Hi everyone, been a poker pro for couple years and long time lurker. I think most of us would agree that the online poker ecosystem has gotten grimier in many ways and if we, as players don't actively try to clean up our 'office', not many if any, will do anything about it.

2 MAIN PURPOSE OF THIS THREAD
1) drum up viable ideas to combat all forms of cheating
2) spread the word on social media or otherwise try to get these ideas to the relevant operators


I will start.


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To address CHEATING on IGNITION/BODOG/BOVODA network
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A) Consider removing regular tables and only run zoom/zone games;

B) alternatively, remove the extra timebank and reduce the amount of time/decision so cheaters have less time to coordinate. This should also help combat RTA to some degree.

WHY?
First and most importantly, its significantly more difficult for cheaters to coordinate, share hole cards, reads etc. when they have 15 seconds to act without extra time than regular tables with 30s + 30s timebank.

Two, it removes grimy predatory behaviour that players can get up to - so for example, if a new table starts with a rec and he sits to your left and there are multiple open seats available to the rec's right, you can basically close the table and spam re-join until you get a better seat, especially in pools where the player pool is smaller on higher stakes.

Three, recs on average lose less on zone/zoom games than on reg tables - MDA has demonstrated this. And since there is a interest for the operator to keep the rec alive as long as possible so that they can keep the games running and RAKED for as long as possible, there IS a significant incentive for the operator to implement this as well.



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To address SCRIPTING on IPOKER NETWORK / 888 NETWORK
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To those who play on these 2 separate networks, you'll probably observe that when someone "reserves" a seat on a table that is not filled, we can see that there are few players, likely with a seating script, who then "reserves" their seat within 0.5s upo. Are there outliers who is able to grind, monitor lobby and sit in sub-human reflexes? Sure but those are few.

I don't know how viable this idea is but I think if the operators' security create new accounts (such that the scripters have not labelled them) and joined the tables, which will trigger the players using seating scripts to join PROMPTLY with SUB-HUMAN REFLEXES consistently (perhaps the operators can use multiple different new accounts to join to create a pattern of behaviour



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Good luck to those who are still out there grinding.

And MUCH THANKS in advance to those who contribute ideas, provide constructive feedback and those who would get this message to the 'right' people on social media, gambling operators. I have no social media presence so would appreciate it if everyone here can spread the word on socials.

If you think you are constantly being cheated on a site, don't play there. Hit them in the pocketbook with the loss or your rake. If enough people stop playing on a site, they will eventually go under.

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?

What about....



Zoom with aliases based on GTO play?? 6 tiers;;


Likely a GTO wizard
Wizard
Regular
Standard
Club player
Fold pre


!?!?

How about a voting system for people reported as cheaters???

Like... If you get votes you get reviewed. If found highly likely of RTA //GTO bot, ban. Highest votes per non-cheater wins lead board or smt. But then... Vote collusion....

Certainly nothing could ever go wrong with that

Reshuffle all folded hands eliminates card sharing so just start with that

Non regs aren't going to want to play in super fast games, reshuffling player seats might be a good idea if implemented right.

Incentivize gaming companies to prevent it through regulation.

Number 1 step to combat online cheating.

Make all online poker real name and verified.

You will stop a lot of the cheating but you will kill the games in other ways. How many people do you think are going to want their real name attached to a leaderboard showing how much they gamble to the whole world?

I like this, for regs anyway

So you're saying you want to doxx professional poker players?

Umm yeah
That's what GG does at high stakes already and seems to work fine

There's no technical limitations preventing companies from preventing cheating. A bunch of dimwit poker players 'Brainstorming' won't help. The truth is most poker companies operate illegally or in grey markets. The best we can do as consumers is to vote with your money and don't play on unregulated sites. If you don't have access to legal, regulated games -- get involved in local politics, move somewhere that supports your lifestyle, or don't play.

If we keep giving the shady sites money, they'll keep providing shady services.

out of those sites i only play ipoker and agree the seating scripts are ruinin games and i (who dont wanna use a script) have trouble getting good seats

i emailed their support about this more than once. Thet never showed any incentive to do something about seating script, so i fear this will just always be the case

You're username doesn't help here 🤣

It will be a small amount that you lose. Very small and almost completely irrelevant.

