.

I'm amazed that people are ignorant of "Chinese MMORPG" farmers. Where they have dozens of computers set up and pay people pennies to simply play some role playing game, gathering up in-game resources and selling them on Ebay, and now their own websites.

If they'll do it for online roleplaying games, doesn't it follow that they'll do it at online poker rooms?

Good cheaters at the low limit games can make a fortune.

I understand the concern of seeing a bunch of people from the same area at the table. Many of us remember the Party poker Bergen group that looked fairly sketchy.

As far as the Changle/Fuzhou folks go, it seems like Stars is on top of the situation, and from what I've observed it doesn't seem like they are squeezing other players, at least at the full tables I am usually at. I can't speak to what goes on HU at the higher limits where 1 or 2 of them always seem to be hanging out.

They do play aggressively and somewhat unorthodox; some of them seem to love to raise on 3rd with dead cards and they will keep coming with hands weaker than you might think. I've learned to make thin value calls with some that simply try to bet you off.

According to my PT stats, they are not doing all that well. Then again, most of them are net losers to me when we are at the table together.

It's good that posters are keeping track of things like this, and I hope that if anyone has some substantial evidence that they are acting in a coordinated manner that is brought forth. But if we don't have any solid HH showing something amiss, it is not useful to make accusations simply because they are from the same area.

Shauna

Im not very active in PS but played there last fall and now this spring in Stud 1/2 and 2/4.

So that in mind i dont claim to know more than others but i remember that same conversation about Changle boys year ago in stud table chat screens.
Back then i defended them against accusations just because my gut feeling.. based of that i quess PS have investigated those players very closely long time, last fall people say in chat that they have reported them to PS support, so PS staff sure know about those conserns players have long time.

What i mean with this is that those speculations about cheaters in Pokerstar tables sure hurt bisness and im sure PS do everything they can to inspect those claims and ban Changle guys in a second if they found even small amount of foul play.

Second thing why my opinion they are not cheating is that like someone already said above in China it has been huge industry to just play online role playing computer games and grind gold/money in those games and then sell it on Ebay and other places for real dollars, and those places are like factories where people work like 8-12 hours shift and just collect "money" in online computer games!
So that in mind it would not be nothing to think that some day those "factory" owners turn their eyes on Online Poker and teach their workers to play poker for them.

Two things i agree with those of you who are suspicious about them there seem to be lot more of them this spring considering when i last played 6-8months ago.
Also i have noticed same that several of them who play sometimes with me 1/2 or 2/4 tables could be hours later highest 10/20 or 30/60 tables, thats something odd.

And finally China is huge country where BIG internet boom is not yet happened so we should expect to see lot more of chinese players in tables (coming years).

Thank you and sorry if there is lot spelling errors i'm not native english speaker

Anyone have any info on

bodymoon,win7cardwin7car,stopercooR

These guys are on full tilt,and fit all criteria for being the changle players.I cant stress how bad collusion could be in stud,and the fact that I have been watching tonights 10-20 game for about 30 mins,after playing for 15 mins,and there has not been one showdown between these players.These guys are super aggro too,and have plenty of showdowns,just not between each other,hum.

I read this thread a long time ago,and think it was confirmed that they play from the same ip,and may be multiplaying/accounting.

I see these same people,just today,play 50c-1,then play up to 30-60 later.

Pleased to be writing full tilt,let them look at it.

Bump

Don't know about FT, as I play on Stars.

But as a side note, since Stars went to the no all-in, I haven't had the Changle boys disconnect once.

The success of these "Changle gangs" from early 2007 until summer 2008 was based on systematic all-in abuse. There were several groups doing this. Disconnection all-in protection feature was finally removed from the Pokerstars software in August 2008.

Please remember that many players from China did not break the rules, or didn't have any link to these cheaters. Some of these honest guys were very strong stud players.

All-in abuse can be a very powerful way to cheat in 7 card stud. I assume it can earn the cheater up to 5 big bets / 100 hands, if all the others in the ring play honestly. I base this estimate on how much the low stakes players cashed out. (This extra 5 BBs by the way could make a rather primitive bot profitable, I have a pet conspiracy theory about this, I may post it later.)

Early 2008 these Chinese accounts were under extensive review as you can see in the beginning of this thread, but Pokerstars staff focused on collusion suspicions, all-in abuse wasn't taken seriously. And collusion did not happen between Chinese players, quite the opposite, they always played aggressive against each other.

