I dont get your point, sry. Please explain it better. (reasons could be different).

In banning him, they would reach both.
Increase their security and therefore protecting their players.


We dont know the reasons therefore this stuff is just assumption on the possible options in a given scenario with limited possibilities. (basicly brain masturbation).

He would have a lot of option he could take if Stars would tell their point of view. He would be able to start an discussion.(chance of change - getting his account opened).
So, first step is done. Know it is waitingtime.

Edit:
believing a senior manager looked into this is just a joke. Obv they are telling ... to sound serious. I dont think this is an big issue there, they got basic pattern to act on it. (imo i would be especially suspicious after they told you they looked the whole day in this topic, making it really important). Their job is to let their customers feel that way. Because everything else would be inefficient timewise and therefore moneywise.

In getting them to post here in a place where they wana keep their face you would get real attention to your issue Ivan. This might be what you want if you are innocent.

last:
If they did wrong and reopen your account be thankful. Give Stars a chance to keep their face ..

maybe they figure with the timing of all these new accounts from the same person, since there only playing you, they could assume your way to smart not to know it was the same villain different accounts.

they could think you knew and played him/her anyway, when the proper/better thing to do would have been to not play or report it.


or they could think u cooked this up with people, or one other person, or yourself as a way to make money via hacking/charge-backs

then again its hard speculating with such a response from stars.

so you just won 100$ in EV from them, doesn't look like a chip dump from hacked accounts to you.

So lets get some facts straight:

- you have been banned not because of bumhunting
- you have never grimmed anyone before
- you have not received any warning from stars before
- stars did not confiscate your winnings
- it has to do with the accounts you played the day they froze your account

To me it does not make any sense. If the accounts you won the money from were depositing with a fake credit card or charging back money I highly doubt stars would let you keep its winnings. I highly doubt someone who plays on regular basis and therefore has probably 30k+ in his stars account + FTP funds, would accept stolen funds by letting someone chip dump it to you. Especially considering your winrate over the years.

The reason why I asked for your screenname is that I have never seen you sitting anywhere on stars before, ever. And like krmont posted in the other thread that is very weird for players like us, who had been playing PLO 6m/HU, any stakes for ages. Do you mind telling us your Location you are playing from and if you moved there?

Stars has trouble banning the 100 Harrington accounts as well as punishing all the shared accounts. Which makes me think they must have some serious evidence about your case.

We are surely missing more information here.

i can understand, that you're frustrated. but i can't believe, that PS is just wasting time. so what they are looking for must be serious and that's probably the same reason, why they don't tell you anything (even that is more frustrating for you).

dude i've seen this guy on stars and ftp and i haven't been around for a couple years. you probably haven't seen him because you don't try to sit anyone. how many of your posts in the last year have had harrington in them somewhere? 80%?

i haven't seen krmont sit heads up since koth was implemented and he's at zoom 24/7 anyway. i haven't seen you at any hu since koth was implemented. what account are you on buddy?

They will never, and all sites will never, disclose this information. The implications of them revealing this information would be significant- in showing that they have moved towards more of a 'gaming industry' standard than the poker standard to which they have been the bearers of for a long time now.

'Gaming Industry' standard would be banning him because his style of play isn't desirable in that it hurts the profitability of the site because he destroys new depositors and this may have been an excuse they needed to close his account. But it is common practice in online sports betting to close the account of winning players without so much as a twitch.

As stated by one of the emails that this was a random security check and that the OP failed the criteria. Fact is, PS with the manpower they do have, do not have that much manpower to just conduct purely random routine checks on their many active users. Rather, it is clear that they had or have now certain checks to investigate accounts with specific profiles.

If it were a matter that the OP was guilty of some type of fraud, his account would be closed down with the funds confiscated. Full stop. So, it really is something else, either it is related to chargebacks or his play.

If it is chargebacks, and it is a first time of this event, then PS won't ban him, they will eat it, it will be clear that this player wasn't involved and simply bad those accounts in question and black list them. But if it is play, well then, unless the OP really isn't disclosing something then this is again significant - in that the 70% global market leader is going for profits now, rather than still banking on the industry to grow further.

Of course every company wants profits, but with PS this was balanced with a true love of the game; we know this because PS passed up Rush/Zoom initially because it seemed to introduce too much gamble into the game of poker. I think with PS using FT as a testbed for other gaming, it is clear how much more profit they could be making.

With any site or business, while there is the option to terminate the relationship, there is also the idea of 'good faith' that the entire professional poker industry is based off of - in that poker can be a source of income - thus the poker pros. You don't have that with other such real money games, but in poker you do.

I really feel that PS is now moving away from the naive company that they were and moving into the really corporate side. Now, do I blame them? Of course not. I am sad that truly a great company with great values and the standard bearer and market leader is now going lose that 'naivety' which made them authentic, and truly a 'good company' and just be another great profitable company - because I believe that only PS and FT really understood and loved poker as companies and since FT was just super ******ed in their management and transparency and bought out by PS, this game, I think is simply going to lose whatever soul it has left until we all forget about poker for the next 15 years and then a new generation will get into it and just because we are nostalgic about it, get back into in.

I made this account, replying in a thread, which may never see light of day, but I know someone from PS will read this. If the OP did something wrong, ok fine. But if the OP is simply collateral damage for charge backs or you're now simply banning certain profiles for the bottom line. This isn't the same company that Isai founded. And it breaks my heart to see that no one at PS is able to represent and continue what made PS great in the first place. PS will continue to rock the market share, revenues, profits, but by losing that conscious naivety to allow players to make PS their own - even at the cost of some profits-, it is an end of a era. Naive I know, but that is what made PS great, to really 'do no evil'.