Great idea yeah I think there are some sites that are already doing that with PLO

Can you pls elaborate further as to why you think so? I think it will help to some degree, but as we can observe, GG mandating real names but winning regs has not stopped a lot of the shady stuff happening on there. There are also workarounds like renting accounts etc once your old account gets banned. I think forcing real names + verification COULD work if all the operators come together to agree that they would ALL disallow any named cheaters (from other sites) from playing in their games but this seems like a substantial logistical hurdle that not many would have the network and influence to execute...

Ignorance and a lack of education as observed is the reason why society becomes fractured, along with a lack of willingness to take action and create change, but rather submit to the will of others and/or wait for someone else to do take action and/or come along with petty insults like calling others 'dimwits' for trying to do something. Shady businessmen and operators rely on individuals like you to thrive - the naysayers, the lazy, the ignorant

I have actually overseas so I can grind online legally, and DO NOT support operators who are shady. But there are many others who do not fall within that category, nothing against them since I understand that they're just trying to make a living.

"I THINK" (could be wrong) the issue is that people mostly send them emails and complain rather than provide reliable evidence or novel methods of catching cheaters. I don't think catching these scripters shouldn't be too difficult, basically for operators to find reliable way to catch those who "reserve" their seats consistently within sub-human reflexes whilst grinding.

I do agree with you to some degree, which is why it is very important for the community to spread the word to influencers (ambassadors etc.) across social media to pressure the corporate to implement some of the changes

I gave constructive advice, didn't call anyone specifically a name. Get involved in politics, move to somewhere you can play, or stop giving shady businesses your dollars. Do the things within your power to make change. Unless someone here works for a poker operator, it's pointless to speculate on potential solutions.

Four crucial measures that need to be implemented to combat cheating and ensure the integrity of the game:

Full Disclosure of Game Histories: The first and most vital step is the complete transparency of hand histories. By making game histories fully accessible, any fraudulent activity can be uncovered, preventing cheating in the long run.

Real Name Policy: Playing online poker under real names is essential. For botrings, creating multiple fake identities is a breeze, allowing them to bypass Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols. Playing under real names fosters a sense of accountability and community, where players are more likely to know each other directly or through mutual acquaintances.

Development of Open Discussion Platforms: Open spaces for discussing poker gameplay are crucial. They encourage community cohesion and strengthen bonds between players. It's imperative that successful gaming communities don't operate in the shadows.

Stop Regulatory Interference: Regulatory bodies should refrain from excessive intervention in the gaming industry. Their current actions burden platforms with tasks unrelated to maintaining fair gameplay. Responsibilities for money laundering prevention and regional segregation, along with restrictions on payment methods, divert resources away from combating cheating at the tables.

Everything else is detailes and does not mean much.

.

Parasense,

Is no issue at all when all have all information on all. Player make every decision at the moment of the hand gameplay, considering all information he have, its not predifined, same is for his opponent. Thats only issue for those who use predifined exploitable strategies and not able to adjust to counter.

GG start implimentation of this to winning players and not lost much. I can support thats intentions, despite the fact that in practice their real names by them mainly related to tying the player to a specific skin.

Yes, im posting at such site here. People are social, I constantly see intentions to exchange opinions, many nice youtube channel of poker players, twitter, open discourd communities. There is a problem with the marginalization of opinions or harmless actions, a couple of months ago we faced an attack on from GG to poker stables and now players are afraid to say in public that they are members of the stables. The discussion of MDA and game histories has been marginalized for many years, when MDA and game histoires actually help to fight cheating and the tables. But for example, ghosting has been marginalized by cause and in the open communities where it was marginalized, its numbers have decreased significantly in the last 10 years. Open communities are essentially a tool for setting morality, but it should be set by the people of these communities, and not imposed from above from people that decide that stables are PURE EVIL or MDA is a crime.


If chances are below zero - games will be smashing to unregulated applications (witch actually massivly happening now due to irresponsible regulation), people have a need for the poker game and one way or another they will implement it.

I don't see how it is possible to prevent cheating in online poker.