I see a 4 four of a kind come about 10 times in a four hour night. Bigger pots means bigger rakes. House wins no matter what. Best thing I ever seen is you can change decks. I guess that makes some losers feel their luck will change.

RPM · Sep 13, 2004

nhoj,

i stopped playing at partypoker because i once got a strait flush to the jack, and at a table with only 3 other people someone beat me with a strait flush to the queen.

it was like something out of a movie. so i agree you just dont see big hands come up in real world like you do online.

Matt24 · Sep 13, 2004

I have about 50,000 hands in and have had or seen quads not very often. Seeing it 10 times a night is pretty amazing. I have never really noticed collusion, I am sure there is some, but most colluders at the 2/4 or 3/6 level probably arent even doing it right and still losing money. I have heard there are some "boiler rooms" with a load of networks and computers with players colluding, but that is probably at the higher levels.

Java · Sep 13, 2004

Software perspective on anti-collusion:

1) In order to win in the long run, you will wind up playing enough hands to generate a patterns and trails. Question is.. how aggressive are the software and sportsbook?
2) IP and login patterns.
3) Betting patterns.
4) Improbable groupings of the same players.
5) Unusual winning percentages.

These are just off the top of my head. The software (and the casino operators) can see every game and every card, even better than cameras in a casino. If they bother, they can spot collusion.

daringly · Sep 13, 2004

An acquaintance of mine actually did a statistical study of hand distributions of party poker, observing 1000's of hands. His conclusion was that PartyPoker definitely inflated hands.

While inflated hands are one issue, they had others. I played there a year ago, and there was a bug in the software. If a player was raised, he could disconnect. If he did this, he could win the pot without calling the raise. So when players time out repeatedly to raises, you know why.

miamiman · Sep 13, 2004

Steer clear of online poker, you will get killed- no chance of making money, to much cheating going on.

Matt24 · Sep 13, 2004

not sure what you mean by of hand distrubtion, but if you mean just being dealt, mine are all normal. Everything looks just the way it should.

daringly- if a player is doing that repeatedly,report it, and it gets stopped. It is called disconnect-protection, and you cant do it anymore in no limit tourneys, but you still have it in ring games, but if players are abusing it, they can be reported.

miamiman- good players are the ones killing online poker.

eldiablo · Sep 13, 2004

Not positive ......but I have heard they have the ability to track players ....and they will catch people that are always at the same table together ...and boot them .....you could probably do it every so often ......but they should catch 2-3-4 people always at the same table ......

Anyone else ?

WildBill · Sep 13, 2004

I know plenty of people that have won on Party. The software is more sophisticated than one thinks. Sure there are ways around it, but the idea is to make it tough enough that it isn't worth the trouble. Still if all you are doing is thinking you are getting cheated, you are probably better off not playing.

I am still perplexed though by the original message. Why the hell would you cheat on Yahoo poker???

nepenthe · Sep 14, 2004

There are plenty of players, myself included, that are making a veritable living off of playing small to medium stakes at Party Poker. If people are colluding and building huge pots, then all the better for those who know how to play.

Java · Sep 14, 2004

Daringly-
I'm a little unsure about your term inflated. Do you think they are stacking the deck?
Maybe, not to cheat but to increase the excitement value with higher hands?
Or are you implying that if you are observing collusion, you will see more good hands?

el diablo-
Pretty much what I was saying.

Wild Bill-
Reason to cheat on Yahoo: free practice

As for other Yahoo cheating.. a small confession. A few years ago, they has some word game like Boggle. I programmed my own 'cheat' program that would find all the high value words on the board using a dictionary. The only problem was that in a 2-3 minute game, I would lose 30 seconds typing in the board, then I still had to type in the results from my search.
Here's the kicker: some people could still beat me.
The ONLY way this was possible is if they had programs too, and were just faster typists. Once I typed in the board, the program itself took only 2-5 seconds to search the dictionary.
90% of the players (humans) would get 5 words, and then the rest of us (programs) would get 20+. Do the math.
I only played a few times to test the program and satisfy my theory that the winners were cheating with programs.

heart222 · Sep 14, 2004

Hi. Mabey I am missing something but I have been at Party Poker for about 2 years now. My account is ahead and I mainly play the single or 3 table tourny games. I also play in the .50-1 and 1-2 games and dont have a feeling for cheating. Supposeidly they have softwear looking for patters etc. I dont like to play if 2 people are from the same town and I guess on a college campus you could have mutiple players with differant addresses. I guess I play more for relaxation and enjoyment that to make a living. with 50,000 people on line at once you have to assume its o.k.