Many of the players (proper term would be "accounts" - no reason to think they all were different players) lost their all-in privileges from time to time, but these were again returned by request, sometimes multiple times for same offender.

Losing the privileges permanently was no catastrophe either, Pokerstars accepted any new player who could send a scan of ID card, no matter how close the link to an existing cheater was. There are plenty of people in China, maybe some of them are willing to borrow their ID card for a chicken.

Sometimes lively debates ensued between Pokerstars workers, some of us would have wanted to force stricter rules on these obvious cheaters, but usually the ones supporting sloppy management policy won.

Not only did they play from same ip address, the money transactions were a bit unusual too. One account did all the deposits and cashouts, then transfers were done between the accounts of the same gang.

Sometimes these groups would accuse each others of all-in abuse, but some groups seemed to have mutual understanding that it wasn't in anybody's interest to rock the boat.

And they were actually very clever at jumping through the loopholes, the all-in privilege could be returned to an account that hadn't played a hand after losing the all-ins, hence there wasn't anything in the database. Sometimes an account that got the all-ins back would first go to $1/2 table to disconnect a couple of full houses for alibi, then move up to $30/60 and make some money.

After management finally accepted the problem, and decided to remove the all-in protection, I took the liberties and banned the most obvious group who had seven or eight accounts, all winning stud players playing from the same ip address. These were really juggling with their accounts, action always happened with an account that had the all-in privileges. Their account notes looked like a battleground too, with some colleagues writing stuff like "Please don't return all-ins to this cheater", followed by a happy note from another poker specialist: "All-in's restored as per request."

Two weeks silence, then a new account appeared, and started playing and all-in abusing from the same ip address.

I then asked Game Security management if I may close this one too, but they forwarded the case to Multi-accounting team. In a couple of days the answer came: There is no real evidence of this account being a duplicate. I went and closed it anyway, but the boss was a bit grumpy, as the player had passed the test (and I quote) "with flying colours."

Unfortunately as the end result of the August 2008 change somebody also decided to put the honest players to a "Related user group", which means they aren't allowed to play in same cash table. That practically put them out of action in the mid-stakes stud games on Pokerstars.

Most of the clear all-in abusers were not punished in any way, but they may have moved on to some other site which still has the all-in protection.

By the way, many accounts have number 168 in them, doesn't mean they are from the same group. It's just a very lucky number in China.

They are all but gone from Stars.

i hope i am not grunching, but i just found this thread.

my wife and her family are from chang le. i have been to the city 3 times in the last 8 years.

it is surrounded by repressed and depressed populations that should not be counted as part of the 680,000 people. part of the population lives in apartment buildings without walls, other concrete stuctures and makeshift homes. they do not have running water in much of chang le, and there is an open sewer system (meaning that in most of the area, you s.h.i.t and pee in a hole in the floor in homes AND public restaurants).

there IS a part of chang le that is much more developed than the rest. it is comprised of new structures and full services, but amount to nothing more than internet businesses that range from the legit (trading) to the illegal (scams, bonus whoring AND poker teams). the people that work in these new structures are the same people that live in some of the crude homes. they are stepping up the ladder thru the intertubes.

also, there is a HUGE presence in chang le of communist military. the hotel i stay in is the official hotel for the visiting communist partyofficials who regularly come to collect their piece of the action. this city is completely isolated from fuzoh, which is the closest actual developing city (mostly manufacturing). once you leave the fuzoh airport to travel into chang le, you have entered a dark and dirty world of south china.

when in chang le, i have been harassed and questioned every time i visit. the huge local troop population is deeply connected with the newly developing internet activities.

cliff's: chang le is a scuzzy little criminal, communist city. there is ZERO chance there are legit poker enthusiasts there. ZERO. it is not really developed, and you can be assured that EVERY SINGLE chang le player knows each other and are connected. 100% sure.

maybe 2% of the population of chang le speak english. i would say that is consistent for all of south china, not to include the island of hong kong or the mainland city of guanzoh.

i don't know about northern mainland.

Seven, is this the case? I haven't played on stars in over a year, these guys still around? Any updates?
FTP has had more players from China, but truthfully they are lol bad, and are complete atm's. I don't think they are the same guys though, one reason is that a 15-30 players plays that, and a 3-6 plays 3-6. Not like on stars where the same screen name would play 30-60 then 1-2 later, or vice versa.

This is a bump of an old thread FYI for everyone.

God I wish poker would catch on in China. Those Changle players were a different story though.

Oh, and this.

There are still players around from Chang Le or other near-by spots. Mainly playing in 2/4 and up.

