There is probably not much more to add other than more behavioral oddities and account ID's I forgot to list from the past.

I will alert some of the regular players from days past and present that this thread exists and perhaps they will choose to offer some more information.

As a side note, they never appeared to be winning overall against any of the regulars, but they were pains, and you had to keep constantly aware of possible new accounts that knew something about your game even though they appeared to be new to the tables.

They were viewed more as a nuisance, and somehow ruined Stud on PS for a while. It was dead for months.

Alot of the regulars moved on haven't returned. Most found new poker interests.

the shape

Bob

You are right. I may be taking this a bit too far actually so I will slow down a bit.

However, a few points on what you said:

I do find it enjoyable now yes. And I like having fun when playing as well rather than just working even though this started taking time out of the job itself. But then it is part of the job to try and get somebody off the table that I feel could be cheating me and others.
I never said I am loosing from them, in fact I won several thousands from them collectively when I play them individually. I did loose $40 today when I went to play them HU and run that little expereminent of mine but it was part of the plan.
And, yes, we do feel they are ruining the games if what we believe is correct, that these people are probably a group playing and sharing information between them from a single or maybe more rooms. Wouldn't you feel that as well if they were at your games?!


I told people what I do to kick them off them table not to encourage them but just to inform them. We are all grown-ups here and I believe we can judge and act ourselves without having to be influenced by others actions. I gave out information and if people want to take that route they may as well judge themselves if its the thing they would like to do. I never said, listen people, this is what we should start doing. I said to those interested, this is what I do. Lots of people don't like having them on their tables and said so, therefore I informed them of what I do.
You mentioned somewhere that in one of the forums people sit and discuss their opponents and their actions and how they suggest they should play against them. More or less that is what I did and it only involved a way to kick them off the table and not to beat them. I haven't started on the book How to beat the changles yet, but I guess when I do it might even become a best-seller amongst ps stud players.

Please when you have those share them in the thread. they would definetely be a good addition.

No need to say, do that as soon as you possibly can.

QFT

I am not a psychic but I predict that could well be the future in our case.

If they are sharing information about the opponents on Stars then I don't think that is cheating. There are a bunch of 2+2'ers who are discussing how to attack specific opponents as well as general types of opponents all the time.

If they are sharing information within the game itself, sharing hole-cards or whatever, then obviously that is cheating. If they are doing some weird table-hops back and forth as teams or something bizarre like that then that certainly seems in the general area of cheating even if hole-card sharing isn't obvious or provable.

The general point being is that it is all 'hunch' stuff that you have. Albeit a hunch that isn't exactly coming out of nowhere. But it's still a 'hunch' since you have no apparent proof via HH's or whatever....and it's possible that such proof via HH's isn't possible for whatever sophisticated method they might be employing as a couple of posters have suggested.

I would like for Stars to think outside the box and look for how often they sit-in and out of tables...together or not...etc etc.
I would like for them to look at things like similar play and perhaps even try to determine if new players/accounts jumping into games are attacking 'regular' players like yourself in the same way. This shouldn't be impossible to determine although it might be difficult to distinguish between that vs. some new player simply meeting some dudes who play poker who happen to share their starting-card strategy chart with him or something.
I would like stars to really look into whether some of these accounts are 2nd or 3rd accounts from the same user.
They should very much try to determine if some of this internet-cafe playing is the same guy playing 2 different accounts on adjacent computers and take steps to shut that stuff down.
I think they should do a lot of things to try to figure out what the hell is happening because too many people happen to think it just looks too damn goofy/suspicious.

instead of just saying, "They're guilty...it's obvious...we all KNOW it...freaking BAN them already!!"
I'm trying to think, "Well, something looks amiss here but HOW do we prove one way or another that they are cheating or not cheating?"

Something like that anyway.
My hunch is that Stars would be more than willing to ban them all IF they actually found a legitimate reason to that is beyond, "well, the way they come in and out of the tables all the time looks really weird."

Up to them to look at those entrances and exits more closely of course.

I think that the analysis of the HHs has been lacking in the thread. I'm referring to the HHs posted by assimilation in post #136.

In the first HH, it seems to me that the "alleged villain" is facing a very opponent dependent situation - he has a hidden two pair, up against a very dry board. If they were truly collaborating and knew the regular opponents, it seems to me that they would have a very clear idea of how to progress here - either to call (if it was a habitual bluffer/aggressive player) or fold (if it was against a nit).

The second HH seems like another easy call, and hardly something that someone would deliberately disconnect on - the "alleged villain" is up against someone who could very easily have a worse two-pair. With a pair of kings showing, it also seems like an obvious spot for assimilation to be value-raising.

The third HH shows nothing.

The final HH shows the alleged cheater with the effective stone, cold, nuts, hidden and unbeatable, disconnecting. The idea that someone deliberately disconnects in such a situation - to "buy credibility" for other disconnects - seems extraordinary.

Are the disconnects and exits/entrances related?
How many disconnects are you allowed to have? Are you ALWAYS treated as all-in or does it cut you off after your 2nd disconnect or something and then not treat you as all-in anymore?

If that's the case and you can find proof that they are leaving after their 2nd all-in or whatever a high percentage of the time and THEN are being replaced quickly with another changle account then it's possible they are just signed-up with as many changle accounts as they can come up with so that they can get away with disconnecting more.

Whether these disconnects are intentional or unintentional or a combination really doesn't even matter at this point. It's them using multiple accounts to be allowed to have more disconnects during the day.

Maybe they've disconnected so many times that Stars has cut them off at one or two disconnects per day without holding that restriction to other players. So the changle guys simply signed-up more and more accounts to have as many disconnects as they want throughout a day.

All really wild speculation of course and it assumes that they really do table-hop a lot which I'm not even sure of... but whatever.


Regardless of all that stuff...I think you should approach Stars with an attitude of "please remove disconnect-protect from your stud games or at least offer SOME stud games with no disconnect-protection."
You are sick and tired of all the players who disconnect so frequently on the stud games. You know that most of the time it is probably just a bad connection, but it still weirds you out and you are concerned that on the situation when they do try to intentionally disconnect in an advantageous situation it won't end up looking suspicious to Stars because of their previous history of disconnecting.
So you would really like stud to get into the 21st century like hold-em and offer 'no all-in' protection.

Also note that if Stars did remove disconnect-protect then it would be interesting to see what would happen to the changle guys.
If they appear from the very start of the new policy and suddenly have significantly fewer disconnects then I think you have some significant proof right there because it seems unlikely that they would magically fix their crappy connection on that very day. So in such a scenario I think you have proven 'likely' cheating and can make assumptions from there that when they are all playing at an internet-cafe together that maybe they aren't the best about keeping each other from straying their eyes from one screen to another.

I've been requesting for months, perhaps a year, to have additional stud games created that offer a no all-in protection feature. To date I still get the same generic response from pstars.

Hello XXX,

I do understand why you would like to implement this. And, I'm not saying
we can't do it. Only Management has the rights to make these types of
changes. As such, I forwarded your idea onto them.

They will be more than happy to consider your suggestion.


Regards,

Mathew
PokerStars Support Team


and again........



Hello XXX,

Thank you for your email and for allowing us to be of assistance.

We rely heavily on feedback and suggestions from players to gauge the
popularity of our current games and to make decisions on what new games
to introduce.

I have passed your suggestion to Management, as they are in charge of
the ring games we offer.

Please let us know if there is anything else we can assist you with.


Regards,

Mathew
PokerStars Support Team

No all-in protection would certainly address alot of the issues in the stud community and seems like a pretty simple solution to the connection issues. So I guess the question becomes, why would pstars not want to implement this?

Megenoita
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: VA
Posts: 1,945 Re: I'm going to train homeless people to make a living playing poker

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I agree that having them get a regular job would be much easier/better, and from my limited experience talking with the homeless, they are not unemployed because they can't get ANY job, they're unemployed because they can't get the kind of job they WANT. What they need is not poker, but a normal, steady McD's job or w/e.

The variance in poker, even 5c/10c, is very tough, especially on people who are relatively new.

I do think a much better idea would be to go to China or India and start a poker playing factory where you pay the players RB + some profit. There are tons and tons of very intelligent people there that you could teach low limits, it's easy to oversee, and they would be willing to work 8+ hours every day.


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12-17-2007, 10:02 PM #157
Megenoita
old hand


Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: VA
Posts: 1,945 Re: I'm going to train homeless people to make a living playing poker

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In my poker factory program, I would require a 1.5 year commitment where I keep most of their profit, and then after that, they would train one person who, after proving to be a winner, would follow in their footsteps and they could have their own profits minus maybe 10% + RB lifetime.

Case Closed

In the hand where woetfh has aces up on 6th his opponent's range has to include some reasonably large portion of trips.
It would be the perfect time to take a nice cheap showdown by disconnecting. That's what that hand is demonstrating.

edit: saying it would be a clear fold against nit and clear call against a bluffer completely ignores he can get to showdown by disconnecting. the pot is big. if they have a habit of disconnecting advantageously they do it there.
Obviously a single disconnect like that means nothing, but it's a great spot for it and perhaps more importantly someone in the hand can predict it's going to happen- which means they've seen a pattern of it.

Josem, your perception of these HHs seems a bit shallow. I certainly encourage a critical eye but discounting them in your few words seems to demonstrate either a superficial understanding of the hands and the situation or a dogged naysaying stance. Either way, let me try to clarify why these disconnects are so suspect.

PokerStars Game # example 1: 7 Card Stud Limit ($10/$20) - 2008/01/04
Table 'Memoria II' 8-max
Seat 1: quan1212 ($184 in chips)
Seat 2: Bostonwonwon ($611 in chips)
Seat 4: Trams57 ($323 in chips)
Seat 5: me ($152 in chips)
Seat 6: woetfh77 ($400 in chips)
Seat 7: abcddc ($505 in chips)
Seat 8: B Buddy ($250 in chips)
quan1212: posts the ante $1
Bostonwonwon: posts the ante $1
Trams57: posts the ante $1
Trams57 said, "yeah"
me: posts the ante $1
woetfh77: posts the ante $1
abcddc: posts the ante $1
B Buddy: posts the ante $1
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to quan1212 [3s]
Dealt to Bostonwonwon [Tc]
Dealt to Trams57 [7h]
Dealt to me [2s 2h 8d]
Dealt to woetfh77 [As]
Dealt to abcddc [8c]
Dealt to B Buddy [Ac]
quan1212: brings in for $3
Bostonwonwon: raises $7 to $10
Trams57: folds
me: calls $10
kittybear773 joins the table at seat #3
woetfh77: raises $10 to $20
abcddc: folds
B Buddy: folds
quan1212: folds
Bostonwonwon: calls $10
kittybear773 is sitting out
me: calls $10
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to Bostonwonwon [Tc] [4d]
Dealt to me [2s 2h 8d] [Jd]
Dealt to woetfh77 [As] [7c]
woetfh77: bets $10
Bostonwonwon: raises $10 to $20
me: folds
woetfh77: raises $10 to $30
Bostonwonwon: raises $10 to $40
Betting is capped
woetfh77: calls $10
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to Bostonwonwon [Tc 4d] [Qc]
Dealt to woetfh77 [As 7c] [Kh]
Trams57 said, "do you?"
woetfh77: checks
Bostonwonwon: bets $20
woetfh77: calls $20
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to Bostonwonwon [Tc 4d Qc] [3d]
Dealt to woetfh77 [As 7c Kh] [Kc]
woetfh77: bets $20
Bostonwonwon: raises $20 to $40
me said, "time for woetfh to all in chea"
woetfh77 has timed out while being disconnected
woetfh77 is being treated as all-in
*** RIVER ***
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Bostonwonwon: shows [4h 4c Tc 4d Qc 3d Jh] (three of a kind, Fours)
woetfh77: shows [Ad 3h As 7c Kh Kc Kd] (a full house, Kings full of Aces)
woetfh77 collected $227 from pot
woetfh77 is sitting out
Bostonwonwon is sitting out
woetfh77 is disconnected
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $230 | Rake $3
Seat 1: quan1212 folded on the 3rd Street
Seat 2: Bostonwonwon showed [4h 4c Tc 4d Qc 3d Jh] and lost with three of a kind, Fours
Seat 4: Trams57 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 5: me folded on the 4th Street
Seat 6: woetfh77 showed [Ad 3h As 7c Kh Kc Kd] and won ($227) with a full house,
Kings full of Aces
Seat 7: abcddc folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 8: B Buddy folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)

In this first example, Woetfh77 starts with what appears to be split aces and from 4th street on, Bostonwonwon jams the pot. Woetfh77 is announcing loudly "I have the aces" and Bostonwonwon is responding with "I've got that beat" Woet may be thinking at first that he still has the best hand or an easy draw to two bigger pair (if Bostonwonwon is betting two pair) so he is not concerned about getting more money in the pot. When Woet makes open kings on sixth street and Boston still raises him, it becomes blatantly apparent that Boston has trips and Woetfh77 has only four outs (actually three since Buddy B folded a door ace). It is now time to disconnect (hey, zero chance to win the hand if you fold). The fact that I properly assessed the situation during the hand and announced that Woet would disconnect is not to be overlooked as it demonstrates a recognizeable pattern.

PokerStars Game # example two: 7 Card Stud Limit ($10/$20) - 2008/01/02
Table 'Alcyone III' 8-max
Seat 1: TWOSLOT ($508 in chips)
Seat 2: woetfh77 ($272 in chips)
Seat 4: auntem ($670 in chips)
Seat 5: pookiepoker1 ($444 in chips)
Seat 7: me ($234 in chips)
Seat 8: newhouse ($306 in chips)
TWOSLOT: posts the ante $1
woetfh77: posts the ante $1
auntem: posts the ante $1
pookiepoker1: posts the ante $1
me: posts the ante $1
newhouse: posts the ante $1
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to TWOSLOT [8s]
Dealt to woetfh77 [9c]
Dealt to auntem [4s]
Dealt to pookiepoker1 [4h]
Dealt to me [6s Kc Qs]
Dealt to newhouse [9d]
pookiepoker1: brings in for $3
me: calls $3
newhouse: folds
TWOSLOT: calls $3
woetfh77: calls $3
auntem: calls $3
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to TWOSLOT [8s] [5h]
Dealt to woetfh77 [9c] [Ah]
Dealt to auntem [4s] [8c]
Dealt to pookiepoker1 [4h] [Jc]
Dealt to me [6s Kc Qs] [Ks]
woetfh77: bets $10
auntem: folds
pookiepoker1: calls $10
me: calls $10
TWOSLOT: folds
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to woetfh77 [9c Ah] [9s]
Dealt to pookiepoker1 [4h Jc] [Qh]
Dealt to me [6s Kc Qs Ks] [Kh]
TWOSLOT is sitting out
me: bets $20
woetfh77: calls $20
pookiepoker1: folds
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to woetfh77 [9c Ah 9s] [7c]
Dealt to me [6s Kc Qs Ks Kh] [6d]
me: bets $20
woetfh77: raises $20 to $40
me: raises $20 to $60
woetfh77 has timed out while being disconnected
woetfh77 is being treated as all-in
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to me [6s Kc Qs Ks Kh 6d] [Js]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
me: shows [6s Kc Qs Ks Kh 6d Js] (a full house, Kings full of Sixes)
woetfh77: shows [As Qc 9c Ah 9s 7c Ac] (a full house, Aces full of Nines)
woetfh77 collected $168 from pot
woetfh77 is sitting out
woetfh77 is disconnected
don5991 joins the table at seat #3
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $171 | Rake $3
Seat 1: TWOSLOT folded on the 4th Street
Seat 2: woetfh77 showed [As Qc 9c Ah 9s 7c Ac] and won ($168) with a full house,
Aces full of Nines
Seat 4: auntem folded on the 4th Street
Seat 5: pookiepoker1 folded on the 5th Street
Seat 7: me showed [6s Kc Qs Ks Kh 6d Js] and lost with a full house, Kings
full of Sixes
Seat 8: newhouse folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)

In this second example, several of us limpcall the bring-in with fairly weak holdings. Woet and I both immediately improve on fourth street by catching a big pair. On fifth street, the hands go through the roof. I make open kings for trip kings (probably looks like two pair at first) and Woet makes open door nines for aces up. Woet decides to slow play his hand and then goes nuts on sixth street when I complete my fullhouse. Initially, he probably thinks that I don't beleive he has trip nines since one was dead on Newhouse's doorstep and since he didn't raise third street, so he may try to place me on getting aggressive with only kings up. But he has to know that I would consider aces up as a possibility in this case. In fact, by his betting action, Woet is announcing that he has Aces up or better. When I keep firing with my open kings into his board which contains both an ace and a paired door card, it becomes apparent that I hold trip kings or better. This becomes painfully obvious to him and, with one of his nines dead, this seems like an ideal spot to disconnect and save 40 dollars.

Let me also point out that both of the above hands, both very similar situations, happened within a 48 hour time period.

PokerStars Game #14104619490: 7 Card Stud Limit ($1/$2) - 2007/12/26 -
04:11:18 (ET)
Table 'Havnia III' 8-max

Seat 1: NYplayerAZ ($45.90 in chips)
Seat 2: cayenne10 ($30.35 in chips)
Seat 3: camikater ($105.50 in chips)
Seat 5: aquaman29 ($85.35 in chips)
Seat 6: woetfh77 ($56.15 in chips)
Seat 7: swinghard41 ($18.95 in chips)
Seat 8: Two Tight ($39.80 in chips)
NYplayerAZ: posts the ante $0.10
cayenne10: posts the ante $0.10
camikater: posts the ante $0.10
aquaman29: posts the ante $0.10
woetfh77: posts the ante $0.10
swinghard41: posts the ante $0.10
Two Tight: posts the ante $0.10

*** 3rd STREET ***

Dealt to NYplayerAZ [Kh]
Dealt to cayenne10 [8d]
Dealt to camikater [9s]
Dealt to aquaman29 [2c]
Dealt to woetfh77 [Ks Kc Kd]
Dealt to swinghard41 [Qd]
Dealt to Two Tight [2d]
aquaman29: brings in for $0.50
woetfh77: calls $0.50
swinghard41: raises $0.50 to $1
Two Tight: folds
NYplayerAZ: calls $1
cayenne10: folds
camikater: calls $1
aquaman29: calls $0.50
woetfh77: raises $1 to $2
swinghard41: calls $1
NYplayerAZ: calls $1
camikater: calls $1
aquaman29: calls $1

*** 4th STREET ***

Dealt to NYplayerAZ [Kh] [9d]
Dealt to camikater [9s] [4s]
Dealt to aquaman29 [2c] [5c]
Dealt to woetfh77 [Ks Kc Kd] [Jh]
Dealt to swinghard41 [Qd] [7c]
woetfh77: bets $1
ERXOMAI joins the table at seat #4
swinghard41: calls $1
NYplayerAZ: calls $1
camikater: calls $1
aquaman29: calls $1

*** 5th STREET ***

Dealt to NYplayerAZ [Kh 9d] [Qc]
Dealt to camikater [9s 4s] [Tc]
Dealt to aquaman29 [2c 5c] [Td]
Dealt to woetfh77 [Ks Kc Kd Jh] [6d]
Dealt to swinghard41 [Qd 7c] [3s]
NYplayerAZ: checks
camikater: checks
aquaman29: checks

woetfh77 has timed out while being disconnected
woetfh77 is being treated as all-in

swinghard41: checks

*** 6th STREET ***

Dealt to NYplayerAZ [Kh 9d Qc] [8c]
Dealt to camikater [9s 4s Tc] [3c]
Dealt to aquaman29 [2c 5c Td] [9h]
Dealt to woetfh77 [Ks Kc Kd Jh 6d] [6c]
Dealt to swinghard41 [Qd 7c 3s] [Ac]
swinghard41: checks
NYplayerAZ: bets $2
camikater: calls $2
aquaman29: folds
swinghard41: calls $2

*** RIVER ***

Dealt to woetfh77 [Ks Kc Kd Jh 6d 6c] [Th]
swinghard41: bets $2
NYplayerAZ: calls $2
camikater: folds

*** SHOW DOWN ***

swinghard41: shows [7h Jc Qd 7c 3s Ac Qh] (two pair, Queens and Sevens)
NYplayerAZ: mucks hand
swinghard41 collected $9.75 from side pot
woetfh77: shows [Ks Kc Kd Jh 6d 6c Th] (a full house, Kings full of Sixes)
woetfh77 collected $14.95 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $25.70 Main pot $14.95. Side pot $9.75. | Rake $1
Seat 1: NYplayerAZ mucked [9c 8h Kh 9d Qc 8c Ah]
Seat 2: cayenne10 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 3: camikater folded on the River
Seat 5: aquaman29 folded on the 6th Street
Seat 6: woetfh77 showed [Ks Kc Kd Jh 6d 6c Th] and won ($14.95) with a
full house, Kings full of Sixes
Seat 7: swinghard41 showed [7h Jc Qd 7c 3s Ac Qh] and won ($9.75) with two
pair, Queens and Sevens
Seat 8: Two Tight folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)

Josem says: (Sorry I'm new to this and don't know how to reply to quotes so they are highlighted while at the same time continuing with my own reply. Thus the bold and italics etc. to differentiate text) "The final HH shows the alleged cheater with the effective stone, cold, nuts, hidden and unbeatable, disconnecting. The idea that someone deliberately disconnects in such a situation - to "buy credibility" for other disconnects - seems extraordinary."

When Pstars investigates someone for disconnect abuse they look at the body of disconnects and then for specific hands where the person in question may have disconnected favorably (for themselves) and unfavorably (for themselves). Examples of the former would obviously be suspicious and examples of the latter would redeem the player. Anyone who has ever questioned Pstars about disconnect abuse knows this. The interesting part about this rolled kings hand is that there was very little action in the hand (i.e. no other agressors to build the pot) and, most importantly, the hand occurred at 1/10 of the limit of the suspect disconnects shown above. Please remember, Pokerstars sent the rolled kings hand history to me as absolving data for Woetfh77. For someone making a business of cheating, this is an absolutely perfect Red Herring. If Pokerstars can show me a hand like that involving Woetfh77 in a high limit in a big pot, then I will certainly reconsider my hypothesis.

Pokerstars makes a big deal about their "Team Pokerstars," when it comes to media circus acts at their EPT events, let one of their Team's stud experts like Greenstein or McEnvoy comment on whether these are suspect disconnects.

Regarding the other HH summary and additional HH s. Here is the latest I have gotten from Pokerstars regarding my HH requests.

First they tried to tell me that I entered bunk HH #s. Now this:

Thank you for your reply.

I am sorry but we are having issues with our archive hand history database
at this point in time. Please be patient and I will attempt to retrieve
these hand histories as soon as possible for you.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Regards,

Richard
PokerStars Support Team

Hopefully I will have more HHs soon.

Wow, folks. This kind of stuff takes a lot of time. My respects to all of you (Josem included) for taking the time to follow this thread and contribute your opinions and observations.

Here's another tidbit that addresses an issue which both Hard8 and MicroBob alluded to.

I reported a Changle Gang player wanoh22 (note the 22 at the end of the name and I just confirmed he/she/it is from Changle using the money transfer method) for all-in cheating this past October. Here is my response from Pokerstars.

Thank you for bringing the play of 'wanoh22' to our attention. After
reviewing the play of this individual, I agree that the timing and
nature of this player's disconnects can be deemed suspicious. While
we can never be 100% certain that 'wanoh22' was intentionally
disconnecting, these disconnects are disruptive to our games and may
represent a threat to the integrity of our games. In response, I have
notified this player that his or her all-in privileges are being
suspended for a period of one month. Hopefully, this player will no
longer suffer such numerous disconnects in the future.

The help of players like yourself is integral to maintaining the
integrity of our games on PokerStars. If you see any further
suspicious activity from this individual or any other player, please
contact Support so that we can investigate and take action.

Thank you again for letting me be of assistance, and I hope you
continue to enjoy playing at PokerStars.

Regards,

Simon L
PokerStars Support Team

I have not seen this handle in the stud rooms since. Has anyone else? My assumption was/is that this account is no longer being used by the Changle Gang since this account no longer has all-in protection.

wanoh22 has gone over the wall and is considered to be MIA

Firstly, thank you MB once more. Most definitely solid arguments which need to be addressed.



Thankfully, assimilation took the time to reply to your comments and I don’t have to get into that as well. This does take a lot of time indeed. I decided to come back to this thread yesterday and I played only 800 hands as opposed to around 5K I log day-in day-out. Thank you assimilation, I agree 100% with your comments. As I said those 2 first hands are definitely cases of selective disconnect abuse.
Oh, even apefish replied to your analysis with the following, thank you too ape:



Extraordinary huh?!
Reply in email:

Hello xxxxxx,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We take the integrity of our
games very seriously and welcome every opportunity to ensure that they are
played fairly and honestly.

I have reviewed xiaobendan's account and connection record for the past
month looking for evidence of all-in abuse.

In cases of all-in abuse we look specifically for two things. 1) A high
number of disconnections and 2) A large percentage of disconnections in
favourable situations.

In this player's case, his number of disconnections is off the chart -
incredibly high. However, most if not all of these disconnections occur in
situations which are either neutral (have no effect on the hand) or
detrimental to the player (because they disconnect with a strong hand). I
saw one hand, for example, where xiaobendan was unable to bet the river with
an ace-high flush because they were disconnected.

I don't believe that this player is disconnecting on purpose. We have
therefore offered to help the player to improve the quality of his
connection and our technical specialists will work with him to ensure that
this problem can be rectified. Hopefully, this will prevent any further
disruption to the games.

Once again, thank you for giving us the opportunity to ensure fairness at
our tables. If you have any questions, please let us know.


Regards,

Alex S
PokerStars Support Team

These people really know what they are doing.

Furthermore, 2 players I have reported in the past for disconnect abuse and had their privileges removed, “chaohei” and “thenutzinyou”, I have not seen in the games since. I am not certain they are related with the changles, just an addition. If you need the emails let me know.



To be honest I don’t know. I neglected to ask anyone that question. Does anyone know the answer to that?



(Sorry about this mb, sometimes I really can not hold myself)
I have declared my dog wanoh22 as missing some time ago. To anyone who spots him and returns him back I am willing to offer a reward of $25.
This ends up costing me money finally. $40 yesterday and probably another $25 to follow for the time being, and much more from not being able to play my games properly. I hope ps writes some of those off when they are through with this.

I hope Stars isn't looking solely at results like not being able to bet a flush when determining whether a disconnection is advantageous or not.
If that flush came in after a disconnect it has a whole different context than if he had a made flush and disconnected before being able to bet it.

I hope they are looking at the overall context of the disconnects- when, what limits, how often, etc, and not simply for a couple instances where it isn't advantageous to make a determination that abuse isn't happening.

I concur that "thinking outside the box"/ the bigger picture is much more likely to be revealing than any particular hand.

ape - if they are looking at a hand where he made a flush AFTER disconnecting and think that it must not have been intentional as a result then they are truly morons.
I give them a bit more credit than that.

However, the e-mails posted from their support about some of them having their disconnect privleges taken away are definitely pretty interesting. In light of the fact that it seems such a player who no longer has DP isn't seen on the tables after that. So all these new accounts show up and evidently disconnect all the time? That doesn't strike Stars as weird and suspicious? That the guy who had his DP taken away isn't playing anymore and that a new player has taken his place, is playing pretty much the same, and is disconnecting a ton right where the previous account left off?


Other guys want to say that these guys are really quite sharp. But if this is what they are doing then I disagree. This is not exactly subtle.


So Stars looked at a guy's disconnections and determined that a majority of them happened when it was break-even or to his detriment. Are they REALLY looking at the HH's and the reasons they could be disonnecting this much?
What percentage of the hands are neutral and what percentage are to his detriment?
And how does that necessarily prove that some of the ones where he is doing it to his advantage or even the ones that they deem neutral aren't really intentional ones.

I have to wonder whether some of the ones that Stars deemed neutral were TRULY neutral. I know that I could look at some stud HH's and make some judgements about whether they were neutral disconnects or not and I would probably be wrong compared with the opinions of real stud experts much of the time. So I'm hoping they are giving them more than a once-over and are truly trying to figure out what is happening in the hand.
Especially combining the opinion of the disconnect WITH the possibility that they are getting hole-card sharing type info from another changle member at the table.

Not saying that this is definitely happening. But when you make a judgement about the HH as being neutral then you need to say, "Wait...lets see here. What if they knew the hole-cards of this other changle guy at the table? Would that make his disconnect more advantageous?"

Also, for a lower variance method I think that disconnecting can end up being better even in a neutral situation but that's just a hunch I have as a non-stud player.


I know that Stars support aren't a bunch of idiots so the ideas that I'm proposing should be kind of obvious and hopefully they have really studied this stuff similar or better to the way that I am suggesting.
But i definitely am hearing warning bells about this when I hear, "so-and-so hasn't been seen since I got that letter about his disconnect-protect being removed. But 5 more accounts from his town magically appeared the very next day."
That's just weird and definitely suspicious.


Now maybe all these disconnects are just bad connection with the very rare advantageous disconnect that they know they can take because they've already established themselves for their awful connection. But even if they are ALL unintentional and that's the only thing happening here then I think taking away DP from stud tables is an obvious remedy. And I also think the possibility that some of the players who have had DP removed have stopped playing and have started new accounts is kind of obvious.

Stars obviously needs to look at the names of people who have lost their DP privleges and see how many of them have EVER played a hand there again after losing such privleges. And then needs to go from there to identify which of the accounts made shortly after the removal might be new.

Bob- you said many of the things I didn't go into detail about but was thinking.

I also give stars more credit than being so simple in analyzing a hand. But one never knows and I think it was worth mentioning. I could be wrong on that.

That said- it seems an instance of not being able to value bet a flush was given as proof that abuse can't be taking place- which is exactly the box we hope any investigation doesn't get trapped inside.
Are "neutral disconnects" in pots with dead money neutral?
I have to wonder how they are using that term. I hope correctly- but it's another thing to take another look at.

So I was mostly saying the obvious hoping that the obvious isn't what level that email is operating on, and encouraging more thinking along the lines you wrote about.

Right, I'm really hoping they aren't missing some of the truly obvious angles of this and I can't believe I'm even pointing it out. I mean, I'm truly not THAT freaking smart and I don't even know my way around stud in the least so I understand that my theories are incredibly basic and were hopefully the super-obvious things that Stars already looked at.
But from the tone and content of some of the e-mails that have been posted in various places in this thread I really start to wonder. Going all the way back to the e-mail where Stars explains that these guys never played any tournaments together and they only looked at apparently the original 4 members' cash-game hands without identifying all the others from changle or whatever that was being speculated about early in the thread.

Stars should also have the cash-out history and transfer-history of these guys so should be able to look even more deeply.
If the guy who had his DP taken away cashed-out his $3000 in his account or transferred it all to somebody else then that should be pretty obvious too.

I still want to give them the benefit of the doubt that they truly looked in all the right places and couldn't find anything and that the e-mails are more of the standard form-response and aren't truly reflective of the depth of their investigation.

I think the crux of the dilemma facing us is becoming very apparent to at least a few of you.

First of all, it is very clear to those of us involved that there has been multi-user abuse and disconnect abuse by the Changle players. We suspect there may be more significant collusion but simply cannot provide conclusive evidence of that without full account information, IP addresses, cashier transaction records and complete hand histories.

Secondly, our inquiries to Pokerstars have been met mostly with form letter responses and there does not appear to have been any effort to implement a thorough investigation of all Changle-related abuses and the potential connections amongst suspected players. Hitherto, it appears that each complaint has been handled primarily as an isolated incident.

Thirdly, in the cases where our emails have prompted the revocation of all-in privileges of one particular handle, that handle seems to instantly give birth to at least one, and sometimes more than one, new Changle handle(s).

Regarding the intellects involved: These guys are clearly smart/organized enough to understand the landscape they are working in. And lets face it; they've gotten away with this for years.

I would like to firmly reiterate that this is not a high stakes NL HE collusion ring that is trapping some poor victim for $250,000 in a single session. This is a low-limit to mid-limit scam that is slowly but surely milking their angle for a sum that, cumulatively, might actually be quite significant. Whether they are using that illegally-garnered monetary edge to generate profit or to pay for the negative EV of their skillset is not the concern.

assim - mostly agree.
And I like your use of the word 'hitherto'.


Regarding your 'thirdly' part: Are there other players whom you have knocked out of the disconnect-protect realm?
Anybody else have a similar e-mail?
assim seems to imply that this has happened more than with just that guy. But we have only seen the one e-mail.

Anybody who knows of any changle players whose DP has been removed should post those e-mails from Stars and then all can compare how much that player has been seen after that, the appearance of new players shortly after that, etc etc.

Just saying, "Hey, we get one guy's DP removed and then another one shows up" is only part of this.
Lets see dates and names of who has had their DP removed.

I'm kind of surprised it took this long into the thread to officially point the finger at even ONE of the changle guys who had his DP removed on X date and hasn't been seen since evidently.
Also surprised it was taking so long to see HH's.

Obviously Stars can verify that any posted e-mails on here are legit. But with a team-effort I think you guys should be able to detect a pattern a bit better and determine approximate start-dates, end-dates, stakes playerd, etc for many of the changle accounts.
Then taking those accounts and looking at their history of disconnects....plus looking at any e-mails to Stars support where their DP has been removed...could yield some interesting results.

Holding back e-mails and HH's seems weird to me.
Obviously this is something that Stars should be doing on their own. But if you guys really want to combine their efforts and also try to get to the bottom of this then I think even more openness about the HH's and e-mails might be helpful.



If I'm wrong in that assessment and you guys think there are better reasons to NOT post more of this stuff then feel free to make that argument.
They aren't my HH's and maybe I wouldn't feel so hot posting all these different hands and e-mails I got from Stars either. Just saying that from an outsider's standpoint like mine of trying to help and/or believe you guys it's kind of difficult to do when a lot of the evidence given is mostly "they're just weird and up to no good. you can just tell."

Just a handful of e-mails and HH's towards the tail-end of this thread so far has given me a much better picture of what I think could be happening here.

to follow-up on that thought I guess I just don't get some of you guys at all.

At the beginning of this there was even reluctance to post the town they were from or the names of the accounts.
As well as reluctance to post the e-mails from Stars support.

If this were me and I were as certain as you guys seem to be that they are cheating in the games somehow/anyhow then I would be far more open with it and trying to combine my resources with others to figure out what exactly they were doing.

But getting you some of you guys to spill over one little bit of info at a time feels kind of like pulling teeth.
I know it's probably cumbersome to go back through all your HH's and find the suspicious ones as well as go back through all your e-mails and find the ones from Stars I guess...although they do have ways of sorting your e-mails I believe.

But the insistence that something definitely feels wrong there combined with the reluctance to show the examples and, at first, even share the names, just seems so different than the way I would be doing it I guess.

But it's not me this is happening to and perhaps I'm just frustrated that as an outsider I don't get the same 'feel' that you guys do and I was just curious what you were all talking about.

Ok guys,

Before I get to what you have posted above, something tad strange happened just now. Remember the emails I posted regarding my city change. I'll quote:


Now, I tried to initiate a transfer with one of the usernames I gave ps as fictional/changed cities displayed, to verify whether they have changed their cities back to changle.
So, I tried hopefi22(lousejin)(as I said you should google that city, what you get is just 1 result directing to this thread). When I initiated the transfer a pop-up indicated that the player is not eligible to receive a real money transfer. And I have not seen that player on the site since I sent the above email to ps.

Is there something here?

taotao - that could be Stars in action.
Could be a lot of other things too I guess but it does strike me as potentially significant.

