Hi guys i would just like to share a little story
I have been playing poker since like 2009. I quickly found a nack and interest for the game and had some success in the early days but had trouble with finding consistency in BM and leveling up in stakes. So often enough i would go bust on my account.

I then started paying live poker in about 2011 and really fell properly in love with the whole game and had a lot of local success ( live card clubs ) since i felt i could use more of my human skills at the table like reading people and use general psychology to my advantage. I gained confidence from this and decided there still was something for me to do at the tables. This elevated my game and it also rubbed off on to my online playing.

Then having a few bad years online after HUDs and third party programs started coming more into use ( also me getting sloppy and not studying enough ) i managed to train more and get better with the changing game. I came to find that i had strong fundamentals i always could rely on if i just payed attention to changes in strategy occurring in different games and buy in levels.

I was able to to build a decent bankroll but again a few years down the line i was finding it difficult to go up in levels and found myself winning steady but at a smaller stake and it felt tougher and tougher making the climb upwards. Since the game is something i thought i could make a living from and did at several periods. I managed to qualify for live events and had a few scores so that really kept me going.

A few years later i got tired of living in my home country which is cold and very expensive. I also found it very difficult to balance the stakes i was playing and covering all living expenses. I must also add that i always played my own money and never had any stake all this time. This was something i was very proud of achieving even tho it probably made the grind a lot tougher for me long term and i never had any protection from the brutal swings that come with MTT online grinding.

I decided to go out and travel more play events in exotic places still at a medium buy in level. This was something i saw could be done if living expenses at the locations i went to or chose to grind for periods were reasonable.

It started out with me going to Asia to play a WPT event and i made the FT i also knew a few grinders living in a large asian metropole that were enjoying life quite well. Being a social guy i always managed to make a few friends here and there on my travels with likeminded grinders. I kept in touch with them and decided to go there after my biggest live score yet.

was starting to think that my dream could be possible here since expenses were so low and live in general was very easy. I went to see my friends and started grinding online with them. After a few days i had already been shown a number of sites that were " soft " and these were unregulated sites of the american kind that used BTC for deposits and withdrawals.That was a breath of fresh air seing i had only grinded pokerstars my whole career. Im not going to name the sites for different reasons a lot of them are still up and running as of today.

I went to play on these sites and deposited , actually had a lot of good scores on them right away. A few days in i got to know the rest of the grinders at that location. One day i came to my friends house to grind after being in town for about a week before i had only grinded one session with one of my friends and the rest alone.

My journey in poker had been pretty naive i were to find out later that day. As i came to my friends house and went in the room i saw three of my acquaintances and my friend all grinding with a large set up and each player having about 3-4 laptops and accounts on the sites i described and everyone was playing the same tournaments and chopping/swapping action as well.

There were prepaid wireless wifi dongles all over the place and it looked like a server room or something. It was very new to me. I came into a world i had never seen before. Basically i was given two accounts right away and they said just get on there its to easy man and we are protected from the harsh downswings and none of the sites minded this as long as there were no obvious colluding taking place.

Like say f ex to very strong hands being folded or blatant chip dumping. At first i didn't really give it much thought. I had already had a few good results and thought that this online grind 7 days a week that was available and getting up early in the morning to play only 5-7 hours and living in luxury for cheap was going to be a good life for me at my new sunny location in east asia.

These guys had been doing this for a while it seemed and had made something close to a million dollars from it. I knew there was something fishy about at least not something i morally could comprehend at the moment. It all seemed to normal and they were saying everyone is doing it.My first session with them i actually made an ft with three accounts and came 1,2 and 4th in the same tournament for a total of 6k usd. This was a 50 dollar buy in tournament.

As i found myself in that spot suddenly i just knew i was doing something really bad and that i had been a bit carried away seeing how my friends were living from this without care. All the guys were decent poker players but didnt seems to want to be doing it the right way. Almost as if they were kind of tired of the game itself and this was the only motivation they had left to earn money on the regular grind.

Like they just wanted the good part of grinding. I found myself in a bit of an moral situation since the guys were nice and sympathetic in all other aspects other from the obv fraudulent behaviour going on and the lack of remorse. I had already pre signed a half year lease and payed up front in the same building as them i was really quick on the trigger because i was so tired of my own home in europe and thought i had seen the light in terms of me maybe becoming financially independent after doing this for a while.

I couldnt really multi account properly and i had more success playing one account than three since i never really felt good about it while playing. Even though i tried to make it work for myself. The ****ing greed is powerful at times.I would often run into my friends with multiple accounts when i was playing the network on my own ( single accounting ) and we would share starting hands etc. My mind was obv corrupt at the time and i tried joining their little scheme.

I just want to know how severe my actions really were and also especially theirs seeing that they just kept going with this and are still doing it to this day with success. I just never felt like cheating in anything to win i am an athlete and i like competition. This time around my mind had wandered off. Anyways what really happened after this is i felt my game got worse since i didn't feel i was gaining any confidence from basically using shady means to up my edge at the sites.

