I also think lilprog doesnt need to defend himself anymore and once again i appreciate his willingness to respond ITT. I sincerely hope you are cleared of all wrongdoing by Merge and any other poker site involved.

I guess accounts are only flagged for collusion if the names are similar?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/14.../#post31028040

Even though Lilprog and I don't always see eye to eye, I definitely do not think he was colluding. I definitely do think Punkybeau is a different style of play, however I will not say that it was always her playing on the account either.

Either way AJB cheated. end of story.

wonder how many cheaters will be in the online world when its legal and regulated? where there will be real punishments for this sort of thing, i know AJB just wanted to help his family but, what about the people who he angled against.. they got mouths to feed too ya know? shammmeeeee

There are plenty of cheaters who roam the halls of regulated Las Vegas casinos and poker rooms

WEEEEEEEE

Hello Mr. Gardner,

We appreciate your candor regarding the details of your prior relationship to the account holders in question. As with all investigations on our Network, we closely scrutinize all associates, past and current, that relate to accounts under review. Regarding the links you provided, we understand how some could rush to judgement based on a review of ROI statistics and your admitted past relationship. However, a player’s ROI with or without a certain player may appear somewhat skewed if tournament field sizes and final payouts are not taken into consideration. Your complete game play history has been reviewed and we advise that your account has now cleared audit.

Your patience and cooperation have been appreciated throughout this review.

Best Regards

Security Team
Merge Gaming Network

That was pretty quick, good for you merge. Now if you would just friggin post here about our real concerns!

Glad to hear lilprog.

Great news!

That's good to see, lilprog.

Merge security appear to have done the right thing, at least with respect to your account. Lets see what happens with any confiscated $ now, and whether they get redistributed to the cheated O8 players ...

Thanks guys, and I appreciate the opportunity to come in here and present my side...

Glad it worked out for you

Congrats

Any updates on the real scammer? Dont want this to get buried and make Merge happy

Good news, Lilprog.

No, none yet. I will try to cliff this thread up today so hopefully it can continue to move in the right direction.

Guess what Merge? This isn't going away until you address it.

I know that the Merge skins have reps, but is there an actual Merge rep that has a presence on 2+2?

I'd bet that it does.

Glad to see this Rob, missed most the firestorm
A-

Cliffs

Evidence is presented in OP that suggests rampant collusion taking place on the Merge network with multiple accounts ("passthesalsa", "HalKatB", and "444AJB"), which had been going on for over 6 months. It is shown that chip dumping between the accounts went on as well. The accounts in question were linked to 2p2er AJB4, in which case he was invited to comment. Also shown in OP was evidence that AJB4 (AJB444 on stars) created a new stars account shortly after black friday in order to continue to play on stars (passthesalsa on stars).

Merge was emailed prior to the making of this thread and was alarmed to the situation. No evidence was given to Merge, but they were provided with the names of the accounts suspected of cheating on their network. Merge responds to the email basically overnight and stats that after their investigation, they had concluded that there was no foul play going on between the accounts. Not only does the evidence show that Merge is incapable of detecting the most blatant and obvious collusion on their own, but their email response magnifies their negligence when they can't even uncover it when given the account names. Merge is also invited to comment on the situation.

AJB4 spots the thread same night it was made and responds to the allegations with a very vague response. He states that "there were some grey areas" regarding staking agreements, , but claims after contact with Merge, everything is fine now.

This still doesn't explain why his "horses" play the same tournament schedule as him and take the same days off. It also doesn't explain why the roi for the known accounts is significantly higher when in the same tournaments, compared to when their not. AJB4 continues to dodge questions regarding this while insisting everything is fine now. Next day he states that the merge accounts are not allowed to play in the same tournaments anymore.

More evidence is presented that AJB4 is owner of passthesalsa on stars.

Thread is linked to a previous issue with AJB's website "pokerbytrade" and some sketchyness regarding their staking activity.
He was also accused a while back of MAing with the FTP accounts "AJB4"
"PunkyBeau", and "TroyAikman8".