Midstakes HU cash players usually have next to no influence on new depositors, so that argument would be quite invalid. And comparing online poker to sports betting makes not much sense either ... even though there are some scummy networks around that try to be fancy with this style.

@OP: Pokerstars is aware of this thread and will likely respond at one point with further information, but I don't know when this will be the case.

First of all, don't "dude" me and don't call me buddy.

Secondly, everyone in this thread is trying out to figure out the reasons for Ivan ban. Maybe because you had not been around for years because of your mental problems you don't see how Harrington is a big issue. I have lost a **** ton to him therefore repeating his name in every topic should be done by everyone who was involved in any pot played by his 100 accounts in the past.

And given Stars did not insta ban new accounts, who played out of nowhere the highest stakes we can assume they will not ban anyone unless they have very strong evidence.

Therefore it is very weird and confusing why Ivan, who has been around for so long, playing every day, not breaking any rules, gets such a weird life time ban.

Well this doesn't proof that there has to be done any wrongdoing by him and this mainly just shows poor security on Stars's side.
I was thinking the same thing tho, e.g. when I lost to some shared account two guys got a 6 month ban and that was it, kinda laughable for 57k that I got raped out of
and not having received a cent back from either Stars or the account owner.
Now seeing how Ivan got lifetime bans on both their sites is kinda strange compared with my case for example.

On the other hand Stars probably lost 2k here. If Ivan or another customer lost 20k they wouldn't bother much since it wouldn't be their money...

So we are assuming, if Ivan has done anything wrong, he must have been doing it for a long time but Stars security catched it just now?

Because I find it unusual and it would fairly stupid to accept some type of offer to take stolen funds by using your account on which you had been playing fair for ages. You will be risking getting your account locked, your funds being taken away.

Hi,

At the outset, let me make the point that PokerStars is in the business of providing online poker services to players. That's our business; that's our purpose - to borrow from elsewhere, 'we are poker'. If we could, we would provide online poker to every player, in every situation, in every country.

Unfortunately, we're not able to allow everyone to play on PokerStars - because of the various rules that apply to us (and players) in different regions and circumstances, and also because of the future risk of harm to PokerStars in some financial situations.

We want to be as transparent as possible by explaining to players why they are no longer welcome on PokerStars. Not only is it the morally right thing to do, but in addition, by being transparent with players, players who are incorrectly accused are able to help us clear their name and return them to playing on PokerStars (which, after all, is what we are in the business of doing).

That said, we do have limitations on that transparency. That transparency can be limited by other business concerns, or by the regulatory framework that we operate under.

We regret that we're not able to provide a more comprehensive explanation to the player here in this specific case, beyond what we have explained to the player via private email. The emails that have been posted here appear to be an accurate representation of PokerStars' position on this issue.

While we cannot comment on some of the more specific account-related issues in this thread, there are some generic policy issues which we can address in the more general context here:

As a responsible and regulated online poker operator, we need to comply with the law - we're subject to the decisions of various regulators and courts, and we comply with those rules.

As a result of that, there are various thresholds of proof that apply to different situations. We require our staff to meet a much higher burden of proof if they are proposing the confiscation of player funds, than they are required to meet if a player is merely being denied future service on PokerStars. This is because PokerStars has no inherent right to take a player's funds (outside of the Terms of Service) but we do have an inherent right to decline to allow them to keep using our services.

To use a metaphor from a bricks and mortar shop: it requires a higher burden of proof to accuse someone of shoplifting and arrest them, than it does to ask them to leave your shop.

Just to be clear, PokerStars has made no suggestion that any of these factors is an issue here.
In situations like you describe, players are very often simply prevented from playing together again in the future, and PokerStars funds compensation to the "victim" ourselves. There are a number of threads where this is discussed on TwoPlusTwo.

Once again, we regret that we're unable to provide further information on the specifics of the account at issue here, but hopefully this post provides some context and reasoning to the situation.

Sincerely,

Michael Josem
PokerStars Communications Team

Where are you playing those days?

Seem to be the hint.
Grimmings comes to mind.

As i said, Stars always acted with integrity and by those valus they are applying. It is usual of them making the right choices based on the Laws/Values they are representing.

There you go op. Also nearly 100 % of the people on court say they are innocent. We all know, someone is guilty most of the time ..

If he is playing out of us or did it one time during wsop or whatever, he crossed one of their rules .. would be bad.

^
The only thing Michael said was that THIS was NOT the issue and you're like 'k must been grimming'?

Why not be it then? You're everything but transparent be it here or with the OP.

This should mean he isn't hiding any other emails and has in fact not been given any explanation from your side.

You want to have good communication with players with those playermeetings and the Q&A threads etc. and on the other hand you ban
a member of the community without any reason given...

I don't think this is working for anyone but the biggest Stars fanboys perhaps

i loled in real life

Very lame response from PokerStars.

And hans112, please stop posting, you are making us all dumber with each word.

"In line with our internal security processes we carry out periodic business risk assessments on randomly selected accounts."

"We regret to inform you that your account has not passed this recent screening process, which has resulted in the permanent closure of your account."

So a "periodic business risk assessment" got him, whatever that is.

"... we're subject to the decisions of various regulators and courts, and we comply with those rules."

And

"Your account is open to allow you cashout the balance of your account. Once this is complete your account will be closed."

So is it a case of "We didn't want to do it, but we had to"?

facepalmed

I read it as 'You take a lot of money off our sites without paying much in rake. Please take your business elsewhere'.