cmon ofc ivanhoe did something shady. he is a known scumbag and known scumbags do shady stuff. adios ivanhoe "I geuss you won't be posting in the stars removing high stakes thread anymore" lulz






good one tc

Apparently not, because they're closing OP's account.

Or are you making a play on words I'm missing?

Yes, it would be.

However, there is zero evidence that this occurred.

The overwhelming evidence supports him being banned because Pokerstars believes he was possibly involved in fraudulent activity.

The OP denies this allegation.

Believe whomever you wish, but all the talk about bumhunting, grimming, or winrate being the reason he was banned is nothing more than wild unsubstantiated speculation.

Really?

To continue to use your metaphor of shoplifting, you are not accusing the OP of shoplifting. You have deemed the OP to be guilty of shoplifting and as a consequence, he is allowed to keep the item he stole but he isn't allowed to shop there anymore.

Now if you ask the OP what punishment he would detest the most he would most certainly say to be banned from shopping there - he would easily give up that item or if consumed pay for it IMO.

Therefore, the higher burden in these circumstances is to justify the banning from the site and not the decision to allow him to keep his money.

Without providing any reasons for your decision, you have failed to do this. In the event that these reasons remain to be not forthcoming, you need to reinstate his account and at the very least if a punishment is to be applied without reasons that it is the money that he won from these 6 alleged fraudulent accounts that is to be taken from him.

Yes, of course.

Aside from the "deemed the OP to be guilty", I think that's exactly what Michael was saying, yes. And maybe they have deemed him to be guilty. Either way, yes, that's the net effect of what has happened - he keeps the item and isn't allowed to shop there. Just like the shopkeeper who bans someone from his store when they've stolen from him.

Right, he even offered as much. But they're not giving him that choice.

No, it isn't. You might feel that it should be, but that doesn't change the fact that it isn't.

No, they don't.

One has to wonder whether stars was hoping that the OP would go quietly after being given no reasons as to the termination of his account. Now that this hasn't occurred Stars isn't exactly going to contradict its original decision in its further reviews of that decision.

this is just wrong ......nobody has a right to play on stars. They are a private company and can refuse to do business with anybody provided that they don't fall foul of discrimination laws. Stars have looked at his account and deemed that they no longer want to take his custom. They have a lot more facts at their disposal than any of us. Why would they turn down the income that he would provide them , unless they deemed that continuing to provide him access could lead to costs to themselves in the future.

This is bs. You're incorrectly reasoning from the players point of view, while you have to look at this from Stars point of view instead. For Stars it's completly irrelevant what is percieved as a tougher 'punishment'.

Stars is a private company and just like any other company they can choose who to deal with. A lot of ppl itt seem the think there is some given right for a poker player to play on Stars, and Stars has to proove wrondoing before that supposed right can be taken away. No such right excists. If you don't like that Stars bans this self-admitted bumhunter, that's fine, go play somewhere else. Just like Stars isn't force to accept a player you're not forced to play on Stars either. I'm happy with every bumhunter that Stars takes out of business.

Confiscating money is something completly different, there the burden of proof lies with Stars, otherwise it would be outright theft.

So Stars can't give you an explanation however once you contact the GSC who will look into your case they can they relay back to you the reason Stars will give them?

What gives you this idea?

The only thing I will say in relation to that email they sent you is that it contradicts the terms of how they told you that your case would be handled. They said and although not word for word but they insisted that it would only be given to one investigator/decision maker so as to preserve the integrity of the process and ensure confidentiality was maintained.

The very fact that he notes your case has been mentioned to his team whilst looking appropriate from the perspective that it gave the opportunity for more views on your case to be raised; it also raises the distinct possibility that the discussion to a broader group rather than to just the one investigator was for the purpose to come up with more [undisclosed] reasons to justify the closing off of his account or make it seem like it was done for a useful purpose.

The whole thing comes down to the oversight or lack thereof of Pokerstars.

Pokerstars as a private company without any regulatory body reviewing decisions of this kind can IMO, as they have done, simply refer to a specific clause in their T/C and say that it applies in this situation to justify a ban without providing proper reasons.

The only factor in my mind which should change this fact is the amount of power that P/S wields in the online market. In my view, they are acting like nothing more than a dictator who has done what many dictators do which is to condemn a man to death without any proper reason or justification to do so.

However, as I understand the argument from P/S is that the decision to remove his funds is more detrimental than that of closing his account which is why they chose that course of action and my argument and I assume the OP's is that it isn't.

No, that isn't their argument at all. WTF are you talking about? They're taking the action they are permitted to, not what they think is more or less detrimental.

Not really sure why I'm replying to you now; it's obvious you've just started reading this thread and are going through and replying to posts before reading the whole thing. For future reference, you might find it easier to read the entire thread, and as you go, press the multi-quote button next to each post you think you might reply to, and then reply to them all at the end. By the time you read everything, you'll often discover that some replies you intended to make are no longer relevant. And you don't end up making 10 of the last 15 posts.

When you tick the terms and conditions box you agree to conditions that Pokerstars dictates. Pokerstars can "see" more than you think.