The no-all in disconnect policy of Stars has eliminated their biggest edge, which was pulling the plug in key spots. They now disconnect at less than 1% of what they used to (funny how their connections improved!).

I have found the main difference now as opposed to 2 years ago, is that like you have found, each player has more unique stats. Before they all shared similar stats and playing style. Clearly there were groups, but I never thought they conspired during hands after researching it, only that they pulled the plug.

Now one player might be at 20%, and another at 32%. It seems likely to me that they are now individuals on each account, as opposed to accounts that were likely shared.

The Chang Le group has had a history of hyper-aggresiveness, and when two or three play on a table, many feel as if they are being cheated (raised out, getting sandwiched between raisers), but I have found that not to be the case. They raise each other out of pots just as much as I get *trapped*, and they play hands against me that they never would if they were sharing hole cards- (37)3 and (73)7 in one case against my raising aces.

So there are many Chang Le players, but they are no dummies. They have exploitable holes, but unless you are comfortable 3 and 4 betting with them, they will dictate when the money goes in.

I never got back to this thread this year until now. the post from apparatchik is good stuff. It seems too detailed in many ways to be fake, but obv one has to have a little skepticism because hi it's the internet.

fwiw this thread was amazing even though short lived.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...doubts-395814/

Thanks Ape. There is actually a chain of posts, starting with the one you posted. Interesting and a good read.

yeah it gets almost surreal when you get to the LO8 thread.

I wanted to drop a comment since I am here.

Still, when I occasionally play stud on pokerstars, sooner or later tables will fill up with "new" and old Changle warehouse* accounts, which used to cheat us and/or is still cheating us, and make the games unplayable**.

Pokerstars does not seem to care on fixing the false locations of the old accounts(which many dissapeared, or recycled in my opinion), and even allows the new accounts to change their location to something unrecognisable, to confuse the other players and hide thier identity, something which I had several conversations with the pokerstars team in the past and pleaded with them to place emphasis on, but they seem to show negligence and uninterest on this part.

Thank you apparatchik for your contribution, honesty and willingness to tell us of your experiences with the pokerstars team. I believe your post was appreciated by any intelligent poker player that cares about the ethical part of the game, and verifys the greediness of companies to manipulate their customers for greater profits. I have no doubt that post #283 is anything but genuine, along with the other posts this user has made, and I can not see the pokerstars management team disputing it either, therefore please reread this post to gain a better understanding of Internet Poker.


*warehouse; Pokerstars, as well as ex-pokerstars' employees, imply that there are "several groups" of "players" from that specific region in China, however, in my opinion, they base their implications on some IP addresses/ISP security checks and, some scanned identification documents they received by e-mail from China to the Isle of Man. I'd like to also say that, at the time it was mentioned that pokerstars only employeed "one" person(which I have reasons to believe he was not acting in the best interests of his company or its customers) that could communicate with these "group/s" in their language, therefore I can say that we are still unsure how many of these groups actually exist or whether they are all acting under the same umbrella.

**unplayable; at the begining of this thread a post made by apefish, pointed out intelligently, how it is possible for a group of players to skew the game conditions towards their style of play.
I have to quote this "again":

Great post once more apefish, I have to admit this is on top of the list of useful things I have learned reading this forum.

I would like to apologise to those that have expected me to come up with hand histories that would prove 2 players were playing only the best hand or raising people out of pots to indicate that we were/are cheated in more than 1 way on pokerstars. All-in disconnect abuse has been going on for years and pokerstars has been looking the other way while acknowledging the wrong-doing.

"Obviously, it is clear now that, an operation in China has been stealing from innocent poker players for many years, and pokerstars as a company has been unable to protect the interests of its customers and in some cases supported the criminal activities."

It was not possible to find the hands everyone wanted to see. I gave up looking through enormous databases to spot one or two of these hands, if they existed, that could have been easily deemed as irrelevant and definetely not a significant sample, however, there is now one more collusion factor you all should start considering;

"having a preconceived plan of playing more overall hands with members of a team would have a "natural" influence on the game that is tantamount to collusion in that it's planned."

In my opinion this is the 2nd most obvious way that we were cheated, based on my analysis of these group's style of play, and their ability to have greater winrates when 2 or more have been on a table, cleraly indicates the above.

