Sal, do you not have your HHs stored? It would make more sense for you to provide them directly than to call out for dataminers.

If you do not have your HHs, I can't imagine a scenario that would prevent FT from providing them to you in full. If they were to refuse this request it would look very very bad on their part.

Edit: Also, we need to ensure that FT is distributing this money to the players that they feel were wronged. There's no way that the proceeds from this confiscation should just be added to FT's coffers.

Sal. You have alot of support here but I think you need to show us something soon.

Ok I am a little confused here....

I remember FTPSean saying that these investigations took so long because of having to wait on external compianes to return information etc, but if Sal has been accused of using software that is against the FTP TOS what the hell took so long to convict him/her??

Why did it take over 3 weeks when they should have had all that information directly to hand?

Something doesn't add up here.

Sal, I am with the personal belief you are inncocent here and this is just another balls-up by the FTP security department. How anyone can now leave large sums of money on that site is beyond me.

Once again FTP act as Judge, Jury and Executioner.

Uh Silly Sal. hello Silly Sal. Send us some evidence please. Should be on your computer.

Maybe Stars catches these bots long before they win significant amount of money so there is no much noise around this. Go to bot forums and ask where they recommend to play.

This thread is seriously interesting now. Beforehand, I was very understanding of how an investigation could take so long and I had no problem with the freezing of sillysal’s account whilst this was undertaken. Better timescales should have been given by FTP as to the length of time the process was to take but apart from that I had no real problem as you know.

There is now a resolution with FTP confiscating the $47K and redistributing the money to “wronged” players.

In all disputes there can never be 100% certainty otherwise it is not a dispute but fact. Decisions will have to be made on the old “beyond all reasonable doubt” concept and it seems as though FTP is acting in this way.

• Is this right? Yes I think it is.
• Should FTP now have to back up their evidence? Absolutely, IMHO.
• Should sillysal be able to challenge FTP? Absolutely.

What the online poker industry needs is an appeal committee made up of representatives from the sites themselves, some high profile pros and independent bodies such as 2+2, Pocket Fives, etc. In a situation like this, FTP should be compelled to send their evidence to such a committee for an independent review. If FTP’s actions are upheld then the only recourse would be court action on the part of the player.

I think the committee should be paid for by a proportion of the rake that each site takes. This would do a few things:

• Give a certain legitimacy to online poker that may indeed pacify a lot of the people that object to the game.
• Give players a degree of comfort that they can appeal if they feel they have a strong grievance.
• Any site not signing up to be bound by the independent review could be boycotted by players. If players continued to play elsewhere they do so with the knowledge they have no recourse - don’t come crying with unfair complaints.

My take on this matter is that I believe FTP has undertaken a thorough review and that sillysal was guilty of wrongdoing. Without concrete evidence my reasons are:

• Sillysal’s account was obviously flagged for attention to security at FTP for whatever reason.
• Sillysal must have been generating huge volumes of rake and FTP would not want to lose this kind of income for no good reason.
• $47K is a big amount for an individual. It is peanuts to a major site like FTP and the only conclusion I can draw is that they have serious issues surrounding sillysal’s account.
• They are certainly not doing it to gain an extra $47K profit. Probably her rake amount per annum came to more than this.
• With the flak being generated in the direction of FTP here at 2+2 it would have been easy to have said they had investigated and cleared sillysal. They haven’t taken that option.

Could FTP have made an error? Of course. I can only go on what is said on these forums but to me I would have to assume that sillysal is guilty of something.

However, FTP should give sillysal a way of countering any claims against her. Come on FTP stand up and do the right thing. Show us you care about your players and let us know how we can be sure our innocent accounts will not be blocked and our money taken. Although I would sooner trust FTP than an unknown poster there is always the possibility sillysal is on the receiving end of some very bad judgement.

As the old saying goes “justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done”

This is posted without my having read a large number of the latest posts.

I have received information from FTP and others.

I hope to be able to read all within the next 4 hours or so.

Thanks for getting on top of this Mike. If sillysal is guilty then she's guilty. But I would be interested in hearing the evidence. I am a relatively successful heads-up player. I use absolutely no software or any aid of any kind other than my mind to play. So this case concerns me for obvious reasons, especially when sillysal comes across as being innocent of any wrongdoing. I base that opinion only on the tone of her posts, which is why I would like to hear the evidence. I hope you can get to the bottom of this.

The one who said that "you don't have to be afraid if you haven't done nothing wrong" is a complete idiot.

