When Full Tilt relaunched last month without any American players, the freeroll fields were reasonably sized to start and I noticed something almost immediately:

Full Tilt poker is infested with cheaters!!!

Specifically, players with more than one account and as many as six in the same tournament

I started taking note of some of these players and notified Full Tilt multiple times.

They responded assuring me that they would investigate and that they take incidents like this very seriously.

Is that so?

Then please tell me why, in the full tournament this morning that I scoured did I not only find about 40 players with multiple accounts, some of them are blatant cheaters that were reported three weeks ago.

Apparently Full tilt does not take this as seriously as they claim.

If you don't believe me, look for yourself:
(those marked with an * have been reported previously)

Tournament #245546810
$150 Freeroll
NLHE Turbo
Dec 9, 2012 07:40 am EST


72rusva (Russia)
72rusvas (Russia)

aidas35 (Lithuania)
aida4155 (Lituania)

alex3831 (Russia)
alex3931 (Russia)

andreea282617 (Romania) *
andreea_2690 (Romania) *
andreea_buburuz (Romania) *

andrzej922 (Poland)
andrzejajcz (Poland)

BAD_BOY_RO (Romania)
BAD_GOD_RO (Romania)

balazs0421 (Hungary)
balazs128 (Hungary)
balazsCsaba (Hungary)

BCEM XAHA74 (Russia)
BCEMOryLLLuu (Russia)

bendzsi1979 (Romania)
bendzsi33 (Romania)

beny110 (Romania)
beny1994 (Romania)

billbatranu (Romania)
billbatranu2 (Romania)

Blacktail9 (Hungary)
Blacktail90 (Hungary)

borisz1979 (Hungary)
borisz80 (Hungary)

Bulent73 (Bulgaria)
BulentRz (Bulgaria)

CBETA007 (Russia)
CBETAB (Not displayed)

corsykanu (Romania)
corsykanu666 (Romania)

cosmin2013 (Romania)
cosmin233 (Romania)
cosmine46 (Romania)
cosminpokers (Romania)

costy0012 (Romania)
costy_orfy (Romania)

cretzu0288 (Romania)
cretzuSTF (Romania)

cristi221 (Romania)
cristi300 (Romania)
cristi71 (Romania)

crocodiles33 (Slovakia)
crocodilles (Slovakia)

crystyano1 (Romania)
crystyano559 (Romania)

CTRYHA (Russia)
CTRYHA63 (Russia)

EAGamma (Australia)
EAGamma1 (Australia)

floriansl1 (Romania)
floriansl2 (Romania)
floriansl72 (Romania)

Gyurma21 (Hungary)
Gyurma24 (Not displayed)

idefix1801 (Germany)
idefix3333 (Germmany)
idefixweber (Germany)

JRamesh (Netherlands)
JRamesh08 (Netherlands)

kanat060290 (Kazakhstan)
kanat20060 (Kazakhstan)

Katalin1021 (Hungary)
Katalin2000 (Hungary)

KGVAG (Armenia)
KGVAG7007 (Armenia)

leealon (Israel) *
leealon1 (Israel) *

MaGiC_mn (Mongolia) *
MaGiC_mNg (Mongolia) *

Maldis1961 (Russia)
Maldis1985 (Russia)

muzicuta (Romania)
muzicuta 2 (Romania)

oreghalasz2010 (Hungary) *
oreghalasz53 (Hungary) *

playdog02 (Kazakhstan)
playdog90 (Kazakhstan)

redythebest (Romania) *
redythebest8 (Romania) *
redythebest88 (Romania) *
redythebest89 (Romania) *
redythebest99 (Romania) *

Safinov R (Ukraine)
Safinow R (Ukraine)

sztimike1 (Hungary) *
sztimike2 (Hungary) *
sztimike3 (Hungary) *
sztimike4 (Hungary) *
sztimike5 (Hungary) *
sztimike6 (Hungary) *

