If security or support could be relied upon when it comes to this specific matter, we woudn't be at this stage with this thread.

Regardless of what your personal intentions are, unless some evidence is presented somewhere, basically, all you have here is gossip. So, what, everyone is just supposed to follow you and boycott Stars' Stud games?

I'm not saying you are wrong, I'm just saying all there is now is you saying something. Not compelling.

I'm not going to explain the purprose of the thread again. Obviously, you are not the target audience.

I don't have the time or the desire to convince people that haven't experienced it. The thread is not for you, or the MicroBobs of 2+2.

There are other threads regarding these players where you can get your fill of that.

All I care to do now is have the players, who are already in the know, take action. And I almost don't care about that.

I have played on Stars stud games for years.

I have played against these players, referred.

I heavily considered last fall leading a group to gather Hand Histories so we could take action. (CeeGee and I talked about it over and over how to objectively go about this task, but a large task it is.) Its quite obvious to me that the only way to get action out of PokerStars is to take this next step which is to build hand histories, names, locations into a database and send it to Stars.

Listening is correct and afaik she only plays on Stars so she is your target audience.

why don't you guys try to get adanthar involved again, then?

[QUOTE=the shape;24460229][QUOTE=listening;24456825] If there's going to be a thread, perhaps it should be used to make the case. Just when I was afraid this thread was going to go nowhere, OP came back and saved it with this gem.

But in all seriousness folks, WTF? All I read on this forum is complaining about these "cheats" but is there any evidence? Like, as in, one shred? Even a mod here is weighing in on the matter but I've never seen any. I'm still somewhat of a noob so maybe this is all before my time. I'll take a link to a thread with real evidence if no one wants to post (repost?) here.

[QUOTE=SOLE REEDER;24468505][QUOTE=the shape;24460229]Is this evidence? Both of the opponents are Fuzhou players. (this is facetious question as I believe it is):

Poker Stars $30/$60 Limit Stud $5 Ante - 4 players - View hand 714182
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

3rd Street: (0.667 SB)
Seat 2: xx xx 5 ____Seat 2 raises____Seat 2 calls
Seat 3: xx xx T ____Seat 3 folds
Hero: A A 4 ___Hero brings in for $10___Hero 3-bets___Hero calls
Seat 7: xx xx 6 ____Seat 7 completes____Seat 7 caps!

4th Street: (12.667 SB) (3 players)
Seat 2: xx xx 5 T ____Seat 2 bets____Seat 2 calls
Hero: A A 4 T ___Hero raises___Hero calls
Seat 7: xx xx 6 2 ____Seat 7 3-bets

5th Street: (10.833 BB) (3 players)
Seat 2: xx xx 5 T 7 ____Seat 2 3-bets
Hero: A A 4 T Q ___Hero bets___Hero folds
Seat 7: xx xx 6 2 Q ____Seat 7 raises____Seat 7 calls

6th Street: (17.833 BB) (2 players)
Seat 2: xx xx 5 T 7 6 ____Seat 2 bets
Seat 7: xx xx 6 2 Q 8 ____Seat 7 checks____Seat 7 calls

7th Street: (19.833 BB) (2 players)
Seat 2: xx xx 5 T 7 6 xx____Seat 2 checks
Seat 7: xx xx 6 2 Q 8 xx____Seat 7 checks

Final Pot: 19.833 BB
Seat 2 shows 9 9 5 T 7 6 J (a pair of Nines)
Seat 7 shows J J 6 2 Q 8 7 (a pair of Jacks)
Seat 7 wins 19.8 BB
(Rake: $2.00)

But to Stars, its looks fine. They are just jamming hidden hands against an unknown range that also happens to have a strong hidden hand. Because what could be wrong when they are putting 66% of the chips in with only 51% equity?

ProPokerTools Stud Hi Simulation

600,000 trials (Randomized)

dead cards: T

Hand	Pot equity	Wins	Ties
AdAc4hTdQc	48.93%	293,562	2
9c9h5hTs7s	22.17%	133,046	0
JdJh6h2cQs	28.90%	173,390	2

Well the problem lies is trying to prove that they know, collectively, that they are creating over 14% fold equity. In reality, which is what the OP is experiencing, they are creating this fold equity and semi-soft play out the remainder of the hand.

