I first created an account on TwoPlusTwo.com 14 years ago this week, so figured it might be interesting to try to resuscitate a nice tradition - feel free to ask me any question you want, and I'll answer to the best of my ability/desire.

I expect to be able to answer any question posted by 5pm British Summer Time today (about 5.5hours from this original post), although I do have a (delayed) flight to take in the middle of this, so there's likely to be a couple of hours where I obviously won't be able to post.

Past Well threads are here.

Pre poker story ?

How could you possibly have believed that Tim Duncan was better than Shaquille?

Duncan has more championships, more MVPs, more All-NBA first team selections, and, per minute he has more rebounds, more assists, more steals, less turnovers, less fouls.

The only stat that Shaq wins is points.

Yay points.

Born in Melbourne, Australia, in a fortunate south-east suburban home. Went to Monash University, where I enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Information Systems degree.

During that time I got involved in the student union and politics, where I worked for an Australian Senator part-time, and ended up serving as the President of the Student Union for a couple of years at Monash University.

In my last year at uni, I created my first poker accounts (initially PartyPoker, but also Absolute Poker - fortunately for me, the Monash University network firewall prevented me from being able to play on AP, so they refunded my deposit and I never went back) and here on 2p2 in June 2005 (apparently I made a typo in my OP - it should have been 13 years, not 14 years ago).

After uni, I worked for a couple of different members of the Australian House of Representatives, where I played poker in my spare time. In that spare time, I helped to prove that there was cheating taking place at both Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, and in late 2007, my side of politics lost the Federal Election. Around the same time, I was contacted by PokerStars, and moved to Sydney to work for them in early 2008 as described online here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...rstars-124537/

Are you still Head of Security @ Coinpoker?

https://medium.com/@CoinPoker/introd...s-a391daff7130

No - we've had some discussion about what (if any) role I might serve in the future.

Your name is still on the coinpoker site as Head of Security and has been since at least December, while in January when they scammed me and a bunch of other players you claimed you were merely an advisor. Have you considered taking legal action against them in order to get it removed?

I am sceptical of your claims that you were scammed. But if you are unhappy with CoinPoker, you should raise the issue with them.
No, I certainly have not.

I know from experience that under-titles have to be earned. How did you come to get this special under-title?

Do you have any opinions about Global Poker and their interaction with PayPal? With any of the complaints players have lodged about issues with payouts at Global b/c of PayPal?

I feel like there is a news story here that we completely missed coverage of. Anyone care to enlighten me (publicly or via PM)?

also

If you are listed as the Head of Security at CoinPoker, but deny being in such position... who actually is in charge of security there?


--
Kahn

See link in:

So, you still have some official role with Coinpoker (see also: you being able to revive the official Coinpoker support account into posting with just a single email to him after he went MIA for months with tons of 2+2'ers having varying problems there)

but then your advice is this

Clearly you don't give a ****!

Not quite the love thread.

What happened with you at Pstars at the end? Did you quit or did they let you go?

Why do you think so many prominent people at Pokerstars are no longer there?

Do you plan to continue to work in the industry for a big player or have you moved on from that?

Do u like gladiator movies?

sorry but who the **** are you?

He was Amaya's PR guy (account on here was Pokerstars Michael J)

Apparently he wasn't always evil but that ship sailed a long time ago. Since leaving Pokerstars he mostly trolls poker players whenever possible.

Your thoughts on GlobalPoker. Do you think some people are using HUDs? Bots? or Multi-accounting? etc...

My neighbour sent me various letters, basically complaining that I was smoking so much cocaine that it was coming through my ceiling, and in through his floors:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/3...james-1454856/

No, I don't - I'm not familiar with them. I see the other question about Global Poker and I don't know why people are asking me about them. This is weird to me.

I don't know; that's something you'd need to raise with them.

No, I do not. I've had some discussions in recent weeks about whether I will, but they're not currently paying me and I'm not currently working for them.

As far as I know, I haven't done anything about the CoinPoker support account on 2p2 posting on here.

The closest that I came to what you descibe is:
1) More than a year ago, I started this thread here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...games-1662431/

2) According to the folks at CoinPoker, some fraudster/scammer/impersonator not affiliated with the company made a post on Facebook saying that playing at poker is addictive

3) SanchoHH compared (1) and (2) in this post here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=1107

4) Unaware that the advert was allegedly made my some fraudster, I emailed the company saying, "I don't know if the advertisement is real, but if it is, it doesn't reflect well on the company."

