No one would care, no one would do anything, no would even know what they are doing.

tbh i have been at a live game which was $20 buy-in or something tiny and a guy was telling us how he and another guy colluded on STT omaha. I pretty much straight out asked him if it was play money and he said ofcourse, as if it where stupid to use real money.

this!

if they weren't doing anything wrong they probably didn't care about being out in public

Grunching:

This thread is insane. Being physically located in the same place makes 0 difference for colluding. Anything they could do in person they could do over AIM/phone/skype/teamviewer/whatever.

hi starbucks colluder

I wonder what the band was playing?

This is true. You dont need to be physically in the same place to do it.

Not if they needed 3 public wifi nodes to go with 3 air cards.

Logic fail

"Anything they do in same physical place they can do over AIM" does not logically lead to "they are not colluding because they are in the same physical place".

Pretty damn good detective work in this thread. It reads like a mystery novel. If a few smart donks in a poker forum can get all this info from a picture, then imagine what an intelligence agency with unlimited resources would be able to figure out. That's scary to think about. If the csi miami fictional characters (from the tv show) were to take on this case, would they be able to solve it easily, with a few phone calls? anyways keep up the good work, i want to know whodunnit.

Reading fail

He never said "they are not colluding because they are in the same place." He said it's just as easy to collude at home with aim as it is being in the same place. So basically it's just as likely that three friends all in their own homes playing poker who have aim installed on their computers are colluding, as it is that these three are.

Obviously this is true. However, I think that when you see 3 guys playing poker on at least 7 laptops some/all of which have air cards even though they're playing in a place with public wifi, I think it's reasonable to assume that something bad's going on.

The fact that they could've done this in a different way that would've made for a less damning picture doesn't take away from the fact that this is a pretty damning picture.

Also, it's pretty cool that 2p2 managed to get the IP address of the borders. However, is that IP address going to be the same as it was a month ago? And are we sure that at least one of them was using border's internet?

Of course, stupid me. He posted in this thread just to say people might be colluding at home

What blows me away is this "so called poker reporter" after seeing something so suspect, wouldn't nonchalantly grab a seat, have a few coffees, and listen to the diolague between them. One would think even a halfway decent reporter would feel obligated to do so. After an hour or more you would obv be able to have some insight on what type of interaction is going on. From the tone of the tweets, she seems to somewhat laugh this off.

Another example of how the lack of governing makes it so exploitable and high risk. Very soon people will hopefully be playing in an enviroment completely governed, where people are held accountable, and have a fear of repurcussion.

P.S- Really impressive detective work by some of you, kudos for that. If all else fails, you all should think about starting a P.I firm of some sort.

Also is this "Josem" here from the 60 minutes investigation? Pretty smart dude I would say
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCZgcJb4blA

LOL wp

Yep. That is Josem.

The only explanation I can come with for the way they have avoided this case like the plague is that Stars has made a decision not to have another public collusion investigation. And definitely not one in the U.S. as regulated poker is being considered.

You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Johnny’s in the basement
Mixing up the medicine
I’m on the pavement
Thinking about the government
The man in the trench coat
Badge out, laid off
Says he’s got a bad cough
Wants to get it paid off
Look out kid
It’s somethin’ you did
God knows when
But you’re doin’ it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin’ for a new friend
The man in the ****-skin cap
By the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten

Maggie comes fleet foot
Face full of black soot
Talkin’ that the heat put
Plants in the bed but
The phone’s tapped anyway
Maggie says that many say
They must bust in early May
Orders from the D.A.
Look out kid
Don’t matter what you did
Walk on your tiptoes
Don’t try “No-Doz”
Better stay away from those
That carry around a fire hose
Keep a clean nose
Watch the plain clothes
You don’t need a weatherman
To know which way the wind blows

Get sick, get well
Hang around a ink well
Ring bell, hard to tell
If anything is goin’ to sell
Try hard, get barred
Get back, write braille
Get jailed, jump bail
Join the army, if you fail
Look out kid
You’re gonna get hit
But users, cheaters
Six-time losers
Hang around the theaters
Girl by the whirlpool
Lookin’ for a new fool
Don’t follow leaders
Watch the parkin’ meters

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don’t steal, don’t lift
Twenty years of schoolin’
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don’t wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don’t wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don’t work
’Cause the vandals took the handles

Having now seen this breif "60 minute" clip, I find it interesting how much less pro-active he seems here. It's glaringly obvious he is more then capable and has all of the power to make it happen. Something tells me if he were not a part of that company, he and a few others could of/would of already gotten to the bottom of this.

