Cliffs:
- Multi-accounting and account sharing are forms of cheating. Durrrr, a representative of Full Tilt Poker, makes post stating multi-accounting is not cheating and simply angle-shooting when it clearly breaks TOS of the site he represents.
- Gaining edge by multi-accounting is becoming widespread and is ruining the integrity of high stakes online games.
- The amount of edge gained by multi-accounting is underestimated by most.
- Some people are taking multi-accounting to the next level and making an organized attempt to cheat people out of money at high stakes…
- Very reputable sources out main suspect as Jared Bleznick.
- This thread is a place for high stakes players to post information they have on multi-accounting cheaters.
- The sites need to stop ignoring the issues and put new measures in place to stop this.
Cheating in the high stakes online games. Harrington, !POKrparty? and more…
This is a thread to discuss all possible multi-accounting and cheating in the high stakes online games.
Multi-accounting
Poker sites do a poor job of catching multi-accounting players and other cheaters at high stakes poker online. This is likely a product of it being difficult to prove wrong-doing beyond reasonable doubt with the tools currently available to them and maybe a misunderstanding of the sites as to how badly this behaviour affects the poker economy.
Multi-accounting has become so commonplace that Tom Dwan has even posted on 2+2 that multi-accounting is ‘not cheating’. This could be to protect the actions of his friends like the Dang brothers or random Macau accounts that have played sporadically on Pokerstars or possibly he wants to justify his own actions post Black Friday.
Quote:
Originally Posted by durrrr
multiaccounting isnt cheating. its a flawed rule that the sites try to enforce partly for their own benefits. that said in the current climate u shouldn't do it, just like u shouldn't angleshoot in a poker game. but angling and throwing in a chip that looks like a raise intentionally, while scummy, is way different than marking the cards and knowing all of them.
This statement is obviously incorrect and kind of a dumb statement to make as a representative and sponsored pro of Full Tilt Poker. Multi-accounting goes against the terms and conditions of the site:
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/about-u...on/site-rules: “A User may only have one User account with Full Tilt Poker and shall only use the Service using such single account.”
Focusing on high stakes - multi-accounting is far worse than simply angle-shooting (which is technically within the rules but repeated angle-shooting would likely be penalized as in the extreme case of Jharma-Dharma). Pokerstars state this in their terms and conditions:
http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/tos/ 10.4. “A User may only have one User account with PokerStars and shall only use the Service using such single account. It is prohibited for a User to open multiple accounts with PokerStars. In the event that PokerStars becomes aware of additional accounts opened by a User, PokerStars may close such additional accounts without notice and may confiscate funds held in such additional accounts.”
The players who multi-account high stakes have access to large amounts of information on their opponents, while they ensure that other players have no access to information on their own game. It’s difficult to quantify this edge but it’s obvious to anyone with a bit of high stakes experience that being able to take maximally exploitative lines on someone while their opponents are having to re-learn the tendencies of a random account is a big advantage. As edges between players decline, the edge gained by multi-accounting will become more and more significant. This kind of edge is also most effective in high stakes games where the majority of the player pool knows each other’s games.
Multi-accounting happens in lots of different forms. Many American players may play VPNs or justify making a new account after Black Friday when they change country. Players may share accounts to gain an advantage justifying it if they share a bankroll. The worst kind of multi-accounting is organized and done on a large scale with the worst examples being Jared Bleznick and Harry Kaczka. The point is that all multi-accounting is cheating and the notion that it can be acceptable should not be populated in the community.
Durrrr, has anyone you know multi-accounted after Black Friday? That is playing on a new account where they previously have played on a different account. Since you don’t consider it cheating you should be fine with outing this information. It’s about protecting the integrity of the game, which you talk lots about when you accuse LarsLuzak of playing on Jepsen account
(
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...omment-293281/).
Quote:
Originally Posted by insyder19
It is an advantage to be able to share accounts. It is HUGE advantage to be able to discuss tough decisions with someone in your room who is good. It is cheating. I also find it hilarious how both of them are on the Galfond site not saying a word about it.
It is pretty common knowledge between PLO regs that the Dang brothers would share accounts and may well still share the barcode account on Pokerstars due to the two different styles these accounts display.