5) The "official" CoinPoker account made some posts in the thread, which you can view in the links above.

That's the extent of my involvement on that issue.
I think that my separation agreement with them prevents me from talking in any specific detail about the conclusion of my employment.

That said, there's been various public news reports about PokerStars letting large numbers of staff go - looking at my Facebook feed, another chunk of people left earlier this year.

I don't know the exact numbers, but looking at public sources, something in the range of 20%-40% of their global workforce have left over the last 2.5 years.

Because PokerStars is pretty clearly and reasonably focused on a variety of different businesses these days, outside of poker. PokerStars (including their new acquisition, Sky Betting and Gaming)

I have no plans to work for any big online poker operators.

I don't watch many movies, but my favourite movie reviewer is Sonny Bunch, who writes for the Washington Free Beacon (amongst other places). If I ever wanted to watch a movie, I'd find one of his year-end compliations and watch one of the moves that he picks: http://freebeacon.com/culture/ten-best-films-2017/

I don't have much of a view on GlobalPoker. When trying to answer the question by kahntrutahn above, I searched for them on Google. I don't understand why people are asking me questions about them. I haven't worked for them, I don't even have a player account there. I think I'm missing something - I don't think I've ever posted about them on 2p2 (I just searched for all posts by me using the word 'Global', and don't see anything)

-I made an account on 2p2 about 13 years ago this week.

-I think I first became prominent in this community when I played a role in proving the cheating taking place at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet back in 2007

-Soon after, PokerStars contacted me, and I worked in their Game Security and Security teams for ~5 years, before working in their public relations team for ~4 years

-I have a love for scientific cooking, burgers and chicken wings

So, kahntrutahn and others, what's up with the questions about GlobalPoker? What are we missing?

No he was the trusted pokerstars guy before Amaya was anywhere on our radar. years ago, Have some respect, I've even **** on him recently but to have no respect with what he has brought our community shows that you don't know anything and need to study more before you post nonsense.


The evil part really shows that you need to stfu and learn more before posting. #children

Takes much nerve to post a well here after position @CoinPoker so respect for that.

Overall, how do you see that online poker has evolved in terms of security? Is it more or less secure to play poker in general now than 10 years ago? What security challenges do you see as greatest threats in the future of online poker?

I've been on 2+2 as long as Josem has. From my perspective "evil" works, perhaps sociopathic would have been a more accurate word - pretend to be nice to a community for years, use that image for financial gain, screw the same people over repeatedly then stay and gloat whenever possible (while seemingly oblivious to the consequences of everything he's done).

He's not exactly top of the list to have a beer with.

He was def scammed - I was at same final table that crashed and wasn't paid out. You responded to me in Coinpoker thread on this that you would raise with site. I heard nothing and you didn't respond to follow up either.

Sorry for derail but this should be made clear to potential players on site

I believe players are much less likely to be cheated in 2018 than in 2013, 2008 or 2003, for a few reasons:

1) The widespread identity checks that all the legitimate operators apply. If you're a fraudster in 2003, you could probably get away with creating a slew of different accounts, but in 2018, the hurdle of creating/finding fake IDs etc., makes it much harder to cheat.

2) The big online poker companies have 10-20 years of experience combatting cheating - they've learned a lot, and over the years, they've built tools to identify and take action against people who break the rules. There is (was?) a video on YouTube where PokerStars spoke about how their results have changed, from most cheaters being identified by players many years ago, to today, where most people who break the rules are proactively identified by the site (before players are even aware).

3) There are a bunch of third-party businesses which are making a business out of detecting the fraud that takes place.

4) Huge multinational businesses have much bigger incentives to protect their reputation. There's apparently a widespread interest in this sort of thing, and the big gaming companies don't want to end up in the NY Times or the BBC as having their customers be the victims of such misbehaviour. This is a strong incentive to take action to invest in this stuff.

This is a good question - I don't have a good answer off the top of my head. Let me think about it for a few days and reply more substantively then (it's also a rare lovely day in London, and I'd like to go out and enjoy the sun - forgive me).