I had a similar problem on partypoker and I have NEVER received any official statement from them after they have froozen my account with over 4k in it. Okay those are only 4 compared to 47k or so, but yet its money isn't it?

I am pretty sure that this guy is innocent because HOW could he has done chip dumping (because that's the most common reason people are banned for) on such high stakes?

And if he is a long time winner and has such a big amount of money in his account he wouldn't risk it all.

You guys need to understand that sites can close your account and you can't do nothing against it.

I find Mr.Gatorades 'no comment' disturbing, because I get the impression that Sillysal is a new type bot/ uses AI software that cannot yet be detected or determined by CrazyMike, and only after extensive investigation by Fulltilt.

How many more 'sillysal-type cheaters' are out there?

Although I think it is good of FT to pass this info onto Mike, I think there is still a problem. FT could show Mike absolutely anything, they could show him "modified" information to support their case andd make sal look guilty. How does Mike know all the information he gets is genuine? Sal should also be able to see the same information Mike sees so she can confirm or refute the allegations.

I am not sayng this is what will happen, I am saying this is a distinct possibility when the poker site has its reputation to uphold.

This all stinks as far as I am concerned.

Still though, I cannot understand why over 3 weeks for the investigation if this was illegal software use??? This would mean no outside companies needing to be involved and FT should have had all the evidence they needed to hand. Seems fishy.

FYI everyone,

I am a real person, I need sleep like you all do. It's 5:45 AM in CA. I woke up after 3 hours sleep to come down and check the posts. I am going to explore and contact every avenue there is to get my money back and prove my innocence.

I will post hand histories, I will contact the Kahnawake Gaming Commision. I have contacted 2 Lawyers, and I have made calls to involve the media. I have contacted the 4 moderators that were on staff at the time I received the letter from FTP.

I will do everything in my power and I will post everything I do to keep you all in the loop. This is a very serious situation. If it happened to me, it can happen to you.

I welcome any solid advice. Please keep in mind, I do need 8-9 hours of sleep and I do have personal obligations that may keep me off this site, but rest assured this is NOT going away. I will try and answer EVERY single legitimate question and provide you all with valid information. Thank you


pokergirl z

(yes there is a space)

Its REALLY interesting that the person who finds the most bots, even those who arent bots, earlier said of sal:

So Crazy Mike said she wasnt a bot, but then we have FTP locking and then confiscating the account for using botting software (im assuming thats what they mean, their wording is a little vague IIRC).

Ill repeat it:

Something does not sit right here - i smell conspiracy but i might be wrong. This wouldnt be the first case where Mike has wrongly accused someone of botting using his 100% guaranteed method (which has failed a few times) and that person had his account reinstated if memory serves me.

Hyperthetical.

I call you a botter and provide no evidence.

Prove you arent one to me now.

And, go...

Just what do you expect Sal to prove? Is there a folder somewhere in the C: titled "Evidence"?

She doesnt use PT - something which meshed with the fact that at the start of the thread she didnt know who she recently took for a large sum - she doesnt use any AHK scripts apparently, so how do you prove innocence?

If i was accused tomorrow, i have little or no evidence. The best i can do is my housemate is a poker player who has watched me play countless times - but his word could only be believed so far.

When given no evidence there is NOTHING you can do. Hell, Johnny Cochrane probably wouldnt have got OJ off if OJ didnt put on the glove.

-----

Two things dont sit right with me:

1, Sites MUST communicate with people when they lock accounts. Im sorry, but no communication is NOT good enough.
2, Convicted people should have the right to defend themselves against their accusors. You dont need to tell them everything - but some details about what was decided is required.

Essentially you need to ask this - does Stars lock less accounts which is why there are less "ZOMG Stars stole my monies" posts, or is it because the accused dont have to come here to find out why their accounts are locked? Honestly, i dont know, but there are reasons i prefer playing at Stars over FTP and that truly is one of them. Perception is truth.

Ok, in preface I'd like to say I'm unconvinced of Sal's innoncence or guilt.

"• $47K is a big amount for an individual. It is peanuts to a major site like FTP and the only conclusion I can draw is that they have serious issues surrounding sillysal’s account."


Don't mean to pick on this one post, but I've seen this mentioned a few times. Ummm, I think this is pretty specious reasoning. It's not like fulltilt is doing this only for the 47k. They obviously have other reasons for doing this even though they are not 100% sure of her guilt, which I'm not going to list, but I'm sure everyone can think some up.