If you run some simulations (you can use twodimes.net) you may get a clearer idea, of how a strong hand in stud, i.e. player A starts with 2 aces, becomes an underdog, when more than 1 semi-weak hands enter the pot, and his ev decreases after each street. Player's A ev gets to ~25-30% against 3 other players and on 3rd street a hand like a good 3-to-a-straight becomes a favourite to win against player A and 2 others. etc.etc. The are many cases where 6 and even 7 accounts from Changle were spotted on an 8-handed stud table on pokerstars.



I lost interest at a point, even lost the contents of an e-mail account I had, but now rereading this thread I am glad it was started and has raised awareness on another grey area in poker. Looking back we have some great contributions, and I can now see that most of the negativity on this subject came from current pokerstars employees or people associated with pokerstars one way or another.

I know, in the future, more people will come along and pursue this case, and more people will share their experiences, to help us understand better this situation and act appropriately when time and situation allows us.


To sum up;

I wanted to post these usernames in the past but did not for several reasons, so here are most of the accounts I have been noting down and have not deleted from this notepad when somebody cleared my suspicions being one of them.

As I said in the previous post when I gave a list of suspected usernames;
"Note: apologies to anyone who feels incriminated by the list and is not, I am just giving out what I have and have been given by other players with suspicions"
(Your name can be deleted if its in this list and you would like to have it deleted)

(sorry for the format, random notepad file, some user accounts are repeated from my previous post (#75)on the accounts)

yanduanzhang, zxcvbnm58

asdfghjkll(zxc), win-king-win, pfokok, yimei520, xiaobendan

poiuytrewq32, lkjhgfdsaaa(X), bowenpc

hatofu22(recently changed to --> chytontpo), puother77, wanoh22, foent22

woetfh77(chigreur)(X)(back), hopefi22(lousejin)(X)

wuopfe77(chigreur)(X), hetokf22(kieng)

heopon22(ning de)(X)

wenopo77(vhesi), waoto22(condecr), wufeit77(shanghai)

chenn22(XX), wpoten77(XX), wpho22(kehur)



0ther:

asdfgh22(fujian)(ftwrdf), fujianplayer(philadelphia), fujianliu(amherst)(changed to Rockville), lehuapannn(fuqing), linbin(fuzhou)(sydney), NUOQI(jianxi)

MoreyOne918(fuzhou), pokeriqq(fu jian), luckyyzwin(fuzhou)(changed to changle), pxc666(fuzhou), pcg888(fu zhou), happy11999(fujian), didi350002(fuzhou), panly0112(fuzhou)

mestari77



boybaby168(fuzhou), citibank336(fujian)



pmd2386(woburn), st2278(szeged), litter101010(tiffin)?,

dutch78(utrecht)(changed to vleuten)



dss66(MK), st2278(szeged)

yigu88(taibei), zilla88(dedham), fashion88(markham)


sung8855(lakewood), xlionx666, inoue666,

kittybear773(markham),perfumlily(markham), rutzpunk(markham)

soldatti(buenos aires), yojorge(buenos aires), condorandino(buenos aires)

ale67(bs as)

rostofly(hpmcogk), schmuck(rough and ready), goli718(ramat hasaron)

ferth22(chang le), rule999(changle)

penniwize666(dundee), bazz1027(dundee)

ssm1(staten island)



kissyao389(Fuzhou)

shou66(wy), winstar888(wa)
chen1013(kaohsuing), shouming(kaohsuing)

daxun510(beijing)

pokervvv(fu jian)



myggff66(shensshon)

richhonored(jian yang), saomei(chang chun)

vicotssv(nsyvi)

huangjing158(fuzhou)

bettenyearmj(fuzhou)



blindboy0701(taipei)


bostonwonwon(usa)

shou66(wy)

hgllqnk88(jjdoisi)


supermanqin(fuzhou)

ferth22(hotkm)

betbetlingpi(fuzhou)


pokeroldmanl(fuzhou)

pokley369(chengle)

teregp(changle)

keknow865(changle)

aserpoge536(fu zhou city)


cheroot333(W.s)


lee2168(shang)

panbao789987(chanle)
shengli33

heospn23(fuio)

win7cardwin(N/A)

cashmoney-JL(N/A)

kongfusns_PK(F.Z.CITY)-->(FUZHOU CITY)

good hand2(wuhan)

can222(flushing)

huang88(

pospo888

gambling_ps(fuzhou)

boss8878(in chinese)

kurtbora10(kukmim)

bigbankllc(wyomissing)


great khann (n.k.)

roadhouse (omfg)

zhu2008(xiamen)


beijingyu2008(fuzhou)

wherk808(fuzhou)

boss8878()

mnbvcxz168(chang le shi)


laohupilin(fuzhou)

psgameps(fuzhou)

chevy22(pekin)

