My sympathies if you are truly innocent sal...

But I was wondering that if, worst case scenario sal was botting, don't they have to warn the player about it prior to seizing any funds. I think stars has that policy in place that when you are using illegal software on their site you get a warning to remove that program from your pc and if they catch you again then more drastic measures are taken.

Not absolutely positive about this but that is my impression. Can anyone verify?

This would be an absolutely mindboggling policy in my view, if people were cheating and stealing my moneys they should be punished and I should get a refund.

Yes ofcourse.

But you would expect a pokersite to have the ability to detect illegal software as from the 1st time they are put in use, hence it is not possible for one to exploit the benefits over time. If they are unable to detect them straight away, then how could they in the long-term?

I doubt if sal was botting was doing it for some time now or whether she was commiting any other kind of fraud while leaving 47k in her account, that would be stupid.

When comparing major poker sites, why these things mainly seem to occur on FullTilt ? I don't think it's a conincidence. Also I believe that FT should warn players of certain actions before instastealing.

My sympathies to the OP if innocent.

If OP was really cheating, I wouldn't think she would keep that much $$$ in her account. That would be just stupid, although it can be quite hard to move a roll of that big around.

I am glad I only have $1 on my FT account. If they one day decided to boot me, I wouldn't lose much. These threads make me avoid FT like cancer, and it doesn't matter how much they get TV time. I hope the fish get warned as well.

The fact that SillySal has not cut and pasted the email that she recieved from Full Tilt (which would have taken all of five seconds) does not speak well for her case, especially considering the fact that I pm'd her and suggested she do it (a pm which she ignored despite the fact that I got a read receipt). If I had to hazard a guess I'd say that FT called her out on whatever it was that she was doing in their email to her, and thats why she doesn't want to post it.

I was right.

This is from stars website Q and A

"What steps are you going to take to prevent players from using prohibited programs?
We are going to look to see if any of those programs is running on a player's computer. If we find one of the prohibited programs, we will alert the player that he is running a prohibited program and tell him what the program is. We will ask that he stop running the program immediately. If he complies, fine. If not, then we will prevent the PokerStars client from running on his computer."

I think they're referring to programs like Poker Prophecy. Botting is a different story all together.

SillySal? more like GUiltySal, LOZLS AMIRITE>>!?

I think its generic.

this is further down that page:

Are you going to confiscate the account funds of somebody running a prohibited program?
While we reserve the right to confiscate the funds of somebody running a prohibited program, we are not going to do this lightly. We want to educate our players - not punish them. However, we will confiscate funds if a player shows a consistent pattern of using prohibited programs after being warned.

I was really hoping she was just away and was freaking out about this or was out getting drunk or something and that's why we hadn't heard from her with the FT e-mail.
But the read receipt you got certainly implies otherwise.

If so then there is every possibility of course that FT indeed did correctly catch someone doing something they weren't supposed to be doing and this wasn't some kind of a 'false-positive' so kudos to them for that I guess.
But they still handled this extremely badly and I don't think the ends justify all of the means in this situation.

Gee jamn220, sorry I didn't reply in your time frame. Needless to say this has taken a bit of my concentration and numerous phone calls to Attorneys I know and others who may be able to help me in getting my money back. Please forgive me for the time lapse.

After an extensive investigation into the activity on your account, we
have determined that you are using automated artificial intelligence
software to gain an advantage over other players.

This is a direct violation of clause #9 in our site terms at:
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/site-terms

Please note that the length of the investigation was due to the numerous
characteristics that need to be assessed when making this type of
determination.

As previously mentioned, in order to protect the integrity of this
investigation and those in the future, we will not be releasing the
evidence in this case. We can tell you that during the course of the
investigation we reviewed and assessed detailed hand histories and
playing patterns to come to our final decision.

Your Full Tilt Poker account will remain permanently closed and the
remaining funds will be used to reimburse the victims of your use of
automated artificial intelligence software.

