Posts Tagged ‘cheating’

I was glued to the recent Girah/Jungleman/DogisHead scandal(there are a few threads on the subject but this is the most recent). I read every interview and every statement from the “suspects” within minutes of its release. I’ll admit that I do enjoy a good scandal, but what was really fascinating about this one was what it revealed about this very strange world of sometimes socially stunted young people who have grown suddenly wealthy by excelling at a few very specific skills. There is no denying their intelligence, and yet they can be naive and downright dumb in so many ways.

'Getting into trouble' by Flickr user AloneAlbatross

It reminds me of some of the teenagers I’ve met through my work in urban public education. Many of these kids come from circumstances that force them to grow up early. For a variety of reasons, they may be responsible for not only themselves but younger siblings from a very young age. Many have seen violent crime and drug addiction up close, in a friend or family member if not personally.

Consequently, they can seem deceptively mature. One minute, you can be having a deep, serious conversation about religion or education and you feel like you are talking to an adult. Then suddenly your 15-year-old interlocutor will ask you a question like, “Is Bush a Democrat or a Republican?” or just interrupt himself mid-sentence to go run after a girl he’s interested in, and you remember that you are still dealing with a child.  Read the complete post...

Ethics for Sale

Some of you may have heard that Phil Hellmuth overslept yesterday morning and was getting blinded off in the tournament. Apparently Mike Matusow called security at Phil’s hotel and got them to enter his room and wake him up. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but I was still at my starting table with Russel Rosenblum and Sorel Mizzi when Phil came dashing into the Amazon room, with a floorman shouting after him about whether he knew which table he was going to.

Russel: I wonder if the floor is going to scurry to get me to my seat if I show up late.
Me: I don’t understand why Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke aren’t getting the kind of shit that the Full Tilt guys are getting.
Russel: I don’t want to say too much here, but Phil and Annie are just paid spokespeople, whereas the Full Tilt guys may have been somewhat more that that.
Sorel: That’s… putting it very carefully.
Me: Yes, sorry, I know that. I guess I misspoke. I do understand why they don’t get as much shit as Lederer, but people still put money on UB because Phil and Annie were endorsing them, and those people are never going to see that money. I just don’t think Phil and Annie should be getting invited on stage at the WSOP like they’re the best and brightest in the poker world.
Sorel: But they’re just sponsors. They aren’t on the inside. They don’t know anything more about what’s going on behind the scenes than you do.
Me: Based on what I knew, I wouldn’t have worn a UB patch.
Sorel: But come on, if they are just throwing money at you…  Read the complete post...

A Hungarian poker site picked up on my recent post about money disappearing from my old UB account. Curious to see what they said, our Esteemed Webmistress ran it through Google Translate. Playing around with GT is always fun, and I especially like seeing what happens when you translate from English into another language and then back to English.

In this case, GT employed much better phraseology than I did. This is an excerpt from the de-translation of the excerpt from my blog that was quoted in Hungarian on the site. Note the bolded phrase, which I swear I am not making up:

“Yesterday I accidentally found it in a spam email in Mail, which informs me that my account is $ 1,040.26.The letter 2010th February 19 dátumozású was only yesterday, but stumbled as the spam filter caught. I thought this is something a refund of the UB Hall of frauds.”

I recently had an experience with Ultimate Bet that can best be described as “shady”. I don’t feel that the evidence warrants accusing them of outright theft, so I’m just going to post a factual account of what happened and let people make up their own minds:

In 2007 and 2008, I had an active account on Ultimate Bet. I played in their bigger tournaments and in cash games ranging from 5/10 to 25/50 NL. When the extent of the cheating that had taken place on UB began coming to light, I withdrew the entire balance of my account and have not played on there since.

On January 24, I discovered an old e-mail from UB , dated 2/19/2010, in my spam folder. The e-mail informed me that I had $1040.26 in my account and encouraged me to come play on the site. I do not know for certain where the money came from. My best guess is that it was a superuser refund, but to my knowledge (it could also have been lost to a spam filter, though I think the other email got scammed primarily because it was an auto-generated advertisement), I never received an e-mail or anything explaining that I would be getting a refund.  Read the complete post...

In response to my recent The Poker Ethicist: HUDs post, Piefarmer left an interesting comment that got me thinking about a few more of the ethical dimensions surrounding HUDs and other technology that helps people play better poker:

Technology always pushes the boundaries, especially ethical boundaries. The primary way to think about these boundaries, I think, is the way Andrew presented them: Does everyone have the same understanding of what is allowed, and the same opportunity to use technologies which are allowed? If so, no ethical problem.

I think the conditions that he identifies are spot-on, and I want to delve a bit deeper into them. This time around I’ve got more questions than answers, so I’ll be very curious to hear your opinions on the subject.

The Right To Know

My claim is that use of any technology allowed by the rules of a casino or poker site is ethical, and that using anything disallowed is unethical. This is because, by choosing to play at a particular venue, players agree to both their host and their fellow players that they will follow the posted rules.  Read the complete post...

As “The Poker Philosopher”, and in honor of one of my favorite non-poker blogs, I occasionally consider the ethical dimensions of a high-profile controversy in the poker community. In this edition, I address a long-standing controversy in the online poker world, in response to a question about Heads-Up Displays (HUD’s) posed in a recent comment. Older editions of The Poker Ethicist are available in the archives.

In response to a recent post I made about using a HUD, commenter “Elmer Fudd” asked,

“I would like you to comment on the ethics of using a HUD in the first place. It most certainly gives you an edge over players that don’t use such software and provides you with stats that you couldn’t readily obtain during a live game. I guess I’m an old-fashioned poker purist, but anything that gives you a slight edge over other players is cheating. “

I would say anything that gives you an unfair edge is cheating. Sleeping and eating better than my opponents gives me an edge. Reading more books than they do gives me an edge. Using a second monitor gives me an edge over opponents attempting to multi-table on a single monitor. Yet none of these is unfair, because my opponents have equal opportunity to take advantage of them.  Read the complete post...

From Annie Duke’s website:

It’s bittersweet, but I’ve decided to leave UB.

I have nothing but positive things to say about UB and my experiences with the brand, management team, and dedicated employees who work hard every day to deliver a terrific online poker experience for players like you.

I’ve sincerely enjoyed wearing the UB patch, but it’s time for me to move on.

So why am I leaving UB? In a nutshell, professional and personal growth.

Translation: “They can’t afford to pay me and/or I don’t want to go to jail.” There’s been some speculation that perhaps Annie no longer wants to be associated with some of the biggest scumbags in the industry, but she’s stood by them for some time through a huge cheating scandal and repeated attempts to cover it up. Something has changed, and I’m guessing it’s their willingness or ability to pay her.

From Phil Hellmuth’s Twitter:

Making a BIG move…leaving UB. Truly lots of great memories, but it’s time to move on…Mutual decision…Looking forward to BRIGHT future!

The future’s so bright he has to wear shades… everywhere he goes… even indoors.

This one is less of a surprise. Phil was never as public in addressing UB’s problems as Annie was, and recently he’d stopped appearing in public with the UB logo.  Read the complete post...

Their flawless software that is now the best and most secure in the industry apparently produced this little gem in the UBOC O/8 event the other day. The bet sizes were all screwed up, enabling people to limp in for 15 at the 50/100 level, and for the player in the Big Blind to move all in. Their response was to cancel the tournament, refund buy-ins, and offer a freeroll for affected players with about $10,000 in UBOC championship event buy-ins added.

Thanks to TwoPlusTwo poster FreeFalling for this awesome image!