You must have somehow missed the SuperTurbo STT bannaments, where nearly everyone over a certain volume was spaz banned at once.

FTP has maybe gotten more sophisticated since then, but your statement seems pretty optimistic given past history (e.g., playing style alone is enough to get you banned), or that combined with something else can add up to an unacceptable risk, whereas a less dedicated grinder would just get a warning or it would slide by.

I have no idea if that is the reason or not.

If it is, it is absolutely NOT fair.

i have a group of friends who have full time jobs but i showed them how to grind some games to make money and they all turn profit at lower limits then me.

we use each other computers from time to time depending on where we are hanging out at, i just would hate something like this to happen to us for no reason if you guys werent doing anything wrong.

I think NFM's post was very good and agree with what he said. Also, I doubt FT banned you for Spadeeye (there are people who claimed to be running it after Doug said it was illegal), or any other software you mentioned. I think they probably just give you a warning first. But the fact that your account was closed a week after your buddy's makes me think your account got closed for "association". There are probably over a dozen legitimately illegal pieces of software (not counting minor offenses like SE or TR) that maybe your buddy opened (accidental or not). FT now has a more detailed banned software list so check that out.

Good luck.

Yea I'm sure they just banned mass rake generators for the hell of it. Makes sense

i know these guys they did nothing

LoL??? on ftp...

ariolis30, your being ridiculous. Just because you know someone pretty well, doesnt mean that you can be 100% of anything. For ex. one of my friends just cheated on his fairly long term girlfriend last weekend. I would say that she knows him pretty well and probably is under the impression that her boyfriend would nevvverrr cheat on her because shes the best thing since sliced bread. What I am sure of is that even though he knows he cheated, he will never openly admit it to her for fear of the negative consequences. Many people in the world hide things from even their closest of friends.

ok lets just use game theory for a second. If we can just come up with a list of possible reasons why the banning occurs we can evaluate each situation carefully.

Multi-Accounting - If this is the case, FTP would reveal it to us in email that we are banned cuz of Multi- accounting. In this case, they wont tell us so I don't think this is it.

Botting - This is a case where they probably would not reveal in email what we did. However, this is also a case where they WOULD KEEP OUR MONEY. In our case, they allow us to cash out

Bad Software - Usually a warning...

Making Extra Accounts - Very possible, if one person has extra accounts, the punishment usually goes to that one person, not a group of people. Banning of 5 people is usually an accusation of cheating or some kind of fraud when playing. So I can't imagine this would be the case

Again, the only likely sceneriois that FTP is suspicious and are just taking precautions. Now if this is the case, I think any regular on FTP can be banned.


Can someone come up with any other reasons?

I agree with you NFM, and I am open for you all to think one of my buddies did something bad, but before we get to that, can we figure out what that "bad thing" is first?

Which implies that FTP has hired the best, top-notch security experts in the business, and given them correct incentives, so that there is NEVER a false positive?

Riiiiiight.

In all likelihood the security team consists of your average bumblers, who have incentives/informal quotas to ban so many people per month or whatever, and if there are enough warning signs (mass multitabling, long hours, shared computers, money transfers, SpadeEye) they aren't gonna do some amazing sophisticated investigation. They are just gonna ban them all.

MOST people who come here and complain brought it on themselves. But I am pretty close to 100% sure that SOME are false positives. There have just been too many regulars with huge incentive NOT to cheat who have gotten banned. Unfortunately there is nothing they can do about it.

I agree that there is a possibility of a false positive because of how it looks that so many different user names have used the same IP address, but an investigation should have shown that it is not just one person multiaccounting.

One problem is the two players that played at the same table together. I would think it would be fairly easy to misinterpret at least a few hands played together as collusion. For example if someone minraised and then RE-minraised them as a joke with someone else in the pot or did some other "crazy" move not normally seen whether it be a misclick or as a joke move between players. Another example might be a big bluff done by one player that resulted in the other player folding a very strong hand. That could be interpreted wrong.

This is the only case that I can think of where there really wasnt enough evidence to seize the funds but there was enough to close the accounts. And sadly they may have drug you down with them because you have used that computer with your screename. Even this scenario seems unlikely though.

I do agree that you can take out botting and collusion because Tulegit was able to cashout his bankroll. Multiaccounting may be the culprit. They may have seen one player multiaccounting and then seen 5 other accounts recently logged in, but couldnt be sure that they were separate players, so as a precaution they closed them all down. In this case, FTP should perform a more thorough investigation to determine the multiaccounter and restore the other players accounts that were not involved

I'm sure at this point after how they were treated they dont even want to play on FTP anymore.

