it seems it has become an acceptable policy for the poker sites to 'confiscate' a players entire roll once they find him/her to be in violation of their rules (which is a nice way of saying cheating)... and as much as it has become silently acceptable by the poker community that it is OK for them to do so, because we are presuming that most, if not all, such suspects are indeed cheaters, and depsite the fact that they live and operate in lands where rules of justice and laws of developed countries do not exist, in my humble opinion, if and when ANY poker site wants to confiscate your bankroll, they MUST provide you with detailed reasoning AND PROOF of your improper actions and give you enough time to rebutt such allegations...and such generalities as 'you are in violation of our rules...or 'you are or may be using prohibited softar, whcih we can not even specifically name'...is simply NOT acceptable...

if they no longer want OPs bsiness, that's one thing...they can kick him out of their site for any reason they want...but if they are confiscating OP's money, they MUSTgive him exact, direct, and detailed proof of why they are taking away his money...

From reading this thread, I have taken a few responses and would like to add my $.02 to the equation.

From reading the first bullet, the programs such as PT3 and HEM come to mind first and foremost, but to be clear they are definitely NOT seen as illegal in this sense? I suppose extra information is the key component of that statement, as you are only getting the information about the players around you based upon the hands that you play with them, making data mining a separate issue since you are merely opening tables to observe their tendencies.

These posts seem to be popping up a lot as well, and I must say that I am also discouraged with FTP in this sense. It sounds like no progress has been made since the OP in this thread? (Although, it only has been 24 hours.)

This part of one of MicroBob's post intrigued me:

What exactly did you mean by winning unknowingly from the wrong guy? Has a certain win rate from a particular player against another warranted FTP banning/suspending anybody, i.e. the Absolute cheaters having win rates that were a ridiculous number of standard deviations away from the mean?

After hearing these stories popping up from people in the 2p2 community, I think you'd have to be a little naive to have the same trust in FTP that you did before.

On that note, has anybody sent FTP a protest email in opposition to this particular case? Would it be a good idea for some of us in the 2p2 community to try and make our voice heard and at least bring this thread to their attention and try to get a response?

Finally, for those who have posted in opposition to OP's strategy to short stack at the tables, whining and bitching at short stackers gets nothing done. Do yourself a favor and read the FAQs in the FRNL forum and develop basic strategy on how to play against them. Nobody wants to hear whining and bitching because you aren't competent enough to fix the leaks in your game.


I wish you luck in your quest, OP, and wouldn't mind writing to FTP support on your behalf.

I'm referring to winning a ton from some guy who obtained his funds fraudulently (stolen CC# or whatever) and next thing you know you are associated with him by the site, they accuse you of knowing him, they accuse you of helping him chip-dump so he can get the funds out of there, etc etc.

This scenario should be of particular concern to heads-up players who table select well. If you find an aggressive maniac who is losing in buckets it can look very suspicious to the site.

It sounds like they played in the same room irl, but not at the same table on FT? Confusing.

my account has been frozen and i'm still waiting for a reply from FTP. if i don't get my money that i withdrew and am not able to play soon, i won't be able to pay my bills. i guess this is a merry christmas?

i don't play cash, i don't shortstack and can't since im a sng player. man ftp is gonna put me out on the streets

What part are you not getting? We've played in the same room many times. I have an apartment above my garage that's quite large. Sober lives in it from time to time when he breaks up with one of the many women that live to please him by sexing and housing him. It also serves as my poker office. There are two desks in this room. I use one of them...and when he's here, he uses another one.

There's only one internet connection...one IP address. So no...we've never sat at the same table (as far as I know, that would be disallowed instantly). We don't even play the same limits.

so now you collude, sex, and house him all at the same time?

Awesome...a ******.

I don't want to hijack a thread, but I don't like to let a clear mistatement of fact go either.

The last time I looked at the US constitution (about a month ago) we had separation of powers in this country. The president, or the exectutive branch, doesn't "run things", if that's what you were implying.

You can argue that the president is a "Christian fundamentalist", depending on how you define that term, but are you saying claiming that Christian fundamentalists also "run things" in the House and Senate, where the majority or members are of a different party than the president?

This is a pretty stupid statement...also in the beginning you said you were sorry to hear about what's happening. Now you say no sympathy...which is it Mr. Hyde?

Well, this thread has certainly been an eye-opener for me.

I play on PokerStars, but I was thinking about moving to Full Tilt sometime soon, at least long enough to collect the $600 deposit bonus.

