Mike and Adam, we need an entire episode, maybe 2 episodes to figure out what exactly has come to light since Nat's latest post, and the posts from brainwash. It is a sure thing that UB is HIDING so much more info, this needs immd. attention, hopefully this will be covered on freddy show, but, why bother with Freddy, lets dig into this and get these peoples names out there. Get Annie Duke on the show, tell her to stop lying and just tell us whats really going on.

Why? Annie Duke says everything is fine....I mean, you are probably getting cheated more on your 401k than you are on UB......or something like that.

As much as I hate to admit it he does have a good point, 99% of the voices screaming bloody murder about Ultimate Bet were never cheated because they dont play limits big enough to play against a superuser account.

Of course that doesnt make it ok, but its still something to ponder.

annie has to be so fn contrary to what her brother does, why would she have not gotten involved when ft was being formed... now shes a freaking joke when she was respected so much, all because of poor decision making... she is such a smart person, how much money are they throwing at her seriously for her to be so blinded to what is going on?

Spot on. But the company is still shady as hell.

She is not a smart person. She is talented at poker, but a moran (that was on purpose) at most everthing else. There are lots of people like this who are basically life fish. Stu Ungar had incredible card sense but yet thought smoking crack was a good idea.

I don't understand how this is something to ponder. 99% of people "screaming bloody murder" about any wrong in the world were not personally harmed by it.

I need help! My name is Lisa, and I used to be the host (prop) manager of Ultimate Bet. I answered to Monsour Matloubi and Russ Hamilton. I repeatedly felt cheated in the upper limit limit ring games and heads up tables. Russ would tell me invariably that there were no evidence of cheating and he looked over the hand histories personally. I was not satisfied and asked for the session hand histories with cards shown for every player in the pot. To which I was told that it was a violation of those players privacy. While I can understand that, I only asked for the hands specific to my suspicions.

The last letter I wrote to Monsour (Shah) was this one:

-----Original Message-----
From: hosts <email addess deleted>
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2005 9:21 AM
To: 'hosts'; 'Shah'
Subject: sessions request



Dear Mansour,

I need the hand histories for session number:

255008-19350 – 19915

Last set of hand histories I was sent didn’t even show my door cards.

I played as gotzillion in the session. I understand privacy issues, but there is mass piracy going on at ultimatebet, and I want to see all the cards.

The cheaters are going to kill ulimatebet unless something is done to stop them.

The list is so long that I can’t start to rattle the names off.

I have prohibited the hosts from playing 30/60, 80/160 and 150/300. I wanted to protect my hosts from being cheated against as I have been night after night.

Although they bring in much rake right now, they will ultimately bust the site. As winning players win at lower limits at ub and then move up; they’ll go bust. Word on the street is that ub doesn’t care if there are colluders in the game and they allow cheats. Well, I guess you do.


To immediately curb this problem,

* I want all 30/60 and higher tables immediately closed. God help the honest nl players.

* I want an immediate suspension in name changes across the board …say the system is under repair at the time and name changes cannot be done.

* I want sessions reviewed in detail (I can provide these); I want to review them. These guys have stolen thousands and thousands of dollars from me as well as other hosts and customers.

* I want UB to have the cheaters produce valid IDs to memberservices to prove that they are who they say they are.

* When enough evidence is mounted against these guys; I want their accounts frozen immediately. I want the money distributed in an equitable manner to those that have been robbed.

* I want their computers to be unable to open a new account.

* I will fly to vegas to meet with Russ if need be to explain the patterns that I’ve seen, but it would be impossible if we didn’t have a whole day to do it.

Get rid of the cheaters; the site might take a hit game wise, but I am not even liking playing in the 10/20 and 15/30 games...

I’ll start them and play heads up, but if I’ll just leave the table when I see a couple of them. This is very bad for ub, online poker and poker in general.

I need help,

Thanks,

Lisa


I received an answer such to effect that I was paranoid, and maybe just not good enough to play in those games. I never got my hand histories and I never got to talk to Russ.

I resigned as manager, and my account was closed.

When trying to get security to help me a month ago, they told me all accounts were already paid. Closed accounts were closed accounts. No one at UB seems interested in talking to me.

So, if any of you have any ideas of how to pursue this, or names of people I should talk to or a phone number I should call, I would greatly appreciate it.

In theory you are correct...but until their is full disclosure than no one really knows how many superusers and at what levels.... I think what is most offensive to me though is the ongoing cover up. I would probably give UB a 2nd chance and be prepared to move on if I believed they were sincere about dealing with this and I was convinced new ownership does not = old ownership.... as it stands right now I my anger and distrust with UB grows by the day. Clearly they believe this will blow over and their policy appears to duck andhide till it does. Time will tell but I don't think this is going away.

Is this legit? Mods?

Managers being allowed to play on the site should be the most obvious "No No" in the world. Anyone that is concerned with player security would see this as the most obvious threat, period.

yeah but I think we need to verify that post was legit... I believe it probably was but it would be nice if the person would offer a little more information to establish who they are... its a 1st post out of no where.

