I was being sarcastic that you guys thought that because sillysal didn't reply "fast enough" that she was more likely to be guilty.

Obviously, it is self-evident that the 3 hour delay isn't a bad reflection on FTP; Similarly, it is self-evident that the 1 (2?) hour delay by Sillysal is not a bad reflection on Sillysal.

While the IG forum is serious business, there are other things in the world that can hold someone's attention.

We'll need to see the e-mail from Sal first.
Previously she thought it might have been related to a really bad player she won big from and that maybe the money she won came from a stolen credit-card and ended up looking like potential chip-dumping.

All through this drama she had no idea if she was accused of botting or chip-dumping or what.
Given the length of time for the investigation some of us were kind of assuming they were waiting on some other players' ID's and some charges to clear.

Perhaps FT is accusing her of BOTH botting and chip-dumping and it was a big combination that led to the super-lengthy investigation.
Still, lets just wait to hear from Sal before we start looking at the chip-dumping scenario or whether it could have been botting false-positives or what.

Hopefully she at least has been told SOMETHING about what she supposedly did by now.

Unbelievable!

Why keep 47k in you account while using bots?!
I doesnt make sense.

And we can probably now say that Mr.Gatorade trickered the whole fiasco.

Its pretty obvious that these sites can do whatever the [censored] they want. Look at Absolute.
They cheat, lie about it, and they are still pretty much business as usual. If a site can do this and continue operating with virtually no
visible harm, then all sites recognize that they can pretty much do anything they want without worry. Cheat, lie, steal.....pretty scary.

While she has now posted it, my main concern was that she continued posting several times all of which were well after several people posted (and I pm'd her) asking her to post the damned email, and 3 hours later, no email, but several more posts proclaiming her innocence. In any event, she has now posted the email and this is a moot point. This was not handled well by Full Tilt Poker regardless of whether or not she is guilty because there is no way that she is 100 percent definitely guilty, no matter how much evidence FTP has, unless they've managed to get a video camera of a robot sitting at her computer.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=12787453

"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?"



Meh.
It's a nice thought of course that if you are wrongly accused/convicted you should have some recourse.
but if she's done nothing wrong she shouldn't have to pay a dime if FT suddenly decides to take her money.

However, this really isn't unlike a wrongfully accused murderer of having to pay a ton to some lawyer to prove his innocence. So I guess the idea has merit.
Just feels really icky to me that she should actually have to pay just to get her money back if she indeed is innocent.
But I'm sure she would like SOME of that money back better than none right about now.

aarrrgh.
can't believe I didn't see that. She posted right before me I think and even though I was scrolling up to check I somehow missed that one.

Thanks josem.

In a sense, the murderer already funds the arbitration through the tax system.

Since there's no taxes in this system, there's probably an opportunity for a site (in a free market world) to charge an extra 0.01% rake (or whatever) to cover the costs of funding such an exercise.

In Australia, it is common (most obviously in civil disputes) to have a losing appellant in the court system to pay the costs of the other party - in some cases for the hearing to be held waiting for a deposit or some other mechanism.

Yowza.
GL Sillysal.
If you indeed are innocent I hope you are somehow able to prove it.

go back and read the situation that nlnut was in a few months ago.
Everyone here was convinced they were all bots but I believe he eventually got all his money back.
I'm not sure they officially had convicted him of botting though.

As I recall, I thought he actually did get to talk to them on the phone.
For this much money I think they owe you such a courtesy over the phone even if you did do what they you accuse you of.

What gets me is that they wouldn't even want to talk to her on the phone.
If they think she might be botting or using some kind of software why wouldn't SOME part of their investigation include calling her and asking her what programs she uses when she plays and then FT can see if they can create a false-positive by implementing those very same programs.

IIRC, that exact situation happened with a WPEX player. They closed his account and just KNEW that he was using illegal programs. He gave them whatever he was using...like some AHK bet-pot script or something maybe...and WPEX admitted to being able to re-create the false-positive and so re-opened his account.

Something like that anyway. That WPEX situation happened several months ago and my memory is pretty fuzzy.

FTP officially decided nlnut, drunkenboxer0 et al. were not bots - they did not have to defend themselves to FTP, other than faxing of ID etc.

Guess all fulltilt players should cash out after every session.

Correct me if I am wrong but I cannot imagine they could base their decision on this alone. Do they have further evidence such as being able to detect a certain program being used. Is there the technology to detect this(and if so what took so long to catch it?) as patterns are not enough to conclude botting. What if the players is amazingly disciplined and plays the same way in all circimstances(like a bot would). I would think there are players around who play like bots. HH's and patterns certainly can't be enough. If so, all pokers savants beware.

right. I'm remembering more now.
FT didn't think they were bots and everyone on 2+2 was freaking out at FT and saying, "How can you think that? Just look at their stats."


