I didn't read the whole thread but I guess the concensus is that this guy is actually a woman, no?

Priceless.

lol @ Poles making this into some sort of Polish hate thread, this outing an alleged cheater who is merely Polish.

Thank you for covering for me sweetheart

I got it from here!

Here i come, another polish guy who created an account just to write something in this thread But I've been reading twoplustwo for a very long time, so I hope you'll hear me out.

First of all, I am actually ashamed of my nation. I mean, sure, being "patriotic" might be nice in some ways (also usually very close to nationalism), but cetrainly not as an argument in discussion about cheating in tournament. Get a life maybe?

Second, I appreaciate OP's effort to investigate this whole thing, also I don't believe he's right. I mean, Arendt propably has broken some rules, but it's not as big as you're describing it.

****************** is a site that will give you very good no deposit bonus - which means one doesn't have to risk 50$ to start a microstakes bankroll, which is significant money for polish people (yeah, we're poor ). Seeing how fast Arendt built up his bankroll from this starting 50$ means he HAD to forget about bankroll managment and gamble a bit at the beginning of his career.

This may lead us to a conclusion that it wasn't his first account. Multiaccounting on Pokerstrategy is illegal (and investigated on forums, as well), so he propably registered on some woman he knew, just to get this free 50$. Seems like he forgot about it, until someone brought it up after his win. Now he's a little bit ashamed about this little rules violation, I'm guessing that's why he's totally silent about the whole thing.

Summing up, in my opinion Rafal Arendt is guilty of creating false account on ****************** (but they won't ban him since he's giving them great amounts of cash in rake) and unproveable playing not-as-himself on P*. I strongly believe that this is all. Anyway, thanks for OP for creating this subject, because it was getting pretty confusing. Also idiots like those flaming guys in this thread will make it even harder for Arendt to admit that he's done something wrong.

edit: Oh, seems like here he is, I'm sorry if I messed up something, just throwing my opinions here

To the first part- Stars seems to care, but not to the point I can remember seeing them take punitive action. It's generally a weak slap on the wrist don't do this again please thing, followed by a closing of one of the accounts.
There are several examples where people have admitted to playing under several accounts (in one case on the same day in different mtts) and little action was taken other than a closure of one of them.

To everyone saying "well if he plays under more than one but was only playing under this account in this tourney what's the big deal..." - really? where do you draw the line? If it's okay in an mtt (the reason to do it is to gain an edge) then it should be okay in a sng, or HU cash. Mtts seem to be the only place where people think hey this isn't that bad I guess.

It's a ****ing mess if you start by saying it isn't that bad in certain situations and treating it as such (large field, person is relatively unknown to 2+2ers, unlikely to cause too big of an edge, blahblah) , because you then have to draw seemingly arbitrary lines about where it becomes bad enough to really care about it. The idea that it's okay to trade off accounts as long as you don't play more than one at any time in general is ridiculous.

^^
As opposed to FTP who will drop the hammer... i.e.) Nick Rainey incident

The idea is to use common sense. PS generally do, which is one of the reasons their CS and security departments get such good reviews on here. If a ToS violation occurs PS should look at it and ask whether the player in question was trying to generate an unfair advantage, or whether they just did something stupid. If it's the former they're right to take real punitive action, but if it's just some violation arising from stupidity with no real bearing on the results, they should drop him an email and ask him not to do it again and leave it at that.

Obv PS are right to pay close attention to situations involving possible multiple accounts, and for sure they should investigate, but if they conclude that playing on a different account didn't give him any unfair advantage, which based on the info in this thread appears to be the case, then confiscating his winnings is just draconian imo.

Ahhh...ha
ICWUDT
NH

It's not a circumstantial rule for the reasons apefish stated.

It's against ToS. Don't do the crime of you can't do the time.

One of the ideas behind rules is to ensure interpretation of motives isn't necessary.

Stars certainly makes informed decisions based on more data than the public has available, but there's no reason to believe Stars can always accurately judge the motivations behind the decisions people make unless it's so egregious or negligible as to be no other plausible explanation. That's akin to saying they always get it right, or when they can't punish someone that person had always acted in good faith. There's no way that's true.

I'm beyond this particular case btw when we talk about this. I have no way of knowing what if any other accounts this person may have had at any point in time, what pattern of play those accounts show etc.

But suggesting Stars has accurately soul read every person they've let off with a slap on the wrist seems absurd to me.

Maybe you should lie down and rest first. Don't want to overheat yourself.

Blah.

Not a cheater if multiaccounting not involved.

Yes, it is against ToS, as are a ton of other things like using sharkscope and chatting in foreign languages. The point is that PS get to decide the punishment when their ToS is violated, and in this case confiscating 300k from a player is absurdly severe imo.

You seem to be suggesting that the burden of proof is on the player? I think stars should have to prove that a player is deliberately cheating in order to justify confiscating their winnings, not prove they aren't in order to let them keep their money. Naturally they won't always have complete information to get this right but if the burden of proof is on proactively proving fairplay then the results would be ridiculous imo.