Now, I'm going to wait and see how this all plays out until I even consider doing that. I've been grinding my way up, starting with a $50 deposit to PokerStars. For me to move to Full Tilt and get > $600 confiscated would be a disaster.

I dont think they will even investigate you.
based on your posts Im sure you dont multitable past 4 tables.
so you dont have to worry.

FT is looking at massive multitablers, however when you have to multitable you have to have defaults for certain hands so they should investigate deeper. Im planning to play at FT but I will wait.

I hope things turn out for the best, OP.

In regards to why people play at Full Tilt, if you're a lower limit player, the rake back sort of keeps you playing there since Pokerstars can't compare. I agree 100% that Stars is a much better site but when I'm 10-tabling $22 SNGs, to totally give up the rake back would be stupid from a financial aspect. I really wish Stars would do something for lower limit players so we could finally shut down FTP for good.

was the deaf dealer chinese? if he was not chinese then his hearing, or lack thereof, is irrelevant.

thanks for listening.

eagerly awaiting FTP response

ppl r even dumber here than nvg, thats impressive. SOLE

A non-deaf non-Chinese dealer could have reminded the players about the English-only rule at the table.

wat?

his hearing is relevant whether or not he's Chinese...

Yes, I'm bored tonight...

as long as they don't end up confiscating your funds, i don't think they're in the wrong for closing an account even if it is just based on suspicion.


this becomes a far more serious issue if they do not return you the balance in your account (+rakeback due).

That^^^. And to the POS calling OP a pathetic human for how much he wins at poker, look in the mirror and GTFO.

Well, this thread sure is making the stars bonus much more appealing. I don't datamine or use any software besides HEM (and I have used PT2 + Hud, and PT3 trial at times in the past), yet, when I open my account the last few days, my heart rate increases wondering if I will be the next one banned. And I don't even short-stack. Even though I don't think I am doing anything wrong, these threads still make me nervous as hell.

Well, maybe I do datamine, considering I open a table and wait for the blinds to come around. And sometimes when I am drinking and have to pee a lot, I will sit out on my tables for a minute or two to use the restroom. Am I breaking the T&C doing this? Hmm, maybe it's time to give Stars some play.

copy/paste from FT home page when you look at it in the UK. I believe it says Kahnawake if you are in the US. To be able to advertise on UK TV you need to be regulated and Chief UB/AP owner dude doesn't count.

if you look at this page next to Filco Limited you will see that they do actually regulate FT

http://www.gamblingcontrol.org/index.php?page=19

whether or not they can actually help you I do not know.

Sober,

After mocking cmoney's similar 'theft' post on Stars (also in the Zoo) let me tell you how impressed I am with your OP presentation & all your openness dealing with follow-up questions. I mocked cmoney because he looked suspicious form the get-go & it really only took a few pages before the jury returned a guilty verdict. In this case I really feel for you & even if remotely you had some innocent variant running in the background I feel this should have been sorted out professionally by FTP with a stern warning regarding about what they suspect you did. A simple this is what you did & if we see it again you will be gone would have sufficed. As a last resort, we don't want your business but here's your money would have been a hard pill to swallow but I believe life would have gone on elsewhere.

I believe if your official response to FTP regarding your appeal is half as thorough as your OP I think some acceptable resolution will surface. ( I will say I've seen quite a few of these FTP 'theft' threads & as of yet haven't seen a reversal by FTP when they claim to know 100% the fault). Most of these threads had some sort of "taint" to them that lead me to give FTP the benefit of the doubt; in this case, as of yet, I see nothing that "taints" you.

Write your appeal like back in college with a rough draft, then reshape that puppy into a quality letter which shows absolutely everything you've been running since your account was open. On a wild note, & maybe both cost prohibitive & unacceptable to FTP offer to send FTP security your Laptop untouched in it's current configuration. Short of a hard drive format, they're are hundreds of sub-folders containing records of processes running on your system; processes that they are claiming via the client interface they have found to be violating the T&C. If they have an idea of what you were doing/running, a first year security programmer would find them on your computer. It might be cost prohibitive as surely they would make you pay for the shipping/insurance but if it's a laptop it surely couldn't cost that much money. You'd be trusting a site (that you really don't trust right now) with your laptop but I highly doubt they would stoop so low as to confiscate your PC also.

Just a wild suggestion, hope this gets resolved if your innocent as it appears.
Keep the faith as one of the good guys.

Thanks for the information. By the way, I only started multitabling a month ago, so you got a good read on me there, but I'm up to 6 tables now.