Anyway, I guess nevermind on using that example as a precedent. I do hope that FT is willing to be open-minded about some sort of appeals process or at least considers participating in ANY kind of a dialogue with sillysal so she has a chance to learn what the hell they think she did and she can defend herself and explain what programs she might think it was that triggered it or something.

Of course this all could have and should have been done at the very beginning...probably even before they froze her funds and took the investigation that direction. But better late than never on admitting that talking to the customer could be helpful for both parties.

It's never 100% certain. And there's always a chance they are wrong. So I think they owe it to the customer to actually listen to whatever explanation she may have to offer.
Unfortunately, she is going to have a tough time offering one if they continue to not tell her a damn thing. She only just now found out that the freeze was related to botting.

I have nothing on my computer that would have triggered this kind of a response. I have done nothing that FTP has accused me of. I am prepared to go to any lengths to prove that I am innocent of these charges.

I do not use pokertracker nor any other datamining programs on my computer. I have never used any artifical software.

I have asked FT/Mike Haven to contact me as well. I feel if they are going to accept information from sites such as FTP, then they should have dialouge with their accused posters as well. Do you not agree? Does FTP run a monopoly?

Dear FullTilt,

After an extensive investigation into the activity on your site, I have determined that you are clueless pricks hell-bent on stealing money from your customers.

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, I will not be releasing the evidence in this case. I can tell you that during the course of the investigation I reviewed and assessed detailed hand histories and playing patterns to come to my final decision.

My Full Tilt Poker account will remain permanently inactive and the remaining funds will be used for you to buy a clue and get off your high horse.

You are no longer welcome to receive any rake from me at Full Tilt Poker.

Regards,

skoal2k4
Independent researcher

-----

Just my opinion on the whole thing. I realize that playing on ANY site is a privilege, but there's a responsibility of sites for FULL DISCLOSURE when confiscating all funds based on an accusation. I'm tired of hearing the excuse "If we released our findings, we would give the bot makers insight into our investigation techniques." I don't believe all of 2+2 (or any other 3rd party) needs to know the facts, but the person that has all their funds being confiscated needs to be given all facts as YOU see them.

Although i do feel sorry for sillysal if she is innocent, and only she truly knows...

I would tend to think that when Full Tilt closes an account and seizes funds they are very sure their was behavior that went against their tos. Also, the way they handled this does not seem unreasonable. The only thing i feel is wrong is that they should have some sort of phone communication and atleast release what they are accusing you of.

One month to investigate whether their was fradulent behavior in 50k account does not seem to bad, although it can be frustrating when you are being accused and they do not release information on the case.

I can't believe how quick some of you are to bash fulltilt and assume they are falsely accusing sal and she is 100 percent innocent.

Jman, you were one of the original posters of the absolute cheating scam if not the original. Please investigate the non stop bot accusation-frozen money Ftp scam. Then post your results in NVG or BBV cause alot of FTP players do not visit this section.

I absolutely do not think 100% that sal is innocent. I honestly don't know. Only she knows really.

But FT still deserves some significant bashing for how they have handled this and how they are STILL handling this.

They are refusing to acknowledge the possibility that they are not infallible and have yet to even talk to the accused on the phone.

I would think that if one wanted to run a semi-automated bot on a single table then the solution would be to have the bot run on a stand alone computer. The bot technician could enter the relevant flop, hole cards and action on the stand alone bot GUI.
It would be impractical for multi-tabling but undetectable otherwise. Fulltilt could not check the programs running on your stand alone computer. For the record I do not even data mine - i think this is AI data.

We should help Sal prove this if she is innocent. It would benefit all players.

But damn, if they did this to me and I was innocent, I would file suit against them in the State of Virginia, and trust me, the Virginia courts would excercise long arm jurisdiction over them.

Almost every major site has been proven to make a mistake in the confiscation of funds on at least one occasion. To trust a site to be 100% correct on all their decisions without data to back this up is naive.

Absolutely agree that they should have dialogue with you.
It seems possible that FT is going to tell Mike not to disclose very much of what they tell him because they don't want to reveal too much about their super-secret bot-detection abilities. So they will likely insist that he keep you in the dark as well.

but instead of telling Mike more about what you did so that he can tell us I do think that FT owes you a lot more of an explanation and a dialogue than what they have given you.
WAY WAY WAY more.

If FT determined you were a bot due to your betting patterns then that strikes me as ultra-weird because I don't think such a thing is possible really.
So for them to even SAY that they made this determination via your betting-patterns leaves me questioning their detection procedures.

Hey everyone - Who datamines and collects the HH's of the games at FT? and specifically the games that pokergirlz plays in (not sure of the exact spelling of her online handle)?

Can we collect some of these HH's and see if there is anything unusual or eye-catching in the stats?
Who has played with this player and who has data on her?