Szuriman (Hungary) *
Szuriman1 (Hungary) *

Tibike87 (Hungary)
Tibike1 (Hungary)

vairom (Brazil)
vairom2 (Brazil)
vairom3 (Brazil)
vairom4 (Brazil)
vairom5 (Brazil)

vencislav1981 (Bulgaria)
vencislav1990 (Bulgaria)

zero-coo (Russia)
zero-coocoo (Russia)

3 weeks does seem a little long... but there could be even far more cheaters all tied in together then you posted. So perhaps 3 weeks isn't enough time since they want to get all of the accounts at once.

or perhaps they just don't care because it's a freeroll

lolz colluders in the freerolls

And do you think they will become honest players once they win a portion of the prizepool and start playing for real money?

They should care regardless of what it is. If it is forbidden to have more than one account then it is against the T & C period.

This actually seems quite crazy that all of these people were all signed up in this freeroll honestly where it is so obvious.

OP, you still have heard back nothing from FTP? Have you checked to see if any/all of these " players " are still around?

I do not play on FTP anymore but regardless of a freeroll or whatever, this seems pretty out there to me.

I agree this shouldn't be allowed and FTP should have done something by now.

A side note though...wtf @ colluding in freerolls and double wtf @ realizing these guys are in freerolls and taking all the time to notify support and make this thread. Props though.

Sad day when you see people colluding/MA'ing in freerolls.

Is nothing sacred?

I like how the assumption is made that every single one of these guys is a multi-accounter. Yeah, many and probably most of them are, but similar names don't always mean the same person. But of course they all warrant looking into.

The list he's provided in the OP is from a tournament this morning.

Oh how silly of me, I didnt realize that list was from this mornings tourney. I half read it and thought it was a freeroll from a few weeks back. I messed up there.

I also agree Bobo how you cannot normally auto assume that players with similar names are multi accounters but quite a few of these appear pretty suspect. Some of them the exact name with the exception of a number being different.

Example:

sztimike1 (Hungary) *
sztimike2 (Hungary) *
sztimike3 (Hungary) *
sztimike4 (Hungary) *
sztimike5 (Hungary) *
sztimike6 (Hungary) *

All from the same location AND all playing the same freeroll...that seems very sketchy to me. Plus with many (all?) of the others OP listed, I feel an investigation is warranted and would love to see a report of what FTP followed through with here.

Yeah, those were the ones that seemed most obvious to me. I wouldn't expect sztimike to be a common name.

On the other side, I wouldn't just assume that

Safinov R (Ukraine)
Safinow R (Ukraine)

or

aidas35 (Lithuania)
aida4155 (Lituania)

were the same person. And there's plenty of other example of both extremes.

Regardless, an investigation would definitely seem to be in order.

Edit to add: If any of these guys are multiaccounters, they're either extremely stupid (as in IQ <80), or figure that no one cares/it's no big deal because it's a freeroll. It's not like it's that hard to come up with different names.

When we've seen reports in the past where groups were from the same country and similarly named it has often turned out to be multiple sign-ups by the same affiliate.

No collusioners would be that stupid.

These FT ones look very curious.
For example, the sztimikes from Hungary are a little too similar.





All entered the exact same 8 freerolls on the weekend (no cashes):




All 5 accounts are the same as the above except for different finish positions.

There was no SharkScope record of any sztimike3.
Even if somebody signed up their whole family for some sort of affiliate bonus or an affiliate had 5 new accounts sign-up with screen names he gives them it's too coincidental that they would all play the same 8 freerolls.

This is a very good point I hadn't thought of - affiliate creates the account for the players for any of a number of reasons. Of course this could be innocent, or it still could be collusion - even if they were different people, it's possible that they could know each other or be introduced through the affiliate and then collude. Of course, this would be a pretty stupid way to do it if they care to avoid detection.

I didnt think of that either. Just because of the times back in the day when I signed up for a poker site through an affiliate, I always still got to chose my user name. I had no idea that there were places that chose them for you.

I agree it would make zero sense to try to collude or pull some nonsense using names that are so similar but hey, the world is full of foolishness so you can never be too sure about anything I suppose.