On his silence in this thread, seems very clear the big shots at Pokerstars cut him off. Pokerstars officials probably don't want one of there most well known security experts using a forum as a platform like this to stir up any sort of drama for the site (because sometimes it backfires, which seems to be the case here). My guess is the brass put an end to his involving himself on a personal level with some of the company's security dealings on a forum. Especailly ones that could not end so well. Of course thats just my two cents after reading the thread, and noticing he dissapeared rather suddenly in it.

Meh.. Josem admitted he made a mistake. When you read as many false accusations as he does, it's not surprising that he occasionally misinterprets a situation. It's also not surprising that he misinterpretted this specific situation because it's probably pretty similar to a silly complaint that he's really tired of hearing ("I SAW THREE PEOPLE PLAYING ONLINE POKER IN THE SAME ROOM!") and because it's pretty unconventional since the only evidence is some photograph. Obviously it sucks that he got it wrong, but humans make human error.

Josem's failed to follow up on a few legitimate complaints that turned out to be true. I'm sure he's also followed up on some complaints and temporarily locked some accounts when someone made a baseless accusation that he failed to identify as such. That doesn't mean that he sucks at this; it just means he ain't perfect at it. It's certainly not evidence of anything nefarious.

The important thing is that he was smart and mature enough to change his mind. (Though I bet he's still not thrilled about this case because there's really not that much Stars can do unless they happen to have used the border's IP address and that happens to be the same as the one posted in this thread.)

Edit:

Re post above mine,
He works for a poker site now. That comes with responsibilities that sometimes make him have to STFU. For example, if he didn't work for a poker site he'd probably say somethign like "It seems pretty obvious that cheating is going on here," but since he works for a poker site it would be inappropriate for him to say something like that without a much higher burden of proof.

There's nothign wrong with that.

I'd be willing to bet that "the brass" didn't e-mail him to tell him to shut up.

Oops, guess I didn't look closely enough at the picture. I hadn't noticed that there was more than one computer per person or that they were on aircards. That changes my mind entirely. They were probably doing something bad.

You are basicaly stating the same thing I was. Serisouly though, when you say this, " but since he works for a poker site it would be inappropriate for him to say something like that without a much higher burden of proof.". I really have to scratch my head as to what you mean here, he now has all of the resources neccesary (more then anyone obviously) to reach this burden of proof. More so then before he worked for a "poker site", wouldn't you agree?

I agree the investigation should be internal, but see nothing wrong with people being made aware of the outcome. Especially given the interest/attention it has gotten now, via this thread.

I wouldn't be surprised if these guys still couldn't win the tourney.

You seem to be assuming he has an answer already. If he reaches a conclusion, he or someone else from Stars will probably post it like they always do when one of these things comes up on 2p2.

You're also completely wrong that he has all the resources necessary to reach a conclusion. That's only the case if these guys played on the Borders internet and the Borders IP address was static for months or if there's some other way for Stars to figure this out that hasn't been mentioned yet. You absolutely cannot just search all Stars tourneys for hands in which seat x and seat y were already out and BU was seat z and UTG had a face card, etc that happened at that time give or take a few hours. That'll give a ton of results because a terrifying number of tourney hands get played on Stars every hour.

Even if they do somehow get their screen names, they'd sto;; have to then prove that collusion or multiaccounting actually happened because Stars has the annoying burden of proof of showing that cheating actually happened, and not simply showing that someone did something that they'd only have reason to do if they were cheating.