But another way to look at this is if someone was in the U.S. a lot, but wanted to play on Stars or Euro sites and couldn't access thru whatever program they are using to get on because they are so well known that they would get caught because they are visible in the U.S. So what they do is get another account (rent or buy it somehow I guess) and can play anytime etc thru whatever programming they are using to mask their ip.

On second thought , I personally would not have a problem with this if I were a player in those games (whether they told me or not) and this is from a limit perspective. They would just have to deal with the consequences if they got caught and had their money frozen.

If your playing at the highest level you should be able to detect that a new player popping up is pretty good right away and if he is seeding the games 99 % of the time these players are good and in a lot of cases world class or close to it.

The one way I could see it as being really scummy is if player targets all guys who he has crushed HU over the years who wouldn't play him on that screen name.

Do you not get it? I brought this to light because I am a high stakes player not privy to this information. I am speculating that is common knowledge to his 'in the know' nosebleed opponents, the ones who would be active on twitter etc, given that at least one of his common opponents does know.

Another pro poker player DM'd me on twitter saying 'NoelHayes' was pretty active playing / accepting HU action, do you think that 100% of his opponents were also privy to this information?

Exactly.

A little cartel with secret rules that are obviously to their advantage. Telling a select few is way worse than telling no one. It's borderline collusion. Okay, not exactly but certainly same ball park.

Not really a shock, if it is true this is misrepresentation and cheating of everyone who thought they were playing a fun player.

Zeejustin got a ban for a good 5+ years from stars from this and they seized money he won by multiaccounting. I hope the same happens here if true (Zeejustin now a stand up guy imo after going through all that he came out looking good by admitting it and accepting his punishment)

Perhaps it's time for someone to message Pokerstars about this alleged MA and VPN use. FYI, they've seized money in the past from those who have been caught playing via a VPN.

No- I understand completely. If this is true than his actions certainly affected you directly.

I'm only speculating on intent and trying to avoid a rush to judgement.

You understood it wrong. His first comment is that PLO (or maybe stud/8 or TD) is probably his best game. When he's talking about improving his worst game he's talking about 08 not PLO.

Also it's pretty clear Joey starts laughing only after Hastings makes that weird face which was immediately subsequent to him saying that he's been working on his game...

While VPN use is strictly against TAC, it is imo not necessarily dishonest against the community. I mean, is there a single online player in the World who would not prefer that US players had full access? Much as I think he is accountable, I would personally not go too hard on this. If he gets done for it then so be it, but if he doesn't then I for one would let it slide. The problem is not where he was, but rather who he was.

This will be fun to watch the outcome but judging from the past guys to get caught multi counting, everyone just forgives, shrugs their shoulders and says let's move on. The only way to get black balled from the poker community is to get caught molesting a child it seems.

Lol, because of all the American fish who play on international sites via VPN....

Hastings has probably already moved money off site.

exactly this. i and others personally struggled a ton with black friday, and stinger is scumming over the entire community, not just some HS regs by cheating the system and VPN'ng from the US.

the entire economy is inter connected enough that it's not as simple as outting yourself to high stakes regulars, which obviously he didn't do anyways.

Hmmm okay. Maybe I spoke too soon on that without enough thought. I was thinking more in terms of liquidity and two fingers to the US government. I've never used a VPN fwiw (I'm not US based)

Exactly.

Aren't VPNs like to go down at any second though?

Well I only use Cyber Ghost which is **** and I guess Rasva can afford to pay for the best. But surely it only needs to go down for a split second to trigger alarm bells @ stars security (you'd think so anyways)

I was thinking more from PokerStars perspective. I imagine that the reason they enforce against VPN so strictly is because failing to do so might be construed by the DOJ as aiding and abetting violations of UIGEA.

Oh yeah, that is their only concern. They obviously want US players more than anyone.

How the hell would PS know they are VPNing in. Anyone who understands any basic networking will be able to VPN in undetected.

im a computer noob. but im pretty sure standard procedure is to have a server set up in another country and control it via teamviewer. its safer than vpn. stinger has experience with teamviewer, right?

That sounds more likely tbf

He probably wouldn't say anything about multi-accounting; rather, he would keep his trap shut.

COG's point, if I'm understanding it correctly, is that BigCityBanker's silence is quite telling. If nothing was done wrong, and no nefarious activity had taken place, then BCB would have come in here to provide a reasonable explanation for why Hastings' account got paired with the NoelHayes account. Instead, we know BCB perused this thread and opted not to reply to any of the allegations.

Man the poker world is such a joke. So many people willing to delude themselves and justify about anything and everything.

I played in 8game mix cash with NoelHayes and I tought after googling him that he was just a rich fish. Had I known it was hastings I would not have sat in the game. I also played in some tournaments with him and made wrong assumptions about his play because of that.

I feel cheated.

I want to first say that I am not commenting on the Stinger = NoelHayes thing, because I know absolutely nothing about it besides what has appeared in this thread/twitter.

However, this post by Zima (and some others but picking this one out) is nothing but sour grapes. You do realize that you are literally complaining that you booked a bet based on the information you had, when there was more information out there that would have changed your perception of the EV of your bet. LOL. Welcome to professional gambling and the real world (this happens all the time in financial markets)! Everyone is seeking an edge, and the fact is one person is getting exploited. This time, it was you. You're trying to exploit him being rusty, so why can't he exploit you for assuming you know more than you do? Seems silly and arbitrary to me where you are allowed to try to hustle someone, but they can't do the same to you. Brian didn't offer these bets to lose money or break even.

Unfortunately, there isn't a term sheet that goes into handshake bets or bets "booked" on Twitter that says both parties need to disclose all information about their skills that are relevant to the bet.

There is nothing unfair about betting that you're better at something than someone else thinks you are. In general this is why I don't make bets like this. You are at a huge information disadvantage.

There are things WAY worse for your EV than him playing in Stars big games. For example, he could have gained access to a GTO solution (HU) or GTO approximation (ring) to any/all of the limit games, and could have spent the last 3 months playing against bots to make sure he either remembered what to do or had enough intuition to make the correct play in all spots. Should he have to disclose this before betting? Absolutely not, IMO. If Ike plays someone in PLO, does he have to tell them all of the software he uses off the table to fine-tune his strategy?

Now I also want to say that, if you would have asked him "Brian, have you played any high stakes mixed games recently? I will only book this bet if you haven't" and he replied "No, I haven't played any high stakes mixed games in 3 months," then this changes things. If that conversation ever took place, feel free to inform us.

And what do you know... another thread with vinivici bashing Cardrunners/Taylor/etc.

any know what happened to that Portuguese "prodigy" who turned out to be a serious MA and cheater?

Detecting the use of a VPN can be accomplished by analyzing the route, timing and content of packets. Detecting the use of a remote-access tool like TeamViewer is trivial from a technical point of view because the Pokerstars application has access to the full API for the OS it's running under, from which there are countless ways to detect remote-access tools, both directly and indirectly.