Case and point, this player RW did research ( much appreciated by the way as always ) sztimikes and his never ending numbered accounts.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who sees a problem here.

This isn't the first time I have encountered this kind of thing, but the other sites/networks that this occurred at (except Boss Poker, who did NOT care and refused to act) all acted in a lot more timely a manner.

I even found a team operating in the tournaments at Nedplay Casino.
They were gone within 24 hours, the site was able to revers their withdrawals AND they gave me a reward!

What I find most amazing about this is the fact that their other site Pokerstars has such nasty security that if you, even accidentally, log in from an IP that another account exists at, you both get locked down and explanations and IDs are requested.
Yet on Full Tilt, blatant abuse is occurring and it appears that no action is being taken.

I will readily admit that there are coincidences in naming and not all are fraudsters, and I ignored a lot where the root word in the nickname was common, as well those that are connected but honest about it, such as t0mmy_es and t0mmys_wife, but some are just too obvious to have an honest explanation:

MaGiC_mn (Mongolia)
MaGiC_mNg (Mongolia)

It's possible two people from Mongolia wanted to be called 'magic' but capital M, G and C?

billbatranu (Romania)
billbatranu2 (Romania)

How many people named Bill Batranu live in Romania? And they BOTH wanted the same nickname?

JRamesh (Netherlands)
JRamesh08 (Netherlands)

leealon (Israel)
leealon1 (Israel)

oreghalasz2010 (Hungary)
oreghalasz53 (Hungary)

Same argument for these too.

...and of course, there's these mind-bogglingly obvious cases, the first two reported within days of the site's reopening:

redythebest (Romania)
redythebest8 (Romania)
redythebest88 (Romania)
redythebest89 (Romania)
redythebest99 (Romania)

sztimike1 (Hungary)
sztimike2 (Hungary)
sztimike3 (Hungary)
sztimike4 (Hungary)
sztimike5 (Hungary)
sztimike6 (Hungary)

vairom (Brazil)
vairom2 (Brazil)
vairom3 (Brazil)
vairom4 (Brazil)
vairom5 (Brazil)

smh at colluders who are stupid enough to use similar screen names.

They are testing their bots.

I saw something like this in a pokerstars freeroll a few months back.

I thought if the guy is stupid enough to use similar names then good luck to him if he wins some cash.

Obv Stars/FTP needs to do something about this.

Though you gotta admit it's ****ing funny/sad that people are trying to make a living multi accounting 150$ freeroll MTTs.

Funny? Look at the countries they're from.

I don't see the humour in it at all.

If these people can get away with it. Why not a 1k freeroll, why not a 5 dollar buy in? Why not the Sunday Million?

At what point do players care about security? From a players expectation it's when it affects them. I'd hope that Full Tilt is doing security to protect players and not just when it affects them.

OP please provide any further emails with us about this matter.

This definitely needs looked at. Okay it's only mtt freerolls but there should be zero tolerance for this sort of thing.

So response has finally been received.
(Coincidentally it didn't come until after this thread started gaining momentum)

Thank you for your email and apologies for the delay in our review of this matter. Violations of our site terms are unacceptable at any level and we appreciate you reporting your suspicions.

As mentioned in our previous email to you, players are not permitted to operate more than one account and this is a violation of our site terms. We recognise that our length of time taken to review this matter is not up to the standard we would like to maintain moving forward and will endeavour to improve our response time.

In relation to the specifics of your complaint, you have correctly identified a number of players in violation of our site terms and these accounts, and some who were not. We deal with each player on an individual basis and assess the appropriate action to be taken in each instance, up to and including the permanent exclusion from our site. As a result of our review, a number of these accounts have been permanently closed.

We are continually examining and reviewing our methods of identifying transgressions and will continue to attempt to improve the manner in which we protect our players.


Regards,

Paul
Full Tilt Poker - Game Integrity


Better late than never, I guess, but at least they are closing the accounts of the scumbags who were cheating.

WP OP.

They could have been quicker, but its a good result.