Hi!

So about 18 months ago i was playing on pokerstars with a few friends. We didnt set out to cheat, but we we're on skype and we ended up helping each other to win 2-3 sit and gos i think it was. I had played alot on ps before, but at that time i hadnt played for a few months and i did not take poker seriously at the time.

Within 24 hours my account was frozen and i ended up with a ban and my money was seized to be given to the affected players. I completely agree with their course of action, however i am now back into poker and i would really like to able to play on the largest site again.

I know what i did was wrong, but i do feel like a second chance is not too much to ask. The reason i am making this thread is because i want to hear your advice, and also what you think about the situation. do i deserve a second chance? i personally feel i have learned my lesson, and the affected players have been compensated for their losses. Being banned for life for making one mistake a long time ago simply does not make sense to me. What do you think?

I e-mailed the pokerstars support 2 days ago without answer so far, is there anything else i can do?

All feedback is appreciated.

maybe try Lock poker instead

Find new site, forget Pokerstars. Ps is very tight about cheating.

cant seem to find any other site with anywhere near as many players :/ 100k on ps right now, everywhere else seems to be 4k or less.. (except full tilt, but since they are partnered with ps i am banned there aswell)

you will never play another hand of poker on poker stars. oh and you suck

You don't deserve a second chance. Find a new site douche.

You're a cheater and thief.

top lel, thx 4 feedback fellas

This is beautiful. You are a victim of circumstances and none of it is your fault... typical narcissist: "I'm ready to play poker again, unban me."

If you rob a bank and get caught and they retrieve all the money, you still have to face the consequences of your actions. That's how it works.

You colluded. You got caught. You are banned. Sounds very reasonable to me.

But hey, if you need a real shot of reality, unless Stars collapses in the near future, they will never let you play there again. Your rake compared to the risk of letting you play is far too small to not tell you to piss off.

If you email them frequently, perhaps they will tell you to piss off, as is, though, they're just not going to respond to your email; they have actual customers to attend to.

That's the thing.
IF you rob a bank your money are taken and given back and you go to prison for a while.
Then you are released and given another chance because you have served your punishment.

With pokersites a smaller infraction than robbing a bank gets you a lifetime ban.

He served his punishment for 18 months, his money was locked before a wd as well and he understands that what he did was wrong, I don't think it's that unreasonable to consider letting him back and only perma ban at the second offence.

Also consider an athlete that takes steroids, clearly a serious offense and one done with clear intentions for a lot of money.
And especially if it's a combat sport, not only is he robbing the opponent from a lot of money but he can also hurt him more physically.
Do they get lifetime bans? No, they are suspended for 1-2 years at the first offense.

I can relate to what he is saying because 6+ years ago I got banned at another site for doing smth silly as I was new to the game and didn't really realize it was wrong.

PS: if he was an actual cheater that would do stuff like this again he wouldn't waste his time asking them to unban, he would just make multiple accounts on his friend's name and cheat on those

You're right; bad analogy. Although, I don't think you'd be able to get a job at a bank if you were convicted of bank robbery, so maybe look at it like that?

Regardless, Pokerstars is a private business and as such, are able to refuse their services to anyone for whatever reason. In this case, they do not allow cheaters on their site. No second chances. Read the ToS before clicking I agree.

You are not being ambitious enough. You should try to become a sponsored pro.

Forget online - switch to live. I understand Borgata has a nice little series running this week. You should fit right in.

Definitely not a job, and probably not even an account.

A lifetime ban after some obvious and stupid cheating might seem harsh, but in some ways it has to be. If you go easy on dumb cheating, it just makes it easier for the cheats to not get caught a second time.

Permanent ban is to harsh imo. Some players when they first start playing treat poker just like any other form of gambling (roulette, BJ etc.) and are trying to find a way where they can 'beat' the system. The reason we hate it is because it's us that lose, not the house.

I myself created two accounts at PS 7 years ago so I had 2 chances to play the freerolls, there was no malice in me doing so, I just wanted to give myself the best chance of winning. I can't remember what happened, but I remember after 1 or 2 freerolls I felt like this wouldn't be allowed and asked them, they just closed the latest account and said next time I will be banned. Often people just don't know and I assume the majority of people don't read all the T&Cs.

However OP in this climate and with online poker having a pretty bad stigma in society, shady practices is something they are trying to iron out. Just out of curiosity what stakes were the SnGs at??

yes I understand both points of view.
However if someone is a cheater do you really think he needs his account reinstated?
He would make a new account each time and cheat again.
Only the ones who made a stupid mistake that they would not repeat are asking for what TS is asking.

And I am curious too what stake TS did this at. I'm suspecting at most 10$ buyin

maybe they could lock it for another 6 months or something. i still feel like a lifetime ban is very harsh, kind of like the bankrobber getting executed. (not to mention that ps seems to execute the bankrobber before being found guilty, even though that wasnt the case here)

as for what stakes the sngs where at, they were all below 5 dollars. 2x3usd and one 2usd or something similar. Which is also why i feel like i havent done ASTRONOMOUS amounts of damage, even though i understand and accept that what i did was wrong.