The most recent and troubling cases of multi-accounting is a blatant and organized attempt to gain huge edges by flouting the rules of the poker sites. These new multi-accounters play handfuls of new accounts with a specific style. They play overly aggressive preflop when they first appear to propagate an image of a fishy player and attract unwarranted action. They have access to all the information on other players while masking their own just like all people who cheat in this way but now they also are trying to lure people in to HU matches. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that they will play different accounts within minutes of each others in the high stakes mixed games. They have a huge advantage compared to the rest of the player pool and are effectively stealing tons of liquidity from the games.
It is common knowledge within the high stakes PLO community that Jared Bleznick has been blatantly multi-accounting the games with at least 5-6 accounts to gain edge on Pokerstars and FTP. He is most likely playing from a VPN out of New York and the accounts associated with him have been seen to play within minutes of each other. He is the worst offender and poker sites should deal with him harshly, in the same vein as Bet365 dealt with Jepsen and Gulkines multi-accounting Isildur1:
Zupp continues: "Bet365 returned to me with a decision. They decided that I had to pay Blom back all $800,000. Gulkines had meanwhile continued playing on the account and lost $300,000. This meant that there was now only $650,000 in the account instead of $950,000 as had been the case right after the match vs Blom. Bet365 insisted that I deposit $150,000 so that they could transfer the full $800,000 to Blom. If I did not agree, then they said they would drag me to court and make sure that I never played online poker again... anywhere!"
Zupp and Gulkines were forced to pay back the full amount to Blom.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...irmed-1319549/
Sources on Harrington cheating and multiaccounting.
*Ben86 interview:
http://quadjacks.com/tobis-table-tal...n86-tollerene/
Quote:
Originally Posted by gargar11
*Phil Galfond also calls Jared out on the Cantbeat account and for multi-accounting in general in his videos on runitonce:
http://www.runitonce.com/plo/phil39/
*Fullflush calls out Harrington25
http://www.highstakesdb.com/forum/62...ople-and-sauce
Cliffs:
-Fullflush(lb6121) says longerpig = gozoboro = harrington25 = Jared Bleznick
-Biatchpeople(Alexandre Luneau) and Sauce agree
-All three think previous multi-accounters from Macau were able to win and cash-out tons of money
-Sauce implies there's a ton more multi-accounting going on
*Daniel Negreanu implies the same:
bazaro: Re: *** December 2012 High Stakes Thread ***
LOL
Negreanu asking questions in chat about Bleznick...maybe Pokerstars sent Negreanu to figure out whats up with the MA issues? (Gozoboro at table)
Dealer: Gozoboro has a pair of Nines
Dealer: cyprean has two pair, Aces and Sevens
Dealer: Hand #91078495119: cyprean wins pot ($2,395) with two pair, Aces and Sevens
Dealer: Hand #91078516869: KidPoker wins pot ($200)
KidPoker: anyone seen him?
cyprean: no
KidPoker: Jared Bleznick is his name
KidPoker: used to always play these PLO games
Dealer: Hand #91078522030: M.O.P. wins pot ($1,095)
Dealer: Hand #91078539363: KidPoker wins pot ($500)
Dealer: Hand #91078545290: KidPoker wins pot ($500)
cyprean: he played last month
Dealer: Hand #91078550410: M.O.P. wins pot ($500)
Dealer: Hand #91078554334: M.O.P. wins pot ($500)
KidPoker: interesting. Did he move to Ireland?
cyprean: no idea
Administrator: The Big $16.50 Sat: $1.65+R Turbo [5 Seats Gtd] - 3 minutes! Join now: T658023890
KidPoker: Maybe Gozoboro knows?
M.O.P.:
Administrator: Sunday Storm Sat: 5+R FPP 2x-Turbo [5 Seats Gtd] - 16 minutes! Join now: T658030944
KidPoker: :-)
*Then Daut implies the same - all accounts he lists are suspected Harrington accounts. Quotes are from here onwards:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...0&postcount=93
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daut44
since the majority of the thread is levels so far, i will give a serious answer.
in no particular order, the top players:
harrington25, gozoboro, harrington10, nypogadi11, setokaiba1, crain85, longerpig
Quote:
Originally Posted by blopp
This is very serious if true and Ive heard lots of rumours about the issue.
