Right, and you would have never met her had you not white knighted for her

Now the white knight returns again.

It's at least possible that Fernando seeks crazy action because he's the best player in the world although he probably overrates his edge if he thinks some of those offers he made can be overcome. Another possibility is that he could be the best but also be a gambling degen who needs action no matter how he can get it-- if his action has dried because he crushes, he might do anything to get it back, even give up his edge.

He could have intentionally played poorly live because it stands out and should generate action for him. He may also be incredibly uncomfortable playing live and get flustered into making mistakes (though if the mistakes are really huge, that's unlikely).

Just saying, there is another explanation here, which is that this guy Fernando is the best even if nobody knows who he is and doesn't have the poker cred of Mercier. That explanation makes as much sense as him figuring out a way to cheat. Both are possible, and I think the forum is swinging way too much in the direction of Mercier because of who he is. There hasn't been any strong evidence against Fernando besides a hearsay report from someone who lost to him that he plays terribly live and anecdotal information that he beats everyone.

No one is actually saying that he's definitely a cheater though. They're just saying that it's unreasonable for him to expect Mercier to not give his honest opinion of him when asked by people he knows if they should give him action. And telling him that it's unreasonable for him to think Mercier owes him some sort of challenge and at much smaller stakes than he normally plays.

It's also obvious that he should learn better ways to go about trying to get action. The way he harassed people on twitter and aggressively threw out 10% freerolls trying to get action understandably comes across super sketchy. If Mercier was out there doing the same things it would come across as sketchy too.

not without being labeled a suspected cheater by someone reputable.

throughout the years we've seen multiple online high stakes hu players offer their opponents X bb/100 in return innumerable times to play them for a set number of hands without anyone batting an eye. i realize that compromising the FTP or pokerstars software is in no way comparable to exploiting a glitch in a newly developed app, but just the other week 40and7 was accused of making software assisted plays by several players; both reputable and otherwise, and as a result his action suffered.

reputation is everything in the world of gambling and the impact of having one's reputation tarnished shouldn't ever be underestimated.

The problem is that it's not reasonable to ask someone not to give their honest opinion to their friend in this situation. It's not like he was saying it publicly on here or something. The OP was the one who made this a public thing. If you knew this guy Greg, and you thought greg was an *******, and your friend asked you if she should date Greg and if he's a nice guy, it's obviously fine for you to tell her your opinion that he's an *******. Sure your opinion hurts her view of greg, and maybe it turns out greg isn't an ******* and your opinion is wrong. But it's unreasonable to think it's wrong for you to share your opinion with your friend.

But it is quite different if this "opinion" is that he think player is cheating.

"It's not like he was saying it publicly on here or something"

Do you realize how fast information spreads? Somewhere was mentioned about 20 (IIRC) persons this opinion was given to. Now do think what happens when even part of these 20 forward this opinion which was sourced from very high profile person...

It doesn't matter if it was 20 people he gave his opinion to or 50. It also doesn't matter that his opinion is a negative thing. People are allowed to have negative opinions about other people and they are allowed to share that opinion.

Effectively it does matter. Same effect really.

Someone being a cheater isn't matter of opinion. You either are a cheater or aren't, but to claim former it would IMO require something concrete to base that on. What I have read from this thread I have not seen anything concrete to support this "opinion" of JM's.

Mercier listed all the reasons why he thinks OP is somehow cheating in his post:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...7&postcount=47


What would you have suggested Mercier do when his friends asked him about the OP? Not tell them about all the suspicious, concrete things he has seen OP do?

It's Mercier's opinion that the OP is probably cheating. But the things he observed are facts. He could've given them the facts and let them decide whether to play OP, and it would've probably yielded the same outcome.

what is up with people's reading comprehension ITT?

Not necessarily. You can be sued for slander in the U.S. for making a false negative statement about someone that damages their reputation. (I'm not saying that what Jason did rises to that level, only that your statement above about people sharing their negative opinions does have limits.)

I have 20 years background in online gaming and I work at software industry, so I talk here more about semantics of accusing someone cheating in online game.

In general accusing someone cheating using some technical method in online game without having even slightest evidence or idea how this would have happened makes the accuser look stupid. In this particular case it would mean cheater has to have privileged access to game server or do somekind MITM attack which both seem very unlikely.

Of course when asked JM should voice his opinion stating that OP seems sketchy to him taking into account difference in his live and online play and the way he seeks action, but I personally would avoid saying OP is likely to somehow manipulate client-server -based game if I don't have any kind of idea, example or proof how this could even be possible.

putting the allegations and popcorn drama to the side for a moment... drawing on your work experience...

How secure are these apps? How hard would it be for a someone with knowledge of app development to compromise them ?

Personally, I cant imagine playing anyone for any money on my phone on an app written by some random company.

As a software engineer, I have no illusions that any service is 100% secure. Have a white hat hacker come into your company and you'll see how easily code you perceived to be secure and unexploitable can be thrashed in ways you'd never imagine.

While you're correct that there's no evidence in this particular case (and I am certainly not accusing the OP of anything), it's absolutely within the realm of possibility.

In the realm of possibility?

Wouldn't this be the third time?

LI VE MATCH

^ and it was a damn good one!

Agree it has limits but no one is getting sued for slander based on giving their negative opinion about someone to their friends.

still allowed to say your opinion. its only when you state your opinion as a fact that you are open to slander lawsuit.

Freely sharing negative opinions about strangers is an excellent idea if you're looking to get yourself beaten/shot/stabbed. It cracks me up that so many people seem to think there are never any consequences for this sort of thing.

Lol talking about extremes is meaningless. And no one said there are no possible consequences from giving your opinion.

One problem with being famous/in the spot light, is that you have to be more careful in what you say, even just your opinions. Or you don't, and eventually people will either want to hear your opinion or not, no one is right every time. But it sounds like people who know Jason care what he thinks, so he must have a decent read most of the time, or people wouldn't ask him.

And in my opinion, the guy is cheating. But no one ever asks me.

OP has been back on this thread multiple times, requesting a live match and talking about the Kelly Criterion.

Why hasn't he addressed all the things Jason has observed which led to him thinking he's cheating?
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...7&postcount=47

That could help to clear things up tremendously. Perhaps more so than a live match.

Since there's a lot of trust in the OFC world (also -- angels, demons, and remote Chinese hackers rigging meaningless gambling games out of pure boredom), would it be advantageous for a mediocre reg to badmouth his competition?

Don't know how legit this person is, but a poster over at the pokerfraudalert forum has had some experience with the OP before he went public: