For anybody currently playing on 888poker or considering playing on it I would suggest reading this post.

Timeline
On December 27 I tried to login in 888poker client and received a message that my account "has been temporarily disabled". I had not received any notifications about this, so I emailed support and received a generic email that they have disabled my account because of suspicions that "use of Artificial Intelligence may be involved". I responded that this must be a mistake and I could have been flagged because of some long playing sessions and gave some facts that should indicate that no magic AI was involved.

On January 9 I had not received a response for 11 days, so I sent another email. After 2 more days I finally received an message with the same generic response. Again, I tried to provide more details and 5 days later support asked me to submit notarized documents to confirm my identity. I submitted the documents and assumed that this would move to conclusion, but on January 19 I received an email that investigation has concluded and "the decision to discontinue your membership has been made" and "The account will remain blocked and any money in your bank roll will not be refunded and no cashouts will be paid."

Finally I got emailed a link to their user agreement with a quote from it:
"The Company may decide at its sole discretion to terminate a member’s account, and withhold all funds in such account, on the basis that such an investigation provides a negative or uncertain conclusion."

The only communication 888poker provided was through the described emails, that I will attach in full to this post. I have no idea what this investigation included and what was the real reason for seizing thousands of dollars in this manner.


Background
I believe transparency is the best policy, so I will provide some more details about me.

I had played some poker on 888poker around 5 years ago and deposited again in January 2017. Starting with a 50$ deposit this was just a way to blow off some steam in a competitive environment after work. Writing and running AIs for dying industries definitely is not my main job.

For the first 3 months I played quite a few hands of nanostakes. For the rest of the year I played a total of 130k hands, playing few times a month, mostly on weekends.

During these last 9 months I reached a reasonable winrate (almost 10 EV bb/100) playing very loose and exploitative style. I would think that my playing style was the least bot like among regulars, exceeding 30% VPIP and 10% 3bet, building table dynamics and taking crazy lines, playing anybody heads up and short handed, playing extremely deep, slowrolling regulars and communicating in the chat pretty often.

The only thing that could cause some misunderstandings is that I played some very long sessions on a pretty weird schedule. For example in the last 6 months I played only 25 sessions, most of them 7 to 16 hours long. I can only say that I enjoy building huge stacks, creating table dynamics and playing for long stretches of time and I have a poor schedule with no regular working hours. Few players have even mentioned this in game chat and I have always responded to these messages.

During this time I have used only basic software like Holdem Manager and 888caption. I have not even really studied the game theoretically, I might have opened Equilab a couple of times last year and watched a watched a couple of Doug Polk videos (does this qualify as AI?).

During entire last year I withdrew a small amount of money only once while having around 100 buyins for my main stakes. If I was smart enough to run poker AI, wouldn't I be smart enough to keep only bare minimum in my bankroll?


Summary
The result of this investigation seems very odd to me. If I could get banned for using AI, anybody who goes on a heater can get wrongfully banned.

It feels like seizing thousands of dollars from an almost recreational player who has payed thousands of dollars in rake would warrant at least a single phone call or interview. I would be ready to record sessions of me playing, analyze hands played, heck allow remote access to my machine for analysis.

Instead I was banned without an email notification in the beginning and was provided with a link to the user agreement 3 weeks later that apparently permits 888poker to confiscate anybodies funds without presenting any more reasons for it.



List of played sessions during last 6 months:


Result graph:


All communication with 888poker during this time period (emails):

Very sorry to hear, because from what it looks like it seems you're legit
What stakes did you play?
Where are you from?

I mostly played stakes up to NL50.

I am from one of the Baltic states if it makes any difference. Overall have seen very few players on 888poker from my country and have played very few hands against them.

If your Vpip was more than 31% then what was your PFR %? I'm assuming this is 6max?

Yes, I played almost 6max only and maybe some tournaments or SNGs. The stats might be a little bit misleading because sometimes I will play short handed and heads up on 6max tables (if somebody wants to play me). If I filter for 4+ players my VPIP would be almost 29%, PFR would be a few percent above 20%.

Today I realized that I have recorded a few hours of myself playing a few months ago (testing OBS software) and I still have some recordings saved. I guess I could post it somewhere (youtube?). Maybe it would clear something up if anybody from 888poker even cares about not banning innocent people (confiscating player funds might already be a good source of additional revenue for them).

I think it's probably your session lengths that prompted their suspicions. If you wouldn't mind I'd like to see a screenshot of your hud/database stats. I track a lot of bots and if your stats are similar to some of them that may also be prompting suspicions. I know some of my own stats mirror some bot stats, but are also noticeably different in certain areas.

You should play snap. Not long ago there was a picture of a player sitting for 40something hours. On a serious note 888 does that banning random accounts. Like this mass banning https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...nwave-1682200/

While some may be a random mistake I can tell you with certainty they nailed a lot of actual bots. I can't play there as a US resident, but the bot forums were up in arms about it. It was a bot haven for years and they made the right decision to start banning them. I do hope the falsely accused innocent players will be able to continue to play after thorough review.

If anybody cares I just posted a video of myself playing a few months ago, could post only 15 minutes on Youtube, but as I mentioned previously I should have a few hours of footage in total.

It is from a session on November 24 and is completely unaltered (full screen capture, no edits made). It is boring as hell, but should give some idea of my setup (using HM2 and 888Caption).

I will try answering to all posted messages in a while.

Yes, I assume session lengths could look suspicious, but it is not that extreme considering I have played some video games for almost 40 hours straight. And if I was running a bot why would I run it few times a month for 15 hours straight while not withdrawing any funds for more than 9 months and having 100 buyins for my main stakes.

I do not really care about sharing stats, but I am not sure how useful the average stat values are considering my stats are completely player, table dynamic dependant. I do not know or care about average values for most of my stats myself. I am not sure if current bots adjust to opponent stats (I have always assumed they try to play similar, unexploitable game against all opponents). If stats really are useful, I can post them in a separate message.


I hate zoom type poker, I think that it is not fun, it is hard to build table dynamics and achieve high winrates. But I might have played it if it meant that I would not get wrongfully banned and get my entire bankroll seized.


I have no idea how many real bots are getting banned. Maybe somebody knows some accounts that were for sure bots and got banned, but I never though that I was playing vs bots on 888 (maybe I just played too rarely or the bots played too poorly for me to care).

Nobody knows how efficient 888poker is at preventing usage of bots, but for me it looks like 888 is currently caring more about scaring off winning players and regulars and seizing some funds than actually preventing usage of bots. There are a lot of more efficient methods that could be used to prevent usage of bots and would not involve seizure of innocent player funds. For example instead of banning me they could have let me continue playing and during the next 12 hour session they could have given me a phone call (they have my cellphone number) and if I cannot explain last few hands that I played, they can start an investigation.

This is just like drug testing, you do it during or right after the competition, if you do not pass, you get some kind of punishment, no need for complex stat analysis or other esoteric methods. And seizure of player funds should be the most drastic punishment that should require some actual proof.

Looks very suspicious from 888. Bull**** that these sites ban you and just deny that they ever could be wrong when you try to fight them. Onus is on them to find you guilty imo, they just find evidence (poor evidence at that) and give a verdict.

The most specific message I received from 888 (from posted emails) was that "During a security check on your account we have been alerted to suspicious activity indicating that the use of Artificial Intelligence may be involved." I would even say that they have not provided any evidence at all. It seems that they are not sure about anything themselves, but are OK with seizing player funds.

Meanwhile I can continue posting more details (even though it seems that 888 does not care about this at all and will just continue ignoring this thread and multiple similar threads).

I just found a screenshot that I made after one pretty crazy play. I made a nice bluff squeeze and 5bet bluff jam vs UTG open from a pretty chatty semi reggish player who likes to win at showdowns. I had been playing pretty crazy, but he still tank folded and I think he said he folded QQ (now way!!!). I was trying to tilt the hell out of him so I made a screenshot from replayer and sent a link to it from game chat. I actually remember chatting with this player more times, he always thought that I was donking around and berated me about it in the chat.

I could not find the posted link, but I still had it on my computer. This is from session on August 18, around 6 hours in the session.

