wait 2 Chinese players or 2 from that same city? It's pretty dumb to say that 2 Chinese players can't sit at the same table together...

I mean 2 players from China. Previously (until today) only 1 such player could sit at the table to prevent cheating/collusion.

sorry but that sounds ludicrous. A group of players gets caught colluding so you punish an entire country? So if there are 3 stud games running; the first chinese person to show up at the right time and grab a seat have dibs? The rest of the country has to wait for that one person to leave the table? I mean it's not like there are tons of stud games running 'round the clock like nl.

Well. So as it turns out a pretty large percentage of the people from china playing stud were actually from one city, and it's sort of likely they all knew each other. It's not like there was a diverse bunch of chinese stud players. And since it seemed like they were colluding with each other...

It doesnt really make much difference that they allow 2 ppl from china at the same table. Those that collude would do so anyway by using another country.

Chinese players at the table or not, I'd love to play stud 8 on Stars right now

Just found this thread through search because after not playing stud games for 3 months I sit down at a micro stud table to blow off some steam. See the same Chinese regular who was playing INSANE hours 3 months ago on multiple stud/stud8/razz tables - no big deal as I have his tendencies noted.

Fifteen minutes in I notice that every time I'm contending a hand, 4-5 players are calling with garbage then folding after I'm out. Feels a bit weird. Finally I take a stand against 2 players- the Chinese regular and another guy whose play seems a bit odd and bets this particular hand all the way through. I lose to the regular and note that the other guy - the better, didn't have much. Check his country - wtf - they're allowing two Chinese players again at the tables? After a bit of contemplation I left immediately.

Not even saying there was collusion in this case (I did have a semi-aggro image I think) just that I got that "something's odd" feeling and that's it's interesting both players were Chinese. Mainly interesting cuz I thought they still had the "1 to a table rule" - I know China has billions of people bla bla - and then I find this thread about Stars' stud games.

Regardless of someone's country of origin, the technology has to exist for Stars to detect collusion. I don't think you're going to solve the problem by limiting Chinese players per table (plus it's unfair to the legit guys) but something has to be done!

Was going to post in that old thread about the collusion, then found this one. I too found it weird the
other day when out of nowhere there were 2 players from China on nearly every table...

There are multiple tables now with two players from China sitting (mostly mid/high stakes 2/4, 3/6, 5/10...) with
one player sitting out. Not playing each other, just waiting.

Right now there are five tables with the SAME two Chinese players (2/4, 3/6, 5/10) and two tables with the two
other players (5/10) that are doing this... (edit: the SAME two players sitting at five tables together are also playing three more tables together with 2-4 other players at each)

Collusion is back??

I don't think it ever left. Just made a little more difficult. For the motivated, there are workarounds, and as a result, I don't think the sites can solve the problem. At least until technology has advanced to the point where one can watch the other guys at the table, just like live. And that isn't happening for a long time, so I will no longer play on-line stud. A problem that cannot be solved with the current state-of-the art in my opinion. I refuse to be table bait for these crooks.

I still hope Stars will do something about this.

Until then, best we can do is not playing shorthanded Stud. With 7-8 players at the table collusion is much harder.

It seems as if the original Idea was to Exclude Stud Hi. But they would still have 2 players at Stud hi/lo and Razz. Found a link to this http://www.7cardstudlovers.com/2011/...ty-department/

Are the razz games full of these chinese cheats.Spoke to a fellow reg today and he said he wouldnt touch the FR razz games on stars!
Iv been playing them alot with mixed results but i don't want to play at tables with more than 1 chinese as i feel i might be getting cheated out of my money!
HU is where ill be till stars get this sorted

i have a played alot since 2 chinese are allowed again at the same table and havent recognized any strange squeeze or soft play against each other.
However there seem to be some accounts that are more related to each other and 1 new account a week appearing.
I dont think you are getting cheated there atm but def have an eye on them .

I played alot of razz since the rule has changed and haven't noticed a thing. There are not many winning chinese players at the limits i play ($2/$4)

Seems like the 1 chinese player pr table rule is in effect again, anyone know why they went back to that system again?

Not neccessary its always a change in Pokerstars AGBs. Maybe chinese start to do be a little more clever.

This link explains CoogBadugi...