HXCHUN(YANPINGQU)

wherk808(fuzhou)

muge168(nanping)

ddfbl(quanzhou)

smysni(Jingshan)

xueli1982(chang le)

coleep22(fuzhou)

genie-ld(xy)

doctorlan(fuzhou)

honeypoker88(chang le)

charley5588(fujian)

rocket168(jinan)

dss66(mount kisco)

YU_Ying(fongshan city)

pokern777(pa)

honeykissyou(chang le)

doctorlan(fuzhou)

aakk168(Las vegas)

lee2168(ld)

COOL0822(fuzhou)

seanpsp111(changle)

tyspker(changle)

wherk808(fuzhou)

changehao(zhishan)

yuxilin888(jersey city)

yimei77(changle)

aakk168(las vegas)

wenwen520 (changle)

farsinghtedme (lingou)

qiaoxiahe (washington)

genie-kl (xy)

doc L. (watchung)

aakk168 (las vegas)

guojinhe (washington)

colleen99 (brutonsville)

dss66(mounts kisco)

guanghui (elmhurst)

qazwsxedcc (asdf)

loveGLM (ningjin)

babe158 ((...))

elbinbin (new york)

babel58(fuzhou)

jk168(quincy)

good hand2 (wuhan)

happinessdo (fuzhou)

rgy33333 (fuzhou)

shoalsrox (shoals)??were playing on the same table

cundiff$$ (shoals)??

ljycl (changle)

cecilhar (changle)

ying77 (fujian)

feng520 (fujian)

weilaicqw (sydney)

zhongguolong

sunday888 (hy)

qwert1973(sumqayit)

wenwen520 (changle)

win4656win (wuping)

sduong80 (methuen)

backhamcall(chang le)

oeherkd (scarborough)?

ponz111 (kankakee)?

fjc222 (monroe)?

hag81467 (niantic)

gigim1111 (lemoyne)

fashion88 (markham)

xiaoxiao777(changleshi)

rgy33333(fuzhou)

huang99 (fujian)

missok_99 (fuzhou)

yalym (fu jian sheng)

wintheday168 (wap)

yalym (fu jian sheng)

faros88 (Nuuk)

xinzhiyan110 (fuzhou)

dsaq99 (fujiang)

josonplays (fuzhou)

happy1520 (fuzhou)

pokerwomder (fuzhou)

donghui723 (fuzhou city)

luckyhuang (china)

farsightedme (linghou)

icebookman (foochow)

wang813 (fujian))


--------------------
sophie8228 (chang le)

danile 1 (sydney)

lailai228 (fujian)

godgamble777 (fuzhou)

AK47killyou (fuzhou)

pcg888 (Fu zhou)

laohupilin (Fuzhou)

skykong558 (Fuzhou)

qwerty678 (Fujian)

weiweijie (changchun)

lulusex (sydney)

lovelystars (minhou)

alsnowman888

pokern777 (PA)

facai530 (fujian)

jixiangruyi (guangzhou)

godgamble777 (fuzhou)

moneylam (changle)

hlovex888 (brooklyn)

bigapplebig (changle)

petorwinner (boston)

handsome777c (quanta..)

Thanks for this post, and it's insight into the city. As someone who would take your word on a lot of things, this was an important post.

EDIT: BTW, this thread, and what is going on with stud at PS, is why I no longer play there and play exclusively at FTP.. Unfounded or not, I'm more comfortable not playing there, and haven't for over a year now.

bump for awareness & Pokerstars inability to defend itself from accusations that has endorsed and supported cheating on their site.

1st page

I approve of this bump/thread. Still the reason I left stars over a year and a half ago.

Just re-read seven's post above and honestly the disconnect abuse was my biggest problem with them also.

Good to hear that that particular issue has been resolved. Anything else is speculation, but I'm glad GrannyMae was able to post his thoughts on the city/population, and his 2c on weather they would have the motive to cheat.

I rest my case;

Some of these players have been showing up in the Stud Hi Lo games recently. Has anyone kept track of this issue in the past year?

I'm somewhat surprised they have not seemed to migrate to full tilt. Maybe it's because 30-60 is the biggest game that runs and even then there is only a couple red chip games to pick from throughout any given day.

From what I've heard though the disconnect issue being fixed killed a ton of their action and I don't know for sure b/c I don't play there but it seems there are either much less of them or they are gone.

Any stud players on PS have anything to add? Is this a non issue these days?