Um lol, OP states multiple times he LIVES off rakeback. 27% I'm assuming. By banning him and "stealing" his 4 figure bankroll, they're costing themselves a small fortune in future rake.

Let's try a little bit harder to be logical here yeah?

FTP could have "stolen" $80,000 from my locked account based on evidence damning enough that no backlash against them was possible. I was innocent, thankfully FTP had no interest in "stealing" my 80k, they were only interested in security and keeping the games relatively fair, and after a painful amount of time, they re-opened my account and didn't penalise me a cent.

I don't really like how I'm coming out in such strong defence of FTP here, because I have no special love for them (especially after they took freaking 3 weeks to reopen my account) but the simple fact is they have no incentive to steal the bankrolls from micro / SSNL players who have done nothing wrong.

They have evidence they believe is irrefutable that OP is in SERIOUS breach of T&C. They are COSTING themselves money by banning him. In a "he said, she said" debate, I'm always going to lean towards the side of a party who is COSTING themselves money by taking a direct action against the other party.

As you said you skimmed this thread, but this is actually derived from another, longer thread, so new comers aren't going to have all the facts. There are actually a lot of us whose accounts were suspended, mine has been under investigation since 12/15, with very little communication from Full Tilt. So far a few people have been cleared, but this guy has been suspended with confiscation of his money.

Another person was suspended and in their email to him they said, the investigation was inconclusive, but they were still banning him.

One point made in the other thread that makes this a little different than the normal FT banned me threads is the post counts and registration dates of the people with suspended accounts. Obviously that is nothing conclusive, but your usual complainer is making his first post to say he was accused of cheating and disappears shortly thereafter.

ETA: to your point of their lack of motivation, we believe they've instituited new checks that are causing this recent rash of false positives, not that they are purposefully stealing money.

[QUOTE=yoyo;7831745]
Ok they might don't have the habits to ban account for no reason, they might seriously believe OP has intentionly cheated. Do that they mean that Full Tilt will be right 100 ****in % of the time ? Obviously, no. No human being is perfect, no authority/association/entity is perfect and Full Tilt is and will never be perfect. They might be wrong there. Is it wise to reevaluate the situation, and the most important, give OP the right and the informations necessary to prove his innocence.


Ok, where is this irrefutable proof ? I want to see it. Make Full Tilt send that irrefutable proof to OP by email.


OP doesn't provide any evidence of his innocence, sure. Full Tilt doesn't provide any proof of his culpability either.

It is ****in' hard to prove oneself innocence when you don't even know what he supposed to have done wrong.


First of all, I agree to the fact that we give both Stars and Full Tilt way more credit than they deserve. And I agree to the fact they would be really ******ed to ban accounts who have done nothing wrong.

But you forgot the fact that error is possible, and Full Tilt will not be right 100% of the time. I'm not saying that they don't care at all there, I'm just saying that even with all the ethics and professionalism of the world, it is impossible for them to be right 100% of the time.

That's why Full Tilt should : a) give the proof of his culpability b) let him the rights to prove his innocence and giving him all the information necessary to accomplish these purpose c) being judged by an independent and neutral 3rd party.


So first there is no proof of his culpability, then you even admit that "occasionally innocents coulde theorically get banned" but you are still able to affirm "that it's not the case here" but that's just common-sense riiiight... OMG I am so dumb but I wish I could be brilliant like you.

I'm 100% for punishing all you cheat but tell me how the **** can we accept that "occasionally innocents could theoretically get banned". This is unacceptable for me. Getting banned implied getting seized your money... and getting your money seized when you have done nothing wrong is equal to being stolen !!!

Gee, that was sweet of them.Lmao


There is no accountability here and this is not the only person that this is being done to. It is theft by FT when they keep peoples money and wont say what they did to lose it other than some catchall BS story.

I don't know who's right or wrong, but there's a couple of possibilities that I haven't seen mentioned, and I figured I'd throw them into the mix.

Since the OP's coach mentioned that the OP has crashed at his place and used his computer when he didn't have a woman to sex and use for housing, what if he used some other random person's computer at another house he was staying at, and that computer had cheating software installed that the OP didn't know about?

And what about software like TeamViewer that can be used to cheat at poker, but has legitimate use as a troubleshooting and teaching aid?

And one more thing... can the OP's coach say if the OP is the only student of his that is caught up in the dragnet? Are there more? If so, do you have an idea of the numbers? 5%, 20%, 75% or...?

******* and yoyo: Think about this. If your account were locked for the same reasons tomorrow, how would you prove yourself innocent? What more could I possibly do to prove something like this to Full Tilt or anyone else? It's impossible, because as you say, it's my word against theirs. My word is that I do not, nor have I ever cheated or in any way broken Full Tilt's TAC/EULA. Full Tilt has yet to give their word in anything more than a form email.