Actually this example is extreme, as often the hero does not have this much cold equity so its easy to create such fold equity.

This strategy can be countered, just simply never fold in this situation, however, this will make these sessions massively variant.

Its not just that but they were sharing cards so even if you had something to call with a lot of the time they capped because they had your outs or they knew they had lots of outs for themselves. It was really an easy way to manipulate your opponent, but since they all played so quirky that I thought eventually id crush them, but i was too tilted and naive at the time to think of what was happening. Now when i get a chance to play them by themselves, its fairly easy(puxianpusha, Supermanqin, etc). No way they were playing straight up, and if I could get hands from specific sessions id show that.

Will you go back and fix the quote in the post, it looks like I made SOLE's comments: The example is good, but I believe you'd need several from the same session, or with the same players in multiple sessions with multiple players. This endeavor needs the cooperation of several Stud regs.

Joe Tall,

I'm glad you have decided to take part here.

My target audience are those I don't have to prove this to. I'm not about to go looking through the million hands I've played nor am I about to try to put myself in a position to be "worked" again so that I have something to show a bunch of non-stud/stud8 players. If they don't play these variants, and they don't care about the security of those who do, and/or they habitualy "poo poo" any discussion of foul play, I don't have time to convert them.

I'm not one of the bitter, losing players that believes poker is rigged. It's not rigged (UB/AP super user accounts aside) and that's why I have been able to do it for a living since 2003. But are the Stud/Stud8 games on PS riddled with hundreds of cheats originating from China and claiming to be from that country along with many others? Yes.

I'm really just exhausted by the whole thing. I've been through it so many times with support and other players. So, hopefully everyone can realize that my approach is de-feuled by this exhaustion. What I can muster is dropping some tidbits here and there I guess. I'm glad people are getting involved in the thread, and hope more people at this stage will come forward with hand histories as you have done, even if it means the thread gets semi-hijacked into a case proving thread.

Joe, what do you think about hundreds of Chinese accounts that are invovled in this and yet NONE of them play Tournaments or Stud SNGs? Out of all of them, NOT ONE veers from the path and dabbles in tours or sngs? Over about 10 years?

this is a really disappointing thread to see as i was all but gonna begin regging stud8 games on stars

[QUOTE=Joe Tall;24468811][QUOTE=SOLE REEDER;24468505]i would agree that coupled with even 1 or 2 other suspicious hands between the 2 from the same session this is prolly collusion. i mean it looks really bad but as a stand alone hand it's hard to make that case

Ok. I say we get together and gather as much info as we all have and start to do something about it. If I could recover 1/2 of the loses I took during their cheating I would be happy.

I don't play Stud very often by itself but I am glad to see that there might be an organized attempt to make sense of this.

A couple of suggestions per someone I know who had btdt - one is to gather the names of the "suspects" in a separate list. Some won't pan out, but over the course of HHs, those who keep popping up will become apparent. So, maybe the mods can update a handles post. Another is to concentrate on only a few higher limits where Stars is likely to pay attention.

In the meantime, I wonder how many high stakes Stud players would like to just join a Homegame one of you starts? Joe could do it, he is visible, or ceegee, and you can let regs know in chat. Stars will open to more than 50 players by request. Homegame managers can ban anyone they want. My Razz high stakes database has about 1000 players in it but it goes back a long way and a lot of them aren't around anymore. Stud should be at least 4x bigger, but I'm thinking you can set up the tables to be played anytime and just use the club instead of the public area and starve out the cheats. I don't know if this would work as far as getting players, but it might be worth a try.

Maybe some of the forum regs would volunteer to go over HH files. Hey, we might get the Stud forum on 60 Minutes! I'll do a session for ceegee where he thinks he's been cheated, if he likes. Barry G had us doing HHs over at Poker Road a while back.

In any case, good luck with it.

I've never had any trouble at Stud8, though I haven't played really high stakes there, but up to like $3/6, I didn't see any problems. But then, I mostly play mixed games now. Still, I wouldn't let this stop anyone from playing, just be aware.

Your actions seem to be contradicting your words.