AJB4 and PunkyBeau on FTP played a lot of the same SNGs together, with the EXACT same ROI:
AJB4 266$6 $11 43%$1,640 -N/AFullTilt SNG Only VS=punkybeau
PunkyBeau266$6 $11 43%$1,576 -N/AFullTilt SNG Only VS=ajb4

There is also a PunkyBeau on merge appearing to be involved in the cheating as well. He's been noted as stating that "PunkyBeau" accounts are his wife, and "TroyAikman8" on ftp is his daughter.

AJB responds with some more details and says that Merge has suspended the accounts in question:http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=131

"HalkatB" on merge and "PunkyBeau" accounts are supposedly his wife. This contradicts Merge's original response that the accounts were playing at completely separate locations.

Evidence is brought forward that suggests FridayBlack and O8Grinder, both merge accounts, are AJB's as well, along with ajb4444, involved in the same questionable activity.

Activity suggests stars account "passthesalsa" is suspended or closed. No comment from stars.

Merge contacts me with another email stating that they are reviewing the situation. This is a week after they told me there was nothing questionable about the accounts in OP.

2+2er "lilprog" is outed as being a close aquaintance with AJB. Lilprog provides evidence itt to defend any wrongdoing associated with AJB. Merge closes lilprog's accounts while they investigate, then reopens them clean of any wrongdoing.

Accounts are found on cake with evidence that suggests the same type of shadyness going on with AJB on the Cake network as well. (accounts listed below)

Still no response from Merge, Cake, or Stars.


AJB's suspected accounts:

Merge-444AJB, AJB44444, HalKatB, PunkyBeau, passthesalsa, FridayBlack, and O8Grinder.

FTP- AJB4, PunkyBeau, and TroyAikman8


UB/AP-AJB4 and AJB44

Cake-
AJB444,444AJB,O8Grinder, GrindOnCake, LilPixie,

Probably more out there. If anyone has any evidence they would like to add their more then welcome to post it. Sites are welcome to comment as well.

tl;dr cliffs:

evidence of accounts colluding/chip dumping on merge network, and evidence of maing on stars

merge fails to detect, then fails again when accounts are brought to their attention

accounts are linked to 2p2er ajb4

more accounts are discovered

evidence of it happening on other networks such as cereus, ftp, and cake

no response from poker sites regarding these issues

most accounts in question appear to be closed (not sure on this)

Suspected stars accounts- AJB444, passthesalsa, PunkyBeau

As this thread is partly about how Merge responds to cheating cases, I wanted to point out a case I brought to the attention of Merge in early January. We're not talking about anywhere near the monetary amounts that AJB won, however, it is a pretty clear cut case of cheating. I posted about it on the STT forum (so as not to cloud this thread with another case) but it didn't get much attention.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/36...-dons-1152553/

The only reply I have gotten from Merge about the case was the following e-mail on 1/04:

Thank you for your possible collusion report.

We are currently reviewing the play of players involved. Should there be any conclusive hands that suggest collusion amongst the players, or a pattern of behaviour that suggest team play, all funds won from the tournament(s) in question will be forfeited with remaining funds redistributed to players adversely affected. Affected parties will be contacted in due course.

Again, thank you for your report, we appreciate it, as keeping our card room fair and honest is our highest priority.

Kind regards,

Ronald
Security Team
Merge Gaming Network

I know that at least one of the players in my case (DMARGARITA) is still active on Merge - albeit at micro stakes - since I was able to check their activity on a tracking site. I'm happy to see the AJB case has moved forward a little since I last checked this thread. I am posting in here because the non-response by Merge in my case seems relevant to the larger discussion.

Oddly, as I go back to review the thread I made in STT, the key screenshot seems to be a broken link now. No idea how that happened, and I do know the link worked when I made the thread, but anyway, will upload here rather than bump that thread. Basically it shows how these two guys played in 95% of $20 DoN's together. I'm not trying to open a discussion about this case here, but if someone goes back and reviews that thread, they might be slightly confused without this pic.

lots of people just like to with peoples minds in dons and would have 8k chips and walk a shorty, or just open jam 2-3 forcing all to fold then he doubels shorties up to watch people go crazy inchat.

so much cheating goes on in these doubles and its sickening, the SOFTPLAY is what the problem is, its so easy to softplay someone in these things, and when i made a thread about it in the lock forum, about a lock pro being in on it, i got it removed, not at my choice. its a shame