Yoyo, I'm really glad for you that Full Tilt kept up a dialogue during your investigation. I haven't had that luxury. I was forthcoming with log files and databases, offering any help I could to speed along what I thought would be a simple false-positive, which would be cleared upon basic scrutiny of my account.

No one here has any reason to believe me, and I don't really care if they do. I have provided as much information about my situation as humanly possible, including divulging my full name. What more can I do?

I've been a member of 2+2 for over 2 years, and I am more than a casual player. Most of my early posts were in the SNG forum, where I learned and discussed the fundamentals that I employ in shortstacking. I bring my case to 2+2 not to start some kind of crusade, but hopefully to get advice on proceeding with my reply to Full Tilt, perhaps warn some of the people who have helped me learn the game, and to document the need for transparency and oversight in the way Full Tilt does business.

I have played maybe 200 hands out of 180k+ on my coach's computer, and this was probably 6 months ago. I always always always bring my machine over. Plus, his account is just fine, playing a more refined version of the same strategy at much higher limits/volumes.

Sammy doesn't have any other students that I know of, unless he's like a spy or something. The only software we've ever used to talk about poker is 2+2. We just send HH's back and forth. 100% of our formal coaching has been done in person (the only way to do it imo). I'm very careful about the security of my computer, so it's unlikely that any weird trojans, keyloggers, rootkits, etc. that could have triggered this.

My funds have not been seized for sure. The wording in the last email is unclear, but they haven't said explicitly if my bankroll is forfeit. When I know something new, you'll know.

Time for me to be drunk. Good night all.

Yeah good night Sober, and good luck too.

It made me laugh when you started with this ^^^ then followed with an 18 paragraph essay about the situation.

I couldn't, but I also can't prove there aren't players in my games that can see my hole cards. I just get by on the belief that FTP has more to gain by being honest and law-abiding than they do by being deceitful and criminal.

I don't think I'll ever be accused because I always verify through their support system that a piece of software is permitted before I install it, and I don't believe they'd run around confiscating funds because the losses they'd suffer from players jumping ship could end their business. Not only that but I'll pay more to them in my lifetime in rake than I'll ever have sitting in that account at one time, so it's immediately -EV for them just like it would be in your case.

If you are innocent (and I'm hoping you are) I can empathize with how ****ty you must feel being locked out of your account. I had some really old FTP account I never used and forgot about then made a new one, so I was locked out of mine for a couple days, but they finished their investigation and saw I was upstanding and made the right decisions. They could've easily framed that any way they wanted to and confiscated my FTP roll, but they didn't.

There is no vast conspiracy to frame people and take their money. If you're guilty I think you're pretty well screwed. If you're innocent they'll figure it out eventually, you just need to be patient.

Not sure why all the FTP defenders showed up, but we have ample evidence of how FTP conducts investigations from the superturbo STT investigation.

They spaz banned a bunch of high-volume players, some of which were bots, some of which weren't.

Did they get it all sorted out in the end? Maybe. Some botters were banned. Some apparently human players were reinstated. But we'll never know their actual batting average.

These sorts of investigations are tricky, and saying "ZOMG FTP ALWAYS GETS IT RIGHT" based on... well, no real evidence whatsoever... is pretty silly.

They can improve their detection process, improve their banning process, and improve their communication, including clarifying what behavior can lead to a ban. I hope this thread gives them ideas for such improvements.

Here is some context for what is going on, collected from other threads.

First FTP Doug said Full Tilt had new security features:

Then the posts came in droves from people who had their accounts locked:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...nt-log-365575/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...t-acct-372232/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...p-here-371481/
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...pended-365922/

They just don't read like the typical scammer posts. These are average 2+2ers. They are people who have no idea why their account is locked, not people trying to hide why their account was locked.

FTP won't tell us what their security measures are, so here's what 2+2's most famous botter says:

This is a good time to recall the TeddyFBI case, in particular the lessons Pokerstars learned:
Now Full Tilt could do themselves a real favor by considering the possibility that their wonderful new detection scheme is producing false positives and killing their reputation. I urge them to get a second opinion.

if any of you bothered to read the t and s of ftp the wording is that its illegal to use a database that contains hands you did not play.

sooooooo, if op is still displaying stats from that database with his hud then he is slamdunk guilty. hell, i would be worried if that db was even on my computer and not in use.

its a complete bs way to run a business and i called ftp on it at the time. my few posts pointing out the asinine language were drowned by the idiots hailing the end of datamining on ftp. ironically, the language says nothing about datamining, only using such a database.

It would seem that your style of short stack play is both (1) simple and (2) profitble over a very large sample size when playing at tables with players who have relatively full stacks, and therefore cannot easily adjust to you AND thier deeper stack opponents.