I forgot to mention something in regards to the above email.

Firstly, I doubt this to be the case or else it would be really stupid on their part to give me the above example as a legitimate disconnect by the user.


What I wanted to add is, 7stud(on ps) is a limit game, hence it would be wise for someone who has a made flush to disconnect in such a situation in order to get credibility for other disconnects in the future/past, as the maximum he/she can lose in such a scenario by not being able to bet, would be one extra bb by each player still involved in the hand, by disconnecting.

Furthermore, if his made flush involves 4 open suited cards visible to all players he might not even get that 1 extra bb from some other player, and on the other hand if someone caught a full-house by any chance, the user in question would get to see the end of the hand without investing 2 extra bb(possibly 4) and losing to the fh.

So, the above disconnection could be easily interpreted as a strategic one.


Something else, when I get disconnected due to my ISP sometimes, unlike the changle users, it takes me at least 5 minutes and sometimes more to get back in play, whereas all these users get back to the table in a period of just 30 seconds and sometimes are back in time for the following hand.


One other pattern between all the users:

As most of you know the fpp on pokerstars are awarded after the completion of each hand, therefore most players sit out and wait for a hand they have been involved in to be completed and for the next one to start prior to leaving the table so that they are credited with those fpp. The changle users, and I mean all of them, never do that. When they are prepared to leave a table they do so immediately, either in the middle of a hand or in a case where they lose in that hand they would leave the table instantly.


No its not, and the title of this thread should be reworded. Several users play at the highest stakes, and by highest I mean the ones offered by ps i.e.$100/$200


If this is in an organised scam and possibly a couple of businesses are involved behind it, don’t you understand the reluctance by at least some of us not to want to get involved in this deeper for privacy/security issues.
I said I came back here because this is becoming bigger day by day and the mods did not edit my usernames/name etc., in time I asked them to, so I said to myself what the heck.
My email account was hacked already and all of my stuff contained in that account was deleted. I figured that I do not have much else in public view for others to grasp and attack me in other ways. Thankfully stars let me finally change my city to something not recognizable so I will be getting involved a bit longer and try to see this saga finalise.

At least 2 other people involved in this told me that they have been noticing some strange stuff occurring through their personal computers since they got involved so I do understand why they and others might choose to stay away from this directly, even though they are helping in any way they possibly can.

taotao - mostly skimming right now because I'm busy.

I mostly agree with you on the 4-flush thing. If it's such that he's likely to not get more value out of it anyway then it is possible to disconnect there to try to 'make it look good' or whatever. It's a bit of a stretch perhaps but not impossible.
Regardless, I think there are different ways of looking at how they are trying to take advantage of disconnect-protect and it's not as straight-forward as "disconnect with made hand means it was to their disadvantage."
Also, even if that disconnect were completely legitimate and 100% to his disadvantage that does not mean that there high number of disconnects do not include SOME others in there that are intentional.
Proving that some of his disconnects are 'probably' accidental and when he has the advantage isn't really enough imo..especially when we're talking about such a high number of disconnects.

Again, we don't have exact numbers on how frequently they disconnect or even a very rough idea. You guys say they disconnect an awful lot so I'll trust that is correct.


Regarding re-connecting after 30 secs: Not conclusive imo.
I've had my connection issues in the past year or so at a place where I was living and my disconnects would be just long enough to knock me out of most of my tables and then be back for the next hand. Some of my tables I wouldn't even miss a hand because the other players were battling on the turn or something and taking long enough while I was away.

So your theory that re-connecting should more frequently take 5 mins or longer isn't really correct in my experience.


Your theory on leaving without picking up an FPP seems a HUGE stretch to me.
Whether they are cheating or not cheating I would think they would still want the FPP's anyway.
Lots of people don't know that you need to stay to the end of the hand to get credit for the FPP. I didn't know this until fairly recently.
I missed a TON of FPP's I suspect by leaving the table early before the hand was over just to give the seat to whoever was next on the list. Had no idea I was costing myself FPP's.
They perhaps don't either. Or they don't care. Even if it's a matter of not caring about the FPP's I fail to see how them being different than others about caring about FPP's has anything to do with whether they are cheating or not.

You are again finding stuff that makes them perhaps 'different' than the norm but that really doesn't seem very suspicious or cheating-like to me.
So they're goofy about their FPP's? Who cares?


I definitely think your claim that strange stuff is happening to yours and others' computers just because you are posting about it in this thread or complaining to Stars about it is incredibly paranoid.

I had strange stuff happen on my computer after I listened to Miles Davis on Rhapsody music player. It's unrelated....at least I'm pretty sure it is.

MB-

I did say not to expect everything I include in my posts to be detrimental to the outcome of this case. I do agree with all your points above just once more I am trying to give things that "could" be relevant.
On the fpp part though, most definetely a very consistent pattern exists between all of them and the way they leave a table. If you sat at as many tables I have with them in the past you would have noticed that the way they leave is identical between all of them. I feel that way because I played many hands with them collectively and I think it should be definetely noted. I can not explain it further but believe me if you were in my position you would be saying the exact same thing, and I bet others that have lots of experience with them have noticed how aggresively they leave a table when they are about to leave.

Oh, and I didn't say anything about cheating regarding the above, just a pattern between all the changle users I noticed.