You are no longer welcome to play at Full Tilt Poker.

Regards,

Jeremy E
Security and Fraud
Full Tilt Poker

zeejustin had even more in his accounts when he was doing the illegal multi-accounting thing.

So did they forward any info to a mod that can confirm at least whether there is any basis behind FTP's actions?

You guys are jumping the gun, she will respond shortly.

Bob,

in that case Justin thought he was doing nothing wrong.

In no way conceivable could one run an automated bot while out for an expensive meal (or whatever) without at least suspecting you may be busted.

Yeah!

3 hours ago, FTPSean said he'd be willing to share any info with mods. None have yet posted in this thread with any confirmation.


That doesn't bode well for FTP.....




Of course, as was just demonstrated, thinking more or less of people because they didn't reply instantly is absurd. Let's remember that the real world doesn't move on internet discussion forum speed.

FTP's terms of service state:
In the event that Full Tilt Poker deems that a player has engaged in fraudulent, unlawful, dishonest or improper activity while playing in our games or tournaments, including without limitation, engaging in any of the activities set forth above or any other game manipulation, or the making of any fraudulent payment, including without limitation, use of a stolen credit card or fraudulent chargeback or money laundering, Full Tilt Poker shall be entitled to take such action as it sees fit, including immediately blocking access to our games and tournaments, terminating the player’s Full Tilt Poker account, seizing all monies held in the relevant Full Tilt Poker "real money account", disclosing such information (including the identity of the player) to banks, credit card companies and/or any person or entity that has the legal right to such information, and/or taking legal action against such player.

So they can take your money and their decision is final? With no evidence? Or evidence that only they get to see? Who in their right mind would want to be subject to this? We want to see some evidence. I will never play on this joke of a site again.

So,

It would seem Sal has been accused/tried/convicted of botting by FTP.

Sal: are you running anything that may have triggered a false positive? AHK / AutoIT / Vista voice control etc?

"automated artificial intelligence software"

to clarify - that means a bot that actually allegedly played for sillysal, right?

it doesn't mean data mining while not playing, does it?

I don't think that aspect reflects badly on FT.
Sean said he would be willing to share the info with a mod.
That doesn't mean he has done that yet. He is likely waiting to hear from the mod that he is okay with that.

He doesn't want to suddenly put Mike Haven right into the middle of this mess without even having asked him.

For the FT/Mike Haven side of the story I think that's going to require Mike's approval and for that he kind of needs to actually be online which he likely isn't right now.

Apparently data mining is allowed.

I don't know that any mod has necessarily volunteered to recieve this data and look at it yet, so this doesn't say anything bad necessarily about FTP. I know that I, personally, am not qualified to look at whatever FTP has and come to some kind of conclusion, so I certainly won't be volunteering, but maybe a mod who's better at poker than me would like to.

I'm glad to hear that Johny.
I'm still keeping an open-mind about the potential for a false-positive here and that she really is innocent.
I don't know her from adam but I also don't trust FT to be 100% infallible obviously.

I agree with you other post that it's inappropriate to do it in the way they do. But that's already been stated about a zillion times already.

Is anyone else bothered by this? If SillySal was in fact guilty of using bots, then FTP's sanction was certainly appropriate. But not disclosing the evidence??

I can see how they may not want to reveal how they can detect bots, or else the people who use them may plug those holes, but not disclosing the evidence, or anything else about the investigation, really evokes images of the Star Chamber.

There needs to be some kind of appeal process or an independent review. Perhaps the aggrieved party and FTP could agree upon an trusted third party, and split the costs of reviewing the evidence and issuing a report, while being sworn to secrecy?

I'm conflicted by situations like this - bots need to be stomped on to preserve the integrity of poker, but there needs to be some due process and an independent review, not faceless security personnel condemning people behind the scenes.

Carl.

What if it's not "automated", but instead a human uses some "AI software" to display a recommended action based on game theoretic solutions?

Juk