It seems to me Sillysal should ask FT for ALL of her hand histories. How could they object to mere hand histories being released? There are apparently many or at least several so called experts that can analyze these hand histories. How about it FT?

luke, i dont think anyone is saying she is def. innocent, just that she deserves to hear the evidence against her if they are gonna take $50k from her.

i agree . I understand that FTP wants to keep some of its methods a secret from future cheaters, but at least some evidence needs to be presented to the victim. Its great that they are sharing the information they received with a mod here, but if OP was not a member of a forum how would they ever find out if they were cheated by FTP?

On the opposite side, there is definitely something missing from this story and OP will have alot of explaining to do once the evidence gets sorted out.

Correct me if im wrong, but the hand histories will prove exactly nothing if the case is that she has(nt) been botting.

I mean, its not like in the hand hist the name pokergirl z suddenly changes to pokergirl's bot.

I would imagine the key data is found in her processes list and the timing of actions - something i doubt the site can or will release and i cant really blame them.

I guess my opinions fall between the cracks in the grey area between wanting accused people to defend themselves and the sites to not show every method they use to combat botting etc. There has to be something more than "yeah, we know you have used these AI programs, but, like no we arent telling you what programs or how we found out, just trust us that we caught you".

What annoys me most is there is no true third party you can go to - the Kanawake Gaming Commission would be the ones, but they are a total joke.

I dont know if THIS is the case to hang your hat on, but people have been found to be innocent after a false positive flag was thrown up - which makes me question if it could ever happen to me. I dont use AHK or datamine, so im probably ok for the most part, but the average 2+2er is way more at risk than the average fish due to using such programs (along with PT, HUDs etc which might show up as anomolies).

I think the argument that you should get back what you have deposited on a site along with a percent of the profit they cannot prove to have been earnt illegally is sound imo if they cannot give you full details of how you were caught and what you did. But then i see the counter argument its the same as arresting bank robbers, taking their swag but letting them keep the sawn off shotties and ski masks.

In their letter to pokergirl z, FT said "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." So obviously FT feels there was evidence in the hand histories. And they should show us if she played 52 hours straight without a break, did she always fold certain hands, etc. Others please comment on this.

What is there to investigate? This isn't like the absolute situation where we had mountains of statistical evidence that there was cheating going on and were stonewalled by AP for over a month. In this case, Full Tilt holds all the cards, they're the only ones who have the hand histories (the OP says she doesn't keep them or user pokertracker), and FT is not releasing them. FT deserves to be condemned for this for sure, but what are any of us supposed to do? We completely exposed Absolute poker as cheats at the highest levels, it got reported in the mainstream press, ESPN, the New York Times, AND THEIR PLAYER NUMBERS DIDN'T EVEN DROP. If all the stupid fish want to keep playing at sites like Absolute and Full Tilt when they pull [censored] like this, and all the greedy 2+2'ers want to stay there as well because the odds of them being the victim of cheating are still relatively low, there's not much I nor anyone else can do about it, and you all deserve what you get (I'm sorry to be harsh here but its true). The only way to make a site listen is to talk with your wallets, by not playing there anymore, and poker players are too stupid and too greedy and too addicted to online gambling to think of anything other than their next session. We've known FT treats its players like this for years, these threads are not new, but people still keep playing there. I, personally, do not play on any site other than pokerstars, nor would I ever. Unfortunately, I am in the extreme minority, and like I said, all you people who keep playing at these shady, unregulated, (and in some cases confirmed cheating) sites deserve what you get. If I sound angry its because I am, because a lot of people put a lot of work into exposing Absolute Poker, and it basically accomplished nothing.

^^^^ excellent point

the man speaks the truth.

Could it be:
1. FTP have better detection procedures in place to find cheaters and are prepared to penalise them regardless of the flak they take from people who do not know the facts.
2. PokerStars are not too bothered in detecting cheats and simply take the rake and say "thankyou very much". If anyone is caught they just warn them and we hear no more about it so everyone thinks they are so good.

I seriously am not saying that this is the case but is it a possibility? Could FTP be the "seekers of truth and justice" and all they are truely guilty of is not putting their techniques on to a public forum for future cheats to find their way around their security?

their 'detailed hand histories' might be different than the kinds of HH's they send out to the players.
They could have access to the exact timing of each action.
If she was takng exactly 1.2 seconds for each pre-flop decision for example then they may start to conclude that that is somewhat bot-like.
Something like that anyway.
FT's 'detailed HH's' would have every single little thing on them.

I still think it's worth compiling the public HH's anyway since FT found something in their own HH's which they thought was significant.