Do you guys know why cheating has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen in online poker? Because there are people out there that like to say things like this. I know and understand that online poker is extremely important to the health of the poker eco, but to just assume that only high limit play can be affected is just crazy.

Smart cheaters would do this kind of stuff to low limit players for 10 hours per day and make millions a year doing so, but they unlike these idiots that got caught no one would ever suspect anything.

I think that the 99% of the other people have a reasonable suspension that even they might have got cheated.

Silly little example to show my point


Player X: Bank Roll = 1 million Dollars

Player 99%: Bank Roll = $1000 Dollars

Let's say that player X was cheated out of $200,000. This is really bad and it sucks that they where cheated for that much money no doubt I'd be furious and I might even go after the person that cheated me if possible.

Now let's say player 99% was cheated by a "smart" cheater. One that realized that cheating lower limit players will never be uncovered cheating this player out of $200 dollars. This is really bad and it sucks that they where cheated for any money. There is no one fighting for them to have their hand histories checked out. There is no one crying bloody murder except that person that feels they might have been cheated. No one listens and the only ones that do listen are telling them they are crazy for feeling this cause why would anyone cheat the lower limit players? Answer... because they would NEVER be caught.

Even the most secure computer networks in the world have been hacked into. They tend to be hacked by really smart people that would realize cheating the $3/$6 players 10 hours per day 365 days per year would get them a crap load of cash. Let's pretend they only cheated a little and they only brought in $1000 per day ($100 per hour) X 10 hours X 365 days per year that would be (easy math) $365,000 per year. Again greed is the factor with cheaters. Why would they only want to make $365,000 a year? They don't, they have 10 computers or just 10 tables going at the same time all making $1000 per day X 10 hours per day X 365 days per year = look $36.5 million per year only cheating low limit players at a very slow rate of $100 per hour avg. per table.

Of course the above example might not be happening, but then again before the UB and AP scandal's where exposed nobody thought cheating EVER happened like seeing hole cards and such.

Seriously - I have no idea what your point is here? Are you saying it's strange that people who weren't themselves cheated are upset/interested in this? Or that so few were affected by the cheating that it's not a big deal?

To further your point, just because we don't yet have evidence that mid and even low-stakes players were cheated, doesn't let UB/AP off the hook. Especially if superusers played in tournaments that low-stakes players won entry to through satellites.

I see alot of people dismissing low limit players for being angry at UB/AP simply because "they haven't been cheated."

First off, there is no proof they haven't been cheated. If UB will allow this to happen, who else knows what is going on? I can't imagine their security is concerned with collusion/bots either.

Second, we all play poker and this cheating affects the reputation and fairness of online poker as a whole. Who knows how many losing low limit players will never buy into online poker again following these events? That hurts the games that low limit players play in, and there won't be nearly as much money tricaling up the poker food chain.

I think i was cheated at 1/2 NL - I know a few hundred $
is nothing to you high rollers but it is to me

This is pretty ignorant assumption I have seen a lot of people make. Running 30bb/100 would be extremely profitable even at low stakes.

Hi,

I used to prop at UB when Lisa was manager. I can confirm much of what was said to be true. Whether that post is actually her I can't confirm, but it certainly seems like her.

TT your right but that still does not mean that all us low limit players should not be concerned and encourage others to take their bankroll elsewhere.

I think UB/Absolute should pay a heavy price for this.

It sets a very bad example that a site can have this many problems and the player base does not go else where. It only encourages repeat performances even on other smaller sites.

TT, I think I understand what you are saying - but I have to take issue with that reasoning. I won't disagree with the point that many (if not most) of the pople raising "hell" about this whole episode probably were never cheated (I wasn't...I never played on UB or AP). But, that isn't the point.

The argument he is making, as well as Annie Duke's comments that people are cheated all the time on-line on all sites or that people on Wall Street are cheating you just as much, is a pathetic argument to make.

Don't tell me "everyone does it". Nothing in this entire episode makes me believe these guys had any interest in finding cheating on their own and only "made good" once they couldn't deny the evidence.

These guys are disgusting........

If I was a betting man, and I am, I'd put money down that this poster is way legit.

I know lisa worked for UB and she played in these games.

I would say 99% that's her.

I was playing at a UB cash table short handed and started chatting with the guy to my left. He tells me he was in training so i thought that was an unusual comment so i asked him what kind of training then he tells me he is a new hire at UB and all UB new hires have to play poker
at UB tables! for two weeks before they start their jobs

Thanks Glenn and wow. I hope you folks who used to prop don't roll over and remain silent. 1 post years after the fact, this person needs to be more vocal and visible if he/she wants to be part of the solution. It seems UB is acting smug and arrogant - like "so what if we stole and cheated what are you going to do about it?"

We have to press on and make certain this entire issue does not die before full disclosure.