Since any kind of computer-related tasks that are both (1) simple, and (2) profitable, are also programmable, it is probably impossible for the site to tesll the difference betweeen you and a bot. Especially if you are 16-tabling (or somer other large number of tables).

As a result, to protect the integrity of the game, it appears that they have to eliminate that style of play on a large, consistent basis because they cannot tell if it is real or a bot.

I'm afraid that I have to side with the poker site on this one. I'd rather see you out, than allow hundreds of bots in. And its impossible to tell the difference at their end. They certainly can't take your word on it, because even if you are honest, there are others who might not be.

But how is he supposed to prove his innocence to full tilt (assuming he is innocent -- i don't know if he is or not), in one final statement? When full tilt hasn't even told him specifically what they think he is in violation of? That is pretty ridiculous if you ask me.

And if they cannot tell the difference between a bot and a human they have more work to do on their end. My guess is that if you were caught in their net you would have a different opinion.

This. Hopefully OP can access his account, withdraw and play on a better site.

Um, yeah. That's your opinion, anyway.

As somebody who has recently stepped up my volume of play on STTs, I can't quite share your indifference/approval of this sort of policy. I now 12-table continuous, for up to 3 hours at a time. Am I tripping some "bot flag" because some n00b at FTP assumes it's impossible for a human to play that sort of volume and be profitable?

If the poker sites choose to adopt this policy, maybe they should 1.) Tell us, and 2.) Stop setting up leaderboards, Iron Man, etc that reward high-volume play. I can then either adhere to their guidelines, or go find another site.

Not true, IMO. They could make him play a couple of sessions while they monitor his computer 100%. They could talk to him on the phone while he's playing, they could monitor a webcam feed of him 16-tabling for two to four hours. If he's not able to handle the tables adequately and fails to replicate the patterns they observed previously, well then... game over. But if he IS able to replicate the patterns, then they'd have to admit he's not a bot.

BTW, this assumes that he's banned for botting. It's 2+2'ers that are assuming it's a bot bust, because FTP has only said it's for prohibited software, which could very well be something other than a bot.

If this is the case, then do something on their end to eliminate it. Raise the minimum buy in on tables, possibly just for this player, add Captchas to his account that randomly popup. Give him the option of not using the strategy and keeping his account, but a the very least, don't take his money.

Think about it this way, what if Sober posted the strategy he was using? Granted long term, it being freely available would hurt it effectiveness, but since he's shown proof that it works, short term, FT would be flooded with people employing this strategy, would they all get banned?

realize that this means if you datamined before, and are still using that database while you play, you are explicitly breaking the rules.

Not having any way of knowing my IQ or net worth, this is a pretty not-smart statement, not to mention petty and arrogant, not to mention being totally irrelevant.

But do we really want to play at a site doing this kind of nitpicking? Since datamining was legal before, anyone who did it legally probably still has those hands in their database. I don't even know offhand how to get rid of them without chucking the whole database.

If this the kind of stuff they are going to pick on, what's next? I believe PT3 currently will automatically import the hands you sit out on while waiting for the blind, do they count as breaking the rule?

Yes you can uncheck Import Observed hands, but why even write them to the hard drive if you get in trouble for doing anything with them?

Having presented absolutely no proof of anything, your "serious belief" is worth almost nothing.

You're making a HUGE and totally illogical mistake. You're assuming that just because FTP treated you a certain way that they treat everyone they've investigated that same way. If you read not only this thread, but other threads about accounts being closed, you would quickly see that isn't the case.

This is another assertion that you're basing on NOTHING but your own hunch about FTP's accuracy wrt their investigations (and your hunch ignores empirical data about times when their investigations have been fact-deprived witch-hunts).

If they're banning accounts because of people employing the exact same strategy, then that's up to them. I'd say they should simply raise the minimum buyin if that's what they want, but hey - it's their company. But if they confiscate money because people employ the exact same strategy, with NO concrete evidence that any RULES were broken (it's not illegal to play exactly the same way as someone else who taught you...it's not illegal to use charts...it's not illegal to play in a "robotic" manner with no switching it up).....then they are THIEVES. Where is the disconnect in your supposedly-smarter-than-me brain that doesn't allow you to see that?

As it happens, OP is my student and I do not have any others. He plays with no charts whatsoever. Your hunches and "initial reads" are completely baseless and false.

This seems to be more than just a slight tangent.

tyler, i completely agree with your last post and havent played a hand on ftp since their new rules. prior, i played about 3k hands/month so it was no big deal. i can see why it would be unfeasible to leave if you are a high volume player that likes those particular games.

You're correct that it's the most likely scenario from where you're sitting? That's just saying that you are correct that you think so. I never argued with you about what it is you thought. I argued with you that what you thought was wrong. Do you see the difference? Read my first response to you again bro.