I stopped after a short time and just got back to single accounting. I made it a mission to prove i could make good money like this the right way and i did in periods. Only thing is when they started realising i didn't want to do this anymore i got frozen out in a few instances socially because of my moral standpoint and my living situation got worse. Mentally i was struggling a bit questioning what kind of friend circle i had gotten myself mixed up in. I was there for almost a year i had a nice hub with good standard and cheap flights to go anywhere on the continent so i used that to my advantage and at least got to travel and see a lot of nice places.

But my poker feeling had become a bit bad since i started realising that this was something a lot of other pros have been doing and still are doing as of today. All the good vibes i had around the game kind of disappeared slowly. This was probably me going through a kind of mental detox since a long the way i am the one who had to ask myself if what im doing with my life is right and something i can feel good about. With time there i just got more and more depressed about it all but couldnt really go back since i enjoyed the location so much.

I became affluent and just spent all my bankroll on living comfortably till it ran out. And ended up going back to Europe drained and runned down asking myself why i ever wanted to stay in that grinding environment in the first place. Basically everyone i knew there grinding was multi accounting without a second thought and collecting 20k usd a month each. I found back to myself after a while but i had let at least 100k usd just run through my hands and not many of the guys were speaking to me about it and just kept on doing their normal thing.

I went back after a while and now im bust but still love the game and trying to make the grind a part time thing and build myself up again the right way. sad thing about this is i was making better money single accounting and just a few weeks of multi accounting ended up ruining my poker lifes work because of guilt and emptiness about what i had done and my self created social situation.

At least i got out of that spot i still speak to some of the guys from over there but its easier when its not regarding poker since somewhere along the line certain lines were crossed in both camps. But in the end i just feel i spoke out at the time to them about what i felt was right or wrong about what was going on. Even though i felt it was right i ended up loosing a lot from it .

So it hasn't really felt worth it when i sit back and look at it at times. Bankroll is still 0
I basically wanted to share this to get it off my mind and also see what kind of response i would get to this , has someone been in a similar spot as me or something like it.

I would really like to hear your opinions that is if you bothered reading through it. I am sorry for some of the text composition i havent really written this much in a while..

What kind of edge do you gain multiaccounting the same tournament?

Like, wouldn't it be playing different tournaments?

Also, prob this goes in BBV?

Cliffs:

Good on you for getting out of there. You're not alone in this. I've turned down a number of shady opportunities in the past despite not having any real success at that point. I'd rather do almost anything than make a living cheating people. I have an acquaintance who was approached by a well known coach to collude on chinese apps, justified with an "everyone is doing it" type attitude. I can empathise with this, but it's no way to live a fulfilling life.

There are still lots of honest regs, people who see the big picture. Poker isn't the be all end all for them. They love the game and are using it as training for whatever comes next.

Thank you for sharing

OP you forgot to out these scumbags to protect the community

Are you in Iceland?

Also knack.

this

Would enjoy the story more if you call out these scammers.
Would be much nicer than acting like a good guy when you actually still multi accounted in the first place.
You probably online stopped because u didn’t made money

MAing on asian apps is rampant. Almost standard in tournaments. Theres a big group of self proclaimed australian crushers that have made a tonne of money by playing ~10 accounts each in every tournament on one of the apps.

With online poker being illegal in oz the main way of playing is pppoker with 1 big aussie union. Agents encourage players to MA the mtts and im sure it must be happening in cash also

Thanks for sharing your story. It's a part of the poker world I didn't really know existed, but once you lay out the framework, it seems obvious.

Thanks for sharing your story

I've seen a place like this before years ago and have heard of others. I've found out much more about this type of activity post-ACR investigation. It's the main reason I stopped playing online poker seriously. The ability to cheat like this is incredibly easy and most sites are incapable of stopping it. It doesn't mean you can't win money by game selecting and site selecting but you have to be extra careful and stay disciplined to the strategy and always keep your eyes open for something suspicious but not let it overrun your thoughts when you start losing a bit or think you notice something. Once you have it in your mind that someone is cheating 100%, your mindset gets pretty ****ed. It's unfortunate but it's the reality. It seemed like a better option to start learning more about what the rest of the world had to offer vs putting all my energy into how to be a better online PLO cash game player and poker player. Now I've spent the past 2 years doing that and we will see what the world has to offer.

great insight Joey, ty bud love ur work

I disagree,

OP post does not fall under Beats, Braggs, or Variance. OP should be applauded for leaving the situation because of his strong moral compass. Not ridiculed by BBV regs.
Tell me your thoughts why post should be moved?