Good luck with all this y'all. I stopped playing online stud games several years ago because I was getting squeezed WAY too often--which sucks because I was always exclusively a stud player--live and then online, too, but made the switch both live and online to LHE (live b/c there was much better money to be made). I play all the variants, and I felt that stud hi and stud 8 were the two games where I was seeing the most collusion (but--my memory is bad here--I think when I quit playing on UB and F.T., the only other variant offered was razz? shows how long ago I"m talking!) But I trusted my read, decided the games were dirty, stopped playing, and never went back.... So y'all are correct to be concerned about this, IMO. It's a serious problem, and my biggest concern is that it cannot be fixed (for the reasons others have indicated above--if it's profitable venture, people will always figure out a way around online regulations; online collusion is just too easy). Since Black Friday, I play exclusively live poker, and have noticed that the stud games at Borgata (A.C.) are healthier than before B.F. (particularly the 20-40 through 100-200 games). While I am certainly not saying B.F. was a good thing, I am trying to look at the glass half-full, and it is nice that the live stud games are good and fishy again. So quit this online B.S. if you're worried about collusion (you will NEVER get rid of it, and this post is devoted to a single strain which y'all have recognized--for which there are two that you haven't!) and come play B & M stud again! It's niiiiiice (a la Chau G., an honest Chinese-American card star). And all the racist **** in this post is shameful and bad for poker, for real.

One thing a little bit suspicious is the fact that I can't recall a single occasion where an up-and-coming Chinese SN posted a relevant Stud question on a poker forum. The idea that player bases in developing countries are more likely to be of those with an increased educational and income level is pretty logical.

My point is, if the Chinese Stud games community grew to be as large as it is now, organically, there would be occasional English-speaking players popping in for discussion in places like 2+2, P5's and so on. I'm sure there are certain places where poker theory is discussed extensively in Chinese, I just don't know of it at the moment.

If the player base growth was organic, what's stopping the bi/tri/tetra-lingual Chinese player (of which there would be tens of millions of candidates to choose from), from posting a hand on a Western-dominated poker forum?

Fishy **** indeed.

I want to just say iv been playing in the razz 5/10 10/20 games this past week and i honestly don't think theres much collusion going on if any!

All the chinese players that play Bar a couple of exceptions i want to have at my table.
Most of them are definatly losing players and most of the the them i have marked as fish!

And the ones that are winning i think are just good decent solid regs who know how to play the game.

+1 to most of them being fish
and the games run more often with the 2-chinese rule so lets keep it this way

the chinese rule is very obviously dumb. i use vpn services all the time.
i can log in from uk,nl,usa,where the hell i want.
if they use ip's to track them its ridiculous. if they use account data and allow money to be transfered its still rificulous cause you can make fake accounts and transfer to a chinese account.

also on stud and other games where live cards matter the most, even two people exchanging information is very serious collusion.
and also for the poster that said that opponents are fishy, they are probably bots with exchanging real time cards. you can make fishy plays that appear this way to you, but if you knew another set of 7 cards these plays wouldn't have appeared fishy.
lets say he raises you with air and you have a flush. if he does know the other player-bot has 3 of your suit hidden and 2 open, then yes he is making a percentage play that appears to be fishy but is not.

I also play these games. I am very happy, these days, to play short-handed with 2 chinese players.

Nothing at all suspect at the razz tables.

Ummmm, are you actually aware of how many Chinese people speak/write reasonable English? For the matter of this discussion, you can assume 0%. That would be close enough. I lived there, and essentially no one speaks English except in some very special places (e.g. grad programs in the top universities). Plus, even Chinese people who are able to communicate in English would not necessarily want to. There are so many Chinese-speakers in the world, that there's no reason for them to communicate on 2p2, when surely they have their own forums to discuss in. We're talking 1 billion people, yes? Even considering how less widespread poker probably is over there, I'm sure they have a critical mass for discussion in Chinese.

this is the most dumb argument ive read in ages.
have u met any stud players which are a subset of the chisese population?
are you actually puttin a zero % of english speaking chinese?
have u met anyone being a pro poker player on pokerstars and not speak even little english in your entire life?

the post that says since 10% of players on stud games are chinese many of them should post here is spot on.
why post here?
cause 2+2 is where their opponents play, and also the most uptodate poker info site in the world.

and yes, its suspicious

From what I know offhand, 10-20 million people are native English speakers in China. An additional 200-300 million have a functional understanding of the basics. I think that posting a hand and asking "3RD PLAY OK?", is feasible for winning Chinese players smart enough to beat low and mid-stakes games.

Yes, Chinese people have the right to speak Chinese instead of English. The sample of people I was referring to takes into consideration 'people in some very special places'.

Way to pigeon-hole an entire nation. Allow me to use another language as an example. My guess is there's at least 350-450 million native Spanish speakers in the world. I dare you to find a single non-******ed hand history discussion related to Stud/Stud8/Razz cash games. The Spanish-language forums (and player base) exist, but they just don't compare to 2p2.

I'm, just.. bah... typed enough