I wonder why nothing gets done / its not more talked about? ..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Two SHAE
Why are people not taking the MAing/account sharing more seriously? Seems obvious at this point there is something funny going on with Harrington and with the barcode account.
All these Harrington suspect accounts play mixed games to a very high standard. Lots of high stakes regulars have been tricked by these accounts and lost money including Shaundeeb. These people may have turned down action if they knew who was actually playing. They have all been put in the very disadvantageous position of being readless vs a player that seems to deliberately be making some high variance crazy plays to gain extended HU action where they have a huge edge gained through cheating.
With so much circumstancial evidence against Jared it seems crazy for this not to be more public. Look at what happened with the Stoxtrader collusion analysis by NoahSD.
Investigation Into Softplaying Between Stoxtrader, Kinetica, and LittleZen (very very tl;dr)
The community needs to band together and come forward with any other accounts suspected of multi-accounting and cheating the community out of millions of dollars. This needs to be more widespread knowledge just how bad multi-accounting and account sharing cheating is for the entire future of high stakes poker. It makes people more unwilling to play unknown accounts and removes millions of dollars from the poker economy. The integrity of the games is at risk of becoming a joke.
The Jared Bleznick situation is more serious than just multi-accounting though if some less publicly substantiated rumours are to be believed. It’s possible he is playing with multiple accounts in the same games.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=355
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=383
If true this is obviously very worrying and anyone with more information in this vein needs to come forward to refute or back up these claims.
The situation now where multi-accounting and account sharing at high stakes is commonplace is wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ihopeyouwin
I was sitting next to Anton Allemann in the Rio this summer. He had like 70k on the table in a 50/100 game and I've never seen him before and asked who he was online. He told me his name and pointed at a young blonde kid who was sitting at the next table waiting for some mixed game to start and said something like "Thats Ronny Kaiser, it's pretty well known that we are both playing on his account"...
Also it seems to be a pretty open secret in The Wynn in Macau whats happening behind the accounts registered over there or who else was in town when Socu*t*s played nosebleeds and stuff at least open enough that it even reaches my ears when I go there twice a year for a couple of days.
Christ, De 'Berg!
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=5567
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=392
Everyone is doing it though!
There were a lot of new accounts popping up after Black Friday especially from Macau, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Sweden and Ireland. People seem to think that it’s fine to play high stakes with a new account but it’s against the TOS of the sites and cheating and that is why you risk getting your funds confiscated. There is no need to change screen name. Worst of all you risk getting the sites in trouble and could be jeopardizing the return of Pokerstars to the USA market if the DOJ deems them to not be making enough effort to stop people VPN’ing. The poker sites probably don’t take the multi-accounting problem seriously enough or at least realise the damaging effect it is having on the integrity of the high stakes games and maybe just how much edge can be gained this way. People are being cheated out of hundreds of thousands of dollars on a semi-regular basis.
Some of the cheating is so obvious and in-your-face that it’s pretty sick the sites do not react. The socutiesf account (a Pokerstars pro account) went from grinding small to mid-stakes for years to suddenly jumping up to nosebleeds with a new Macau location then falling back in to obscurity. A lot of the people multi-accounting will happily admit it in chat like patpatpanda/patpatman admitting to playing samrostan account:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...postcount=1313
http://www.highstakesdb.com/profiles/samrostan.aspx
http://nl.pokernews.com/nieuws/2013/...otst-11340.htm
He is at least up-front to regs so this particular name-change does not seem to be motivated by a desire to cheat regulars out of money.
Quote:
Originally Posted by insyder19
Oh yea socutiefs, out of sudden a breaking even low stakes NL player comes around playing even 200/400 PLO vs anyone getting super tricky and advanced. Looks like stars banned that account last year? Have not seen him.
Bleznick is a ****ing scum without friends, had been said many times. Hearing about ronny is blowing my mind. I know there are a bunch of highstakes PLO players from austria, of course some of them living in the same house sharing action and probably accounts but ronny?
Good example would be the new FTP. Out of nowhere there are couple guys who play 200/400 CAP, never played any other stakes on there!