Originally Posted by Pokerstars Security.

This was sent to another suspect in a different case.

8. You were observed using several unusual applications, predominantly during your heads up low stakes play. Please explain your reason for the use of each of the following:

TeamViewer
Camtasia Studio
Embarcadero RAD Studio

TeamViewer continued to be used beyond October 12th. Whose machine were you remote-controlling, and/or who was remote-controlling you?

9. Who is [My Real name]? What is the meaning of [2 friends]?

10. The following application was observed on your machine:

c:\users\[blub]\desktop\8.5 - ps\debug\win32\icq.exe

It carried several version numbers, and varied in file size. What is the purpose of this file? Did you supply a copy of this program to any other player? What is the meaning of its name, ICQ? Would you be willing to supply a copy of the executable, and a copy of the source code that we could compile ourselves, in order to verify the purpose of this application?

11. We conducted several tests to determine if a human was present at the controls while Quicktob.exe was running. These tests would have gone unnoticed by a human player, but would have confused an automated software player, rendering it unable to continue playing. These tests were failed multiple times at low stakes heads up, but passed during high stakes play. Please explain.

Thank you for your cooperation in answering these questions



Now you can see the level of security they deploy and that you except in the t@C to protect you and other players.

im no Stars fanboy but they have the best security in online poker and if they banned this bumhunter is was for a good reason.

They have already told this player to go to the GSC maybe he should take that route.

That's nice, but it really has nothing to do with this case, and there isn't any similar evidence being shown here. If anything, citing previous examples where Stars provides evidence to support it's actions just makes one wonder more about the times like this when they can't do the same.

As has already been said many times, obv the most likely scenario is that Stars has some kind of circumstantial evidence to make them suspicious of some sort of fraud on the part of OP, but don't have any real evidence to back it up, which is why it's not provided and why he still has his money. All this stuff about war on bum hunters and how people can be sure that there's a good reason without actually seeing it is total crap.

What would more regulation change about this case? Or are you seriously suggesting regulation that forces a private company to keep an unwanted customer?

How does the burden of proof not lie with Stars for the decision to ban the OP?

Regulation only works in relation to private companies if they submit to their ability or jurisdiction to be able to review the decisions they make and be able to influence or change those decisions if wrongly made.

In these circumstances, P/S is not going to freely submit themselves to this sort of regulation given the power they wield.

All that can happen is what we are seeing in this thread which is the voicing of dissent to try to bring negative attention to P/S to affect their image.

As per our Terms of Services available at: http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/tos/ (...) ‘PokerStars retains authority over the issuing, maintenance, and closing of Users' accounts on the Site. The decision of PokerStars' management, as regards any aspect of a User's account, use of the Service, or dispute resolution, is final and shall not be open to review or appeal.

Did I miss something here I am sure OP must of agreed to this in order to play,

God i hate stars shills.

Stay out of this thread. OP deserves an answer. Stars is coming off 2nd best thus far

Yeah, you missed the part where no one is arguing whether or not Stars has the ability to ban people from its site regardless of whether or not it's justified, fair, etc.

They have done a risk assessment they do not want this players custom FFS except it and move on OP comes across like a drunk who cannot get in a bar and spends all night arguing outside about something he is not going to change, what is worse is when this drunk was of sound mind and sober he agreed they could do this when they liked.

So much stupid ITT.

It was so refreshing that we managed to get 192 posts in before someone pulled out the "shill" card, but it was to be expected that someone would eventually use this lazy argument. I mean, why try countering people's points when you can just blow them all off as shills, amirite? I actually don't think I've seen anyone taking a strong pro-Stars stance; it's mostly just people saying that Stars has the right, under their T&C's, to do what they've done, whether we like it or not. But why let the facts get in the way of a good ad hominem?

The question becomes difficult when the company offering the TOS has a bargaining position which is so much greater than the other contracting party where that other party really has no other viable choice but to participate in those services as otherwise it would cause a significant detriment to them and therefore agrees to terms which may not otherwise be the case if the market was an equal playing field.

Good point. If OP is really thinking he is treated unfair now, why didn't he complain before if he already knew these rules?

Last time: because private parties can choose who to be involved with and there's no god-given right to be able to play on Stars. I can't invite myself over to your house and cry foul when you refuse entrance either, right?

Then tell me which regulations that 'works' forces the regulated private company to keep an unwanted customer? That decision is not something that's normally regulated in any way. You might consider moving to some communist country if this is how you would like pokersites to be regulated.

What is the difference between confiscating money from the OP and banning him in terms of proof?

They are both taking rights away from him in relation to conduct that has been alleged against him.

They are their allegations and as such need to be proved with reasons or else the OP IMO is entitled to have his account restored.

Businesses have the right to refuse to deal with whomever they chose, as long as it isn't being done on an illegally discriminatory basis (race, gender, religion, etc). They don't need to provide evidence of anything to do so. I'm not sure what you're finding so difficult about this.

It's like you didn't even read the post you replied to. As he said, he doesn't have a "right" to play on Stars, but you plow right on with a reply saying they've taken a right away. No, they haven't.