Looks like a mod already changed the thread title, thanks mod.

no problem buds, looked innocent from the start with the openness for me to be honest.

Next time dont base conclusions on 250 game hypersamples people..

Excellent result !

+1 ...Stars made it right, it's what they do.

Assuming the accused have heard of 2+2.

Seriously though... I'm glad that they rechecked the hands and came to the right conclusion. Gl OP and friend, best wishes to you both.

JamesWOW glad you popped in the thread and handled yourself well considering the stress you must have endured. Glad you you two were exonerated. Good luck at the tables.

Maybe in the future you should think a bit more before you post tr8cer.

Pokerstars occasionally makes aggregious mistakes. Years ago they banned a twoplustwoers grandmother for being a bot and playing 36 hours in a row, when she did no such thing. Hopefully their support has improved since then, but it goes to show they are far from infallible.

Congrats. Loving PokerStars more and more.

Nice! Glad they resolved the issue. I think this really says something about PS. Anyone can make mistakes, having the balls to admit to it and rectify it is hard (we've all got such big egos ).

Good job by B0xleyNZ and JamosWOW on staying cool, calm and getting this resolved.

B0xleyNZ's understating of the games played plus the stats posted made many of us think you had colluded.
Stars must have then looked very closely and they found nothing.


Sooooo you have to ask yourselves "do we still play together?"

I actually didn't understate the amount of games we had played. I said we had played about 100 hypers together, I think we have actually played about 80 or so, so I was quite close. The stats you posted included over 100 normal speed sngs we played over 6 months ago that were not included in the collusion investigation. So none of those stats you posted were actually relevant as the higher ROI was due to previously played sngs that were not included in this collusion investigation.

I'd say you should probably make sure you know what you are doing next time before you go and post such irrelevant stats, to prevent yourself looking a bit silly again.

I do understand, however, that most of the people that create threads like this are guilty most of the time. So I don't hold any hard feelings for what you posted. However, remember that there are some people out there who are actually innocent!

To answer your question, we aren't going to bother playing together. It's not worth the risk in our opinion.

Thanks for all the congrats/well wishes guys. It was a tremendous relief.

Got a phone call from Box at 8am to tell me to check my email for the good news. Couldn't be more happy about the result.

In terms of playing together still, I'm sure it would be fine for us to do so. Though we will apprehensive to do it, just because of running the risk of some other rookie security guy thinking we are colluding. So probably best not to...

Won't rule it out though because we never have and never will commit any foul play. We are both very competitive and love knocking each other out.

Merz is like my little grasshoppa, I taught him all he knows about the game. It's cute when he tries to out play me using stuff I taught him.

Good job guys. And yes my original review was based on my experience with them so far & you have to show some loyalty when they refund you the buyin of Sunday Million when I was experiencing some Internet problems just a month ago.

Just that I forgot that some staffers lower the IQ levels of their entire support unit when they are at work and call themselves game security officer or whatever name which is self-chiseled out of a strong misplaced sense of ‘I know it all’ hallucinations

Congrats again mate.

Just got this email from Pokerstars.

FREE BANK ROLL BABY! Once again, hats off to Stars. Firstly for rectifying this quickly and professionally. And the bonus compensation .

Very well done.

I emailed stars asking about compensation last night, and like Merz, received this email back today.



Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your kind words and I am just sorry that the entire incident had to happen.

Oddly enough the subject of compensation came up very late last night when I was reopening your accounts but I focussed on that as a priority and discussions continued this morning as to what we should do for you in that regard. Given the inconvenience, stress, and the fact that you purchased a Sharkscope subscription in order to help prove your innocence, I have credited your account with T$215 by way of compensation. You will be able to buy-in to your usual events with these funds or could use it to take a shot at one of our flagship tournaments.

I note on one of your posts that you might feel apprehensive regarding playing together again in case something similar might happen in future. PokerStars does have the technical capabilities to restrict you from playing with each other in small field tourneys and ring games. Should you wish us to implement this then please let me know. The decision is entirely up to you and MerzGotGame.

Regards,

(name deleted)
Senior Manager
PokerStars Game Security


So after initially being incredibly disappointed with stars I am now very impressed with the way they fixed this problem. The compensation is way more than I expected as well. Cheers to everyone on the stars team that helped sort this out for me and Merz.

Nice outcome, must of been v stressful.

Well done Happy it all worked out.

Sounds like a good result. Box and Merv, you guys handled this well so props to you. Since most of these threads end in a trainwreck it good to see one work out well for OP for a change.

So much for a primary mistake and like the way these sites react (sometimes
over react) when something is blown out on forums. Stars is not the only
one who does this, Tilt never cared thankfully they should now. Party also
go over board to rectify staff errors.

Hope they teach their fringe staff about the game before they set them
scotfree in a civilized world of hihgly calibrated poker players to
'Investigate' their game play with the miniscule knowledge these minnows
carry about the game and try to tell we players as to what is what.

I can guarantee that Stars hire only Poker Players with a high level of Poker skill to look at collusion issues. This type of error at Pokerstars is extremely rare. I don't know if these guys livelyhood depended on playing on Stars or not, but the stress must have been brutal on them. I'm glad that Pokerstars compensated them for the hardship they endured. Obviously had these two players had not heard of 2+2 then the result may have been different. But to say that the collusion staff are incompetant is just not the case.

Glad you guys got it sorted out.

For future reference you guys can't base jack **** off the fact they played 300 hypers together with solid ROIs. I've only played ~19k super turbos and I'm sure over 300 games samples I've had -50% and +50% roi many times (probably even bigger both ways really)

Also why would they grind $7 games then go cheat in the $1.50s lol

I mailed them about this case today and the thread and they said it's being taken care of. I agree to what you speak. Their support is one of the best in the trade.

At the same time, this overlook is nothing short of a monumental mistake.

I only hope that they DO NOT take such liberties in future and give the concerned players a mental shock. Imagine some one with more funds getting an email of funds being frozen without giving him a chance to defend?

More than appeasing their public reputation on reputed poker forums with generous gifts of tourney dollars much before Christmas, Stars should also ensure that such errors never happen. NOT EVEN A SINGLE TIME.

Keep wise people to overlook such activities. It was like a robot activity. Step one Send email. Step two send next email irrespective of what players say; Step three send one more email saying its all over thank you for your time.

Thanks to 2+2 and the importance Sites give to this forum, we are saved many times.

The staff also said the following;
"Tournament rule #20 states that "Poker is an individual (not a
team) game. Any action or chat intended to help another player is
unethical and is prohibited. Unethical play, such as soft-play
(playing less aggressively against a partner) and chip dumping
(intentionally losing chips to a partner), may result in
penalties, including seizure of funds from the offender's account
and/or termination of the account.".

Where on website do they have such rules. I tried to search but did not work. Can any of you more experienced fellas please tell me more about such rules which talk about chip dumping. I only want to clear any misconceptions their staff has in terms of what is cheating and what is not. Hope the remaining rules upto 19 and beyond 20 are not the ones that send us jitters when we read them.

Like Rule no 25: I dont like you play 180 max tournaments and cash game limit holdem together. I will send you three mails and booooom your account is closed haha.
hope they realise that jokers are no good deal for poker

Yeah that's what made the situation feel incredibly helpless. When we got the third email, Box sent an email asking for evidence and refuting the result they had come to. 4 days later, literally no reply. Not even confirmation of receiving the email.

In fact, it kind of worries me thinking about what the result may been have been had we not thought to post it here. Because we didn't get **** from Stars until we posted it on this board. It would seriously suck for people to get stuck in this situation with out the knowledge of 2+2.