How about FTP doug come and give a legit reason for why everyone is banned? If the reason is legit and has some serious evidence no one can say ****. Taking over 1 million FTP points as a side effect of this "ban" is just completely whack. I'm sure you guys know how long it takes to acrue 1M FTP pts

ummm, i only read first couple posts and didn't need to continue. I dont want to get into too much detail here, but I will tell you that I am not surprised by this. With the exception of two of the players, I have seen the others playing together for a long time now. I followed each one around and as I played, I always kept my eye on their PT and HoldemManager info. And I can tell you, I think the OP is leaving some out. I always thought something was fishy about a couple of those players especially TNN and Tulegit. I am not going to sit here and say straight out that they are guilty, because I dont think thats fair without catching them in the act somehow. However, I do think FTP might have got this one right. And yes, I find it to be WAY TOO BIG of a concidence that all players were friends and connected somehow. lol.

And FWIW, if you weren't cheating somehow and one of those accounts did something that violated rules, they can ban any connected accounts to that account as well. They do it all the time.

Best bet on FTP, is to simply keep your account to yourself(and only 1), play by yourself, aviod transfers with players you dont know or trust 100%, and dont use third party programs while you play. Play it simple and safe, or dont play at all. Its rough waters at FTP these days... swim at your own risk!

This whole paragraph sounds so general. Can you be more precise as to what you're suspicious about and show me some HH.

You don't have friends you play poker with?

Uh yeah PD its pretty common to have groups of poker playing friends.......just don't play from the same computers.

I think something is missing from this story.

Also the amount of irate people w small post counts and 2008 join dates, is interesting to me.

Hmmmmmm....... I see what you are getting at there. Good point.

TNN didnt play near the amount of hours or tables Tuelgit did. And they are far different in winrates and thought processes. I also played with tulegit on a daily basis and am friends with him, but never did any collusion occur, we both started back at NL25 a few years back and became friends. We never soft played eachother at all either. They didnt play that many hands together and when the did Tulegit punished him. I cdnt get TNN to lay down AQ on a AT4 board even all in on the river, he wasnt near the thinking level as Tulegit. I can play at the same tables as friends in a casino too, as long as we dont collude and hands would prove that, and would be justifiable reason to seize money which they didn't. How can you say TNNs play is fishy he earned rakeback most months at most.

My post count is not low, nor am I new, been here for years. And my FT SN has been outted a few times, doesnt matter to me as I dont discuss strategy anyway. I'm also the guy that created the new Universal Cards Mod for the whole 2p2 community, and gave it away for free. I know for a fact Tulegit didnt cheat. I know Style enough, and met him along with Tulegit in Vegas when we grinded at the Bellagio when I was there for the WSOP recently. I can't vouch for the micro guys as I dont know them though. Also my account is fine.

Also PD it may be possible that you play your hands so face up that its easy to play against you, and Tulegit being a thinking player and having learned how to use a HUD from the "HUD master (me)" that you didnt have success playing him. I say that because i've played you and you are easy to play against, that doesnt mean I cheat, I just know how to exploit you easily.

You are missing the point, only one person needed to do something or FT thinks they did something, and since the IPs have been logged at anytime from another ones computer they automatically assume they are all guilty. I mean hell I have friends that have sold weed in their lifetime, does that mean I am also guilty because I know them? That's pretty rediculous. I do agree though, this makes me want to never login anywhere but home, and never transfer money. Of course I received alot of donations for that card mod I made so now I have to worry that if one of them does something wrong I am now guilty.

I may be way off base here, but wasn't there a thread about tulegit and friends getting banned like 2 months ago?? Why are you bringing it up again/starting a new thread??

This i got banned for life from FTP 5 days ago , i got an email saying that i was not welcome at their site as ive violated the EULA but they wouldnt specify what i had done(i had honestly done nothing) and i was not a winning player at fulltilt so i have no idea why im banned and still have no idea why im banned.

ive sent a few emails to them and the last email i recieved told me that they would not entertain anymore discussion on this matter. very sick indeed. good way for them to push there players all to stars.

last email i recieved:

From: Full Tilt Poker - Security <security@fulltiltpoker.com>
Subject: Re: Your Account (xxxxxxxxxxx)
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Monday, 20 July, 2009, 9:17 PM


Hello xxxxx,

Unfortunately, as previously advised, our decision in this matter is final, and no further discussion on this topic will be entertained.

Regards,

Keith N
Security
Full Tilt Poker

This i got banned for life from FTP 5 days ago , i got an email saying that i was not welcome at their site as ive violated the EULA but they wouldnt specify what i had done(i had honestly done nothing) and i was not a winning player at fulltilt so i have no idea why im banned and still have no idea why im banned.

ive sent a few emails to them and the last email i recieved told me that they would not entertain anymore discussion on this matter. very sick indeed. good way for them to push there players all to stars.

last email i recieved:

From: Full Tilt Poker - Security <security@fulltiltpoker.com>
Subject: Re: Your Account (xxxxxxxxxxx)
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Monday, 20 July, 2009, 9:17 PM


Hello xxxxx,

Unfortunately, as previously advised, our decision in this matter is final, and no further discussion on this topic will be entertained.

Regards,

Keith N
Security
Full Tilt Poker

wow that is pretty blunt. While I agree they have the right to ban you they could atleast give you some thing.