You basically squeeze the field. Like say you have 100 dollar tournament going everyday. And that tournament is a re entry for two hours. The tournament has regulars that play it steady and you have create notes etc on these players. You already have one account on this network and you then manage to make three more accounts under other peoples names and new e mail adreses , get them verified and start playing the same tournament with 4 laptops and you end up sitting at the same table as yourself a long the way. This creates a enormous edge in terms of sharing whole cards , squeezing players and evening out the swings that come from online tournament. Like i described earlier in my thread you can basically fill an entire ft with friendly accounts and just play i through so you collect money almost every session. If you have a an agreement to share and chop equity you are literally unstoppable. And you will sadly enough make money in the long term way more than everyone else. If all that goes to the same pot you could do this for a long time without getting caught. The key here is that this is something that is way easier on the us unregulated sites or the asian apps as a few of you mentioned earlier. They really dont care as long as you dont do obv chip dumps or fold way stronger hands than you are supposed to.... If you have a system like the guys i know do its really hard to get caught unless somebody were to complain multiple times. These sites are just out for money. I could name a few of them but its going on almost everywhere there is unregulated poker offered.

Ty Papi for the reply. I have struggled a lot with this the last years.
I have watched a lot of your coverage on the ACR scandal and Mike Postle scam etc
And these vids always got me thinking and made me reevaluate myself and my standing in the game. I was even watching your vids while i was multi accounting mostly interviews with other players on poker living etc and jut keeping up with the game and news etc lol

It is really nice work and needed in the community also the stuff on mental health i commend you for that. I was struggling for a long time not feeling good about myself and my actions taken in that period. I just wish i spoke out sooner or made a video about it. I might elaborate more on this with some thought.

I still love the game but i cant find myself wanting to grind hard like before online. Just play in a capacity that i am comfortable with and maybe like you said see what the world has to offer besides this enclosed environment. I love live poker and i will be playing events in the future. But as i am having a kid in a few months and i feel like life is entering the next levels.

All this money chasing and wanting to make it doesnt really matter anymore. I just want to stay healthy and be there for the people around me and maybe contribute something from my experiences that people can learn from. I might just make that video as i mentioned earlier and just name the sites i played on and tell people how easy it is.
Just take them through it step by step like all the things the greedy bastards have to do to make this work for them.

Maybe this could be an eye opener for the community.
Maybe even the sites were to be shaken and do something about their awful security routines and sheer greed. I see almost nobody making videos about this apart from you and a few others mostly covering topics that are in the poker news realm at the time. I think people need to know about all this kind of stuff. Hopefully i would get the balls to just make that happen asap.

Ty man and keep up the good work.
Holler at me if you ever need some source material on this for anything.
Or you ever want to do a story on someone who didnt make it in poker lol
GTO is definitely a way of life.....

Take care my man some of the replies i got here on this thread really made my day.. I knew a lot of people would just hate me right away.....But i guess thats just part of the territory sharing a story like this....

Yes you are so right. They were doing this at times on the apps like PPoker , Pokermaster and Pokerlord etc.....And they knew a heap of aussies doing the same... They need to make it legal as many places as they can......If not this will just keep on going i think......

U have to pay for ur deeds. U try to justify it as if u didnt partake in it. U took corrupt money. U stole money. Ur a thief untill u pay ur debt. Ur friends are also thiefs and broke the spirit of the game. Which is imo even more damaging.

Dont understimate ur deed, u corrupted the game and urself. Things u steal will never be yours. One can think so, but that doesnt change that fact.

And because of that the things u steal will take a corrupt place in ur life. THey will start owning u in a sense. U will be pushed out of ur life by it, because it aint yours. Sure, in the world of thought it is... but thats not the truth. The truth is that every dollar u took in a cheating way aint yours and never was and never will be. Thoughts justifying that it is will only darken ur life. Which is why u wrote this. Cause u want it to be brighter.

Coming clean here was ur first step. The longer u wait with the other steps the more steps u will have to take to undo the wrong. ANd those steps have to be thorougly.

You are just another online SCUMBAG...and this is why poker is dead

spends 2.5 long years considering his first post and this is what bigbabyboy comes up with. somehow quite depressing

Yea, nice of you to shed your guilt but I do agree with BBB . You participated in cheating and made a nice profit off of it. It doesn't even appear you're a winning player at stakes that are relevant which makes it even worse. I stopped playing basically after black Friday except for a few small deposits on Bodog and I realized I have 0 faith that I'm playing in a straight game so I quit all together.

This **** is sad and it is nice to have it brought to light for the few ignorant souls left who you might have changed their mind by reading this.

Thanks for sharing.
+1 for a video about it.

What's the point in posting stuff like this if you're not going to name and shame the culprits? And this goes for the original poster too!

Ive done a lot of bad things in my life. You can justify things to yourself in order to feel better. Im poor, I dont have family to lean on like these rich kids. If they don't get it from me they will just get it somehwere else. They're criminals they know what they signed up for.... Everyone else multi accounts... Blah blah blah blah.. Excuses .. Excuses...

Mostly so people know whats happening on these sites. We literally have 1 pppoker union so i named that. More over these sites dont really have terms and conditions. The people running them dont explicitly say you cant MA tournaments.....

s/o to whomever finished 3rd... nice work.