And if you look at double standards:
There was that group of poker pros that screwed Isildur of 3M by sharing info between them and play together against him.
That is a way more serious offense and done by pros that knew very well what they were doing.

Or the leader of a coaching site that was switching accounts in order to take advantage of being unknown while playing high stakes against ppl he knew.

And yet they are free to play anywhere and even coach on a site I think while users here bash TS for cheating as a fish and at the same time watch their coaching videos and praise them for their play and skill.

It's not even "bank robber getting executed". It's more like "someone who stole a pack of gum from the supermarket getting executed".

P.S: This didn't happen on Stars and I'm not talking about them, just poker sites in general.
Stars is the best out of the bunch in this matter, others will insta-ban without hesitation and not even tell you why.

Listen genius, if you truly understood and accept what you did was wrong, then you would be going on your way and signing up somewhere else instead of whining here about Stars.

Stakes are irrelevant. Should be obvious why, but the players you are playing against don't want to be cheated. The money may be significant to them.

It's pretty simple. You are a known cheat. They have to spend additional resources on your account to ensure you are not cheating. The money they have to pay their employees to babysit your account by parsing through your hand histories is not worth the pittance of rake you bring them.

They will always have to keep an eye on that account. What if you moved up in stakes and decided this would be a good time to start colluding again? Let's say it's 10/20NL. Think of the great press when the players there out you as a cheater (see stox scandal) and it is found out that you were a cheat that they let back on the site several years prior because they believed you were just a stupid kid and wouldn't cheat again?

As for getting new accounts. Yeah, whatever you need to do to keep breaking their T&C's, and if a new account matches the hardware ID of your banned account, they'll take your money and ban your new account. Rinse and repeat. Eventually you'll run out of accomplices that are willing to use their ID to break Stars' T&C for you.

I don't feel sorry for you in the slightest. Cheating is the worst infraction you can commit in poker; if they don't take a strong stance on cheats, they erode away the integrity of the game.

cliffs

"I didnt steal alot of money, i only stole $10. I deserve to have my lifetime ban lifted because $10 is not alot of money and most people can afford being robbed of $10"

yea like someone planning to cheat 10-20 would be stupid enough to use the same hardware id or IP...
He would be signing in somewhere else instead? How would that help the system if a cheater simply moves to another network and cheats there?
Colluding in SnG is most likely auto-detected, there is not enough time to manually study hands for each one.

By your logic, if you steal a gum from the store you are a known thief, you could be stealing cars, then robbing banks later so it's best to shoot your right away and not use extra police force to monitor you.
And unlike a software that checks for colluding, police has to do the work manually.

And because of this policy, the spiral of cheating will go on by the same person, he will feel punished too harsh, will create a new acct, therefore cheat again, sometimes caught, banned again, etc until he becomes an expert in cheating.

Whatever, they are private companies and can make their own rules, agree with them or not.
If it were up to me I'd ban them for 3 months or more depending on the cheat and fine them for 2x the cheated amount if they want to be reinstated after the ban period is over.

You lack reading comprehension. This was IF they allowed him to continue on his original account that was banned for cheating.

Again, if they allow the cheat to continue on his account, they would have to monitor it very closely and not rely on auto-flags.

My logic and your leap in my logic are not the same. If you are a known shoplifter, you may be allowed to shop there, but they will have to monitor you very closely - far closer than any other customer. Some stores may decide to not allow you to shop there at all because they don't want to have to deal with you just to make $0.30 on a pack of gum. Same for online cheats given a second chance. How is this hard to comprehend? He's worth more trouble than the rake he generates.

Silly rationalization. If he is no longer a cheat, then he just moves somewhere else and learns from his mistake and doesn't cheat again. Asserting that Stars' decision here will affect his mental development is a stretch; either the kid is a pos or not. He has no right to be able to play on Stars. There is no grave injustice here.

The thing is though, they would not have to spend any more resources on giving me my account back than they would on any other account. My cheat was detected within 24 hours, probably automatically. why would they need to manually keep track of me this time? have i magically learned new super awesome cheating techniques? And also, since i obviously give a **** about getting another chance i would probably not waste it on trying again. (not that i was really "trying" to get away with it in the first place).

I don't think i have the RIGHT to get my acc back, ps can do whatever they want. i posted here to hear if someone else had managed to get unbanned, and to hear the opinions of others. Im here because i WANT my account back. The reason i don't just move on and play elsewhere is because ps traffic>all. and lastly, i think a company that big owe me at least a response to my e-mail, regardless of cheating or not.

btw, if i WAS still a cheater, would'nt i just not even bother making this thread/e-mailing stars and just go cheat somewhere else? before this incident i had played for almost a year on a weekly basis on the site. There is really no reason to think that this was anything other than a one time occurrance. PS is free to rule as they please, but im still going to try my best to get my acc back.

Well shooting seems kinda harsh, but many retail establishments will permanently ban you from their business if you are caught stealing from them.

Software is only part of the equation for finding collusion (or should be).


I would not knowingly play at any site that had this policy with regards to cheaters. I can't be alone in that.

Should have thought about the consequences before you won a few buyins. No second chances I agree with PS,now if only live casinos would do the same.