1) I don't think it's improper to question what certain hs regs might know about cheating going on in the games, when they knew it, and what, if anything they did about it. If Stinger is just one bad apple, then, fine, let's just ban his accounts, take his money, have our 5 minutes of hate and move on.

But, if his conduct is widespread, and it sed like it is, it needs to be exposed in a fashion that can lead to more fundamental changes. And that requires more than just frying one guy. It requires exposing the scope of the problem so that innocent players can decide if they want to play in these games. And it also requires sustained pressure on Stars to address systemic problems like MA-ing and, yes, botting, in a systemic way rather than treating every new example as a one-off and hoping that we'll just forget about it.

2) I live in the US. I played midstakes semi-professionally (made more than at my day job) pre-bf. I had a tough decision between leaving the country to play on Stars or giving up Stars in order to stay close to my friends and family. I never considered the, "get to stay home but just play on Stars because **** the DOJ and **** the t&cs" option. So, I understand your anger, but I don't agree with the ma-ers because they are stealing ev from their honest opponents AND they make it less likely that I'll ever get to play legit, regulated online poker.

And if you don't believe me, there seem to be quite a few other former Americans curretly playing "reasonable" stakes from outside the country who agree with me. So, I feel pretty comfortable calling the folks who have circled the wagons around Stinger a "clique"

You won't get an answer because Pokerstars will hide behind the "our licensing agreement pertaining to privacy policy etc" This in a nutshell is what I'm talking about when I say we need a shift in policy.

This privacy policy is a farce and is set up (or certainly maintained) by online operators because it allows them to do whatever they want with no explanation to us players. Does anyone think that a gaming commission would flat out refuse a company the size of Amaya over this little issue if Pokerstars insisted on outing the screen names of cheaters? Of course they wouldn't as Amaya pays the bills and business is good.

This is not a knock on Pokerstars but a knock on the industry as a whole. Players are kept in the dark so we have no measure to check accountability.

Does anyone have the figures for the Noelhayes account under BH.. How much did it actually win?

do you think that people aren't going to cheat/try and cheat when there is potentially millions of $s to earn? I'm guessing you haven't played too much on eurosites. I've played mid/high stakes for years and just accept in some games you won't realise all the EV you should do through some form of cheating.

The circle of HS players is relatively small and a lot of people will know each other/become good friends. How often will player A who's friends with player B tell them they folded some blockers/relevant hand? I'm sure the next 5 HS players taht post will say, 'I've never done that blah blah blah. I've even done X,Y,Z to go out of my way not cheat/collude.' No one is going to say, yeah I do it all the time or I did it that one time when my friend was in a huge pot in a big online tourney.

To some people what Stinger did will be one of the worst forms of cheating a player can do. I'm not defending him or saying what he did was fine but do you think this ranks highly in terms of money/equity lost to the poker community even within the small world of HS regulars?

Brian Hastings: The death of online poker

I agree with you it does make me uneasy....

Desperation is a catalyst for deceit we dont know what BH has going on in his life he could be some underground degenerate sports bettor for all we know or he has some mental issues who knows he didnt even need to do this its like bill gates doing insider trading....WHY??

cheating is like those that beat women some people are fine with it while others cringe, tricking one into playing a game under the assumption they have equal chance as you to win is the worse thing you could do especially if you do it to people that consider themselves friends its like cheating your Grandmother in a card game

LOL

he said his gf loves his belly.

In his first replies, Stinger88 didn't want to go into too much detail because, I quote, it "hurts many parties more than it hurts me".

Hypothetically, many more players have used the NoelHayes account than just Hastings: to help his multiaccounting HS friends, he chose the solution of being the scapegoat of this multi-accounting scandal. "Everyone will target me and they will not focus on the fact that I am not the only one who has used the account."

This is a situation similar to the Girah scandal when Dogishead, whose reputation was already stained, decided he would be the one taking most of the **** hitting the fan in order to spare Jungleman.

Its only cheating if you get caught and you did it to your friends.

who's the guy sitting down?

Sam Gweenwood

harrington

Where are the lee jones comments?

Part of me really expects this thread and themes from this thread to be brought up in one of those online poker legislative hearings

multiple unaccountable multi-accounters.

#1265

Brian Hastings is going to be the poster child for Sheldon Adelstein and his crony lobbyists when arguing against interstate/intercontinental online poker in the US. They will argue that online poker cannot be regulated absent of fraud which Hastings has readily admitted. Online players should boycott playing with Hastings and live players should ignore him into oblivion. That can be accomplished by letting him know he is not welcome in any high stakes cash games.

not to mention, brian admits to playing at 17, which is one of the biggest arguments Sheldon *Adelson gives against legalizing online poker (there's a bunch of ads about kids getting addicted/stealing parents ccs and stuff like that).

promising cornell student -> plays underage -> addicted to online poker -> cheats -> cheats again -> ???

Seems like some of y'all playing checkers, while others is playing chess...

Judging by what you quoted from the podcast, it sounds like Lee Jones is saying that PS has to reach a certain level of proof (higher than what we do in NVG) in order to act against a suspected cheater.

And, they are less strict toward MAing than VPNing.

PokerStars is a corporate entity that could suspend any account if it has any suspicion of cheating, MAing or VPing. The burden of proof threshold can be set very low or very high by PokerStars. What is best for business is establishing a low threshold of proof to protect the customer. Instead Mr. Jones is acknowledging a higher than expected threshold which does not protect the customer but instead protects the cheats. That is ass backwards but being undertaken to maximize profits as they believe they are a monopoly if not part of an oligopoly. Until PokerStars is hit in the wallet an anti-customer sentiment will continue to exist. The way they are hit in the pocketbook is with US online poker interests keeping them out of the US online poker market.

I'll just add that I gave up on socializing in poker a long time ago and that my skype list has taken out seven figures out of the game by cheating. So many naive posts in the topic, especially by the NVG-crowd who I suspect have had little contact with high stakes players.

And no I have not cheated ever, but I am joey-esque in my weakness in not calling people out due to them helping me get where I got in poker.

MSNL and HSNL is ****** from my experience, but I hope it's a sample size issue on my part.