Nine days ago I reported to Merge that the players DMARGARITA and GummyBearz had been colluding in the $20 DoN's on their site. They have not really given me any feedback on this case, other than to say they are investigating it, and based on DMARGARITA's Sharkscope, they may have locked the players accounts. Neither player has played in any $20 DoN's since I gave Merge the evidence, afaik. A couple days ago DMARGARITA hid his Sharkscope stats (probably hoping no one took screenshots!) so I don't know whether he is playing at all. GummyBearz (RoundTripper on 2+2) has always had his stats hidden.
At this point I decided to make a post here because a) if for some reason Merge needs more evidence then other regulars can provide their own HEM data, b) in case there is any more collusion going on then it can be discussed here and c) these cheaters need to have their reputations damaged publicly.
That Merge has been in my opinion slow to resolve this case (and the AJB4 case being discussed in the Internet Poker forum) is becoming a story unto itself.
Here is the e-mail I sent to RPM Seth 1/04/12, which he promptly forwarded to Merge security:
Hi Seth,
I am writing to report a case of ongoing collusion at the $20 Double or Nothing Sit N Gos on the Merge Network. The colluders names are DMARGARITA and GummyBearz. I also believe collusion took place in the past between DMARGARITA and RoundTripper.
I decided to contact Merge directly instead of posting on 2+2 for two reasons. First, because the collusion is ongoing, in case the evidence I provide here is not enough, then a security person could monitor them joining the same DoN's tomorrow. Secondly, if you decide the evidence here is sufficient (which it should be) then their accounts should be locked so they can't dump their winnings. Essentially, I am contacting Merge because I do not want to tip the colluders off.
THE CASE:
Slideshow of seven screenshots showing the evidence:
http://img407.imageshack.us/slidesho...?id=hand2w.jpg
Basically, DMARGARITA and GummyBearz join the same $20 DoN's over and over, and do not play hands against one another. In the past month, DMARGARITA has played 407 $20 DoN's, and GummyBearz has been in 388 of them. I do not know how many $20 DoN's GummyBearz has played, because his stats are hidden on Sharkscope.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/249/gbonemonth.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...ballgraphs.jpg
In the DoN's I've played with them, they have never once had a significant all-in against one another. They have 1,325 hands vs one another, but only twice played pots where the other players won 500 or more chips. I have included screenshots of my own stats versus both of these players, for comparison. Over a similar sample of hands (a few hundred more hands) I have played 12 hands vs GummyBearz and 13 hands vs DMARGARITA of 500 chips or more (and most of them are 1000 chips or more).
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/194/dmvsgb.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/10/gbvsjd.jpg
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/406/dmvsjd.jpg
Of the two "big" pots they played vs one another, one was a case of obvious collusion. In this hand you can see that DMARGARITA has a huge chip lead, and GummyBearz only has 27 chips after posting the SB. A player in EP limps, which is common in this case, so that multiple people can attempt to knock out Gummy. DMARGARITA makes the very unusual play of shoving all-in, which essentially protects GummyBearz and gives him a much better chance of winning the hand.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/407/hand2w.jpg
Another example of collusion between the two is in the next hand linked. This is a standard collusion spot where the big stack raises, then the smaller stacks shoves all-in, and the big stack folds.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/809/hand1q.jpg
I do not have a huge database of hands between these two players, so these are the only two obvious spots of collusion I found. There are several examples of the smaller stack stealing the blind from the larger stack as well. I believe if more players were to search their database, as I have, that there would be more examples of outright collusion. That being said, the fact that they constantly play in the same DoN's is damning enough.
To give you an example of how they always join the same SnG's, I will point to the afternoon of January 3, 2012. Starting at 16:31 PST (this is either the start or end of the tourney, I'm not sure, I'm using Sharkscope), both players joined 13 DoN's together. I have screenshots of most of these tourneys, showing that they were the second and third players to join most tourneys. Then they did not play another DoN until 17:54, at which time they both joined tourneys 46412604, 46414321, 46412208, and 46412417. In between those sessions, there were eight $20 DoN's that went off. But neither player entered any of those tourneys.
I fully believe that this is sufficient evidence of collusion. If Merge Security concludes otherwise, then please notify me promptly so I can provide more evidence or explain this evidence better.
THE ROUNDTRIPPER CASE:
I also believe that DMARGARITA colluded with RoundTripper in the past. RoundTripper is another identity for GummyBearz. GummyBearz's original name on 2+2 was GummyBearz, and then once he was banned, he started an account with the name RoundTripper. The RoundTripper 2+2 account has stated that he is GummyBearz on Lock Poker.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...51&postcount=3
I do not have a database of hands involving RoundTripper. However, the data provided by Sharkscope is damning. As you can see in the screenshot, RoundTripper played 179 $20 DoN's total, and DMARGARITA was present in 131 of them. He played 2,555 total sngs and lost $1,699 dollars, while in the 591 SnG's he played that had DMARGARITA at the table, he won $31.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images...ballgraphs.jpg
Thank you for your time. Please notify me PROMPTLY as to the status of this investigation. A friend of mine in the poker world has told me that it is very important that I eventually go public with these findings, so that more colluders can possibly be caught.