An older example is !POKrparty?/Gordylamb/ boobysmiles/ ugotabanana/coolmoney2 = Harry Kaczka
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...kaczka-959455/
There are some people who speculate it could be Harry on the FakeorReal account too. It was known for a pretty long time by the community that it was Harry on the Gordylamb account and Pokerstars were informed numerous times yet the account was able to keep on playing for months before being banned. Harry cashed out seven figures in stolen money. He is still allowed to play FTP and Pokerstars live games with his stolen money. How is this fair?
Conclusions and Solutions
This post was inspired by durrrr's naïve response on multi-accounting. Hope he answers what he knows about multi-accounting from his time in the Macau games and other personal experiences. This will help protect the integrity of the games he talks about himself.
This thread is a good place for others to report similar issues they know about and hopefully expand on the info and look deeper into the accused accounts from this post. Nonsense or wild speculations should be deleted by mods. Everything in this thread is backed by multiple high stakes players and anyone who is a regular in these games should come forward with any information they have. It seems very unfair that there is a world with people following the rules and another that cheat and get away with it. The mods with any luck should see the accusations here are widespread beliefs between the high stakes community and not random accusations.
Hopefully anyone that knows more will come forward with evidence and someone will start doing similar analyses as the Stoxtrader scandal. It should be in the best interest of the poker sites and the community to stop this before it becomes an epidemic where everyone does as they please and high stakes online poker loses its’ integrity. Hopefully someone has the balls to actually say what they know to protect us from a bleak future.
This is a problem that needs an answer from the sites. They obviously do have a system in place to detect cheating but from the past experience of very obvious cheating by Harry Kazcka and one of Pokerstars’ own Team Online accounts (socutiesf) the system is pretty slow and inefficient. There is another case of a player on iPoker who has multiple accounts and uses them to block up all the HU tables so no-one else can sit.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/15...unter-1305478/
Just another example of poker sites not responding despite numerous players complaining – not that iPoker and Ongame have a track record of doing much for the players. Maybe Stars and FTP will take some action on this though to maintain their place as market leaders.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chinaski101
What do people think about stars making it compulsory to have a webcam if you play over 25/50, so they can verify its you playing. The webcam would hardly ever be used, but they could randomly ask you during a break in a session to turn it on.
It feels like there has been a lot of multiaccounting, especially post black friday and the emergence of a lot of the new relocated accounts.
Even if stars rarely asked for this confirmation, the mere threat of it would be enough to deter people from thinking about multiaccounting.
Thoughts? ideas to improve on this?
Pokerstars have made visits to addresses where bots are suspected to work out of and this could be an option for cases where evidence is strong. If a smaller site like Bet365 can take action in cases where account sharing has happened in high stakes games then the larger sites should also have a responsibility to keep the high stakes games fair.
The option to change screen-names at intervals may reduce the edge that people multi-accounting can gain. It could work on a system where screen name changes are ‘earned’ by number of hands played or something. This is a big change though and not a full solution to the problem. The most effective way will be for the sites to add a stricter screening process for new accounts or an option like Chinaski suggests so people suspected of multi-accounting can be investigated more effectively.
This thread is designed to gather information on people who are cheating high stakes from the people playing in those games and getting cheated or anyone who has some concrete evidence to offer up, specifically but not entirely about Jared Bleznick. His suspected accounts as of now are harrington25, harrington10, gozoboro, nypogadi11, setokaiba1, crain85, longerpig, cantbeat, kipu, jumbabumbaba.
This thread is also a place to discuss measures to put an end to how easy this seems to be to get away with at the moment and what things the poker sites can introduce to make it more unappealing to multi-account. The community can only do so much when we suspect someone strongly of cheating but the process to catch those players is so inefficient.
Poker sites need to set strong examples - catch the cheaters and seize their balances. Giving them a slap on the wrist and letting them cash-out their cheated wins does not seem a big enough disincentive to discourage cheating. In the worst cases, players should be suspended from live tournament series the sites organize and in the case of FTP and Pokerstars make cross-site bans.
2+2 is a great forum at its best with a strong history of outing and stopping cheaters and scammers. Good examples are the UB, Stox and Girah scandals. It is important that members email FTP (support@fulltiltpoker.com) and Pokerstars (support@pokerstars.com) and other sites to ask them to take action against this type of cheating.