You certainly played against several bots if you played 100k cash game hands. Some bots are winners, some are losers, and some are break even. If you think none of them are that good I'll assume you had coversations with every other winning player at your tables. Bots are very stealthy these days and if you don't know what to look for you probably would assume you're just playing against another reg.

I can think of reasons one might do this. Bots require maintenance. One may be too busy during the week to run one efficiently. Bot users assumed 888 was safe to run bots on so why would they worry about their funds?


I don't know if you posting stats would help your case with 888. I was asking so I could try to determine what could have got your account flagged. I have found statistical analysis by comparing botting accounts to be the best way as a player to identify bots. Many sites likely have much better tools to identify them though.

I took a look for a couple of minutes. The only thing I noticed that was wrong was in the bottom right corner table you had the huds on the wrong players. LoL

I could publish my entire hand history database, I am not a pro or anything and I do not have to protect some bot network, but I think that it might be against 888 policy (if 888poker allows this, I will do it). Regarding the stats is there an easy way to dump them in HM2 or maybe you have a list of stats that are interesting? Adding a lot of columns to reports is annoying. I could create a csv file or something like that when I have more time after work.


Lol, that is embarassing and they were wrong for around 10 more minutes.

One day I suddenly started having this bug with HM2 where player positions sometimes get mixed up; never could figure out what was wrong. Usually I notice it pretty fast and stop / start hud to fix it, but this time I knew most of the players pretty well and players with mixed stats had very similar playing styles.

I can understand why you wouldn't want to post your stats publicly. If you'd like I could take a look in a private message. It's not possible for me to exploit you since I am unable to play on sites that don't allow US citizens. I can't say with certainty that I'd be able to clear you of wrongdoing by looking at your stats, but I could determine if they could have been a reason to flag your account.

I agree that it would have been nice to get some more specifics on their findings from when they examined your account. I assume they don't do this so that the bot programmers don't know what to change that would allow them to be more stealthy.

I'm glad you eventually noticed the huds' misplacement. Bad information can be worse than no information.

If you keep messaging them, they may eventually let you cashout, but probably wont give you your account back.

They have tons of false positives and use it as an opportunity to free roll the account balances

they told me stuff like "our decision is 100% final, please stop emailing us ect..."

eventually they gave me my money back but decided i can't play there anymore

I applaud them greatly for banning the bots, especially the blatant ones. It does sound like some innocent players may have been falsely accused. It's hard to know as someone without insider knowledge who the innocent players actually are. Every bot user is going to claim they weren't botting just so that they can get their funds back.

except they give you no avenue to prove your innocence, they say "our decision is 100% final" hoping you leave them alone

Resolution

I guess somebody from 888 noticed this thread because suddenly I received an email where they basically reversed their decision, re-enabled my account for further use and apologized for inconveniences caused.

I understand that there are some hard cases and I am glad that they fixed this mistake. Unfortunately this has been one of the worst 4 week long customer service experiences I have had in a case that could and should have been easily solved. So unfortunately I will probably just withdraw most of my funds and try moving to another site if I decide to continue playing.

I would just want to thank the community for reading and responding to this thread because otherwise my account probably would have remained banned and all my bankroll confiscated.

I definitely think they should allow you to prove your innocence and that the onus shouldn't be on the falsely accused to do so. They really should have a more competent investigative team.

Nice! I'm sorry you had to go through this ordeal, but I'm happy to hear you're in the clear. Best of luck to you wherever your action lands!

After all this, is there any kind of litigation that can be exhausted for say Slander, holding your money hostage( basically theft)? Curious minds wonder, maybe someone has an answer.

At minimum I think some compensation should be in order.

One can try, but it almost certainly would be a waste of time, given the money it would cost versus the odds of actually receiving anything.

IANAL, but I think you mean libel rather than slander. However, I don't think their accusations were published, so it doesn't seem like it would fit libel either. And having someone's money tied up for a few weeks isn't theft.

Of course, as MCA mentioned, the site could see fit to offer some kind of compensation themselves.

Yes, I meant libel, thank you for correcting me. Wouldn't their e-mail to him count as published? It's their reasoning in written form without any proof given whatsoever. Do they get a pass because it's just in an e-mail and not made public? They collected interest on his money for the whole time it was locked up, they owe him at least that amount in my eyes.