So you think that they are taking these hands away from players who are winning in the short term? I don't think that's what is happening because everyone who has posted their numbers seem to have similar stats with the cutoff being significally reduced. Since it appears to be evenly distributed amongst everyone, it's not based on wins or losses. It seems like it is anyone who plays on the site and who is a real person. If those hands aren't going to any people then they have to be going to bots. It's real simple. Nobody is coming forward saying they have more hands in the cutoff. It's not because someone wants to keep it secret because the people who have posted their numbers don't also release their screen name so that argument is nonsense. The most logical explanation is the sites have bots that they use to fill the games and they are giving them a positional advantage and are cheating their clients.

Party Poker is owned by GDC Holdings which is a publicly traded company. According to Inc.com, "It is a generally accepted accounting principle that financial statements must disclose all significant information that would be of interest to a concerned investor, creditor, or buyer." I would think this is relevant information that they would need to make available to their stockholders. They have to follow SEC Regulations so maybe someone who knows more about this can weigh in and give some expertise? If Party Poker is using bots, wouldn't they have to release that information to the public? Wouldn't the fact they are taking away hands in position from their players be something they have to disclose?

I believe that in the larger thread about this issue where it was originally brought up, there was one losing player that posted their stats and they had a lot more CO seats than the other positions and they were down a few hundred dollars from the sample posted.

The main issue with this is that the players that are gaining the advantage will be losing recreational players that are losing slower than they should, but they are still just playing for fun and losing slowly and likely don't use any tracking software and won't be aware of, or have any reason to look into this to help us out with learning more about it.

Obviously it could be bots too, this doesn't really change anything about whether this is bad for serious players that frequent their fast fold games though. Party are running unfair games, no matter which way we look at it.

I have played on another site to Party, and noticed that I was getting less EP seats than I should, and more SB and BB seats to compensate. So this seating issue could also exist elsewhere too.

When you play regular tables, you typically play slighly more BTN's and CO's compared to SB's and BB's because fish will bust and not complete full orbits. This dynamic surely occurs in the fast fold pools so why do regs not get dealt slightly less in the blinds when fish post their BB for every orbit that they participate in, but if they bust and quit before they complete an orbit, this should mean that the group of fishy busto players as a whole should have a larger amount of BB seats and less in the other seats as they always post the BB but don't complete their final orbits. As a result this should in theory mean that regs that always complete their orbits benefit from this by occasionally getting dealt 7 hands before paying their BB again right?

I can't play on PP but I have played on Ignition, ACR, and GG Poker fast fold type games and every 6 hands I get the BB. Regular tables doesn't matter because you can see it rotate and nobody gets an advantage there.

I agree that Party Poker is not running fair games but I think everyone is missing the bigger picture. I think it matters a lot if they are bots because that is a big conflict of interest if the site is using bots to steal from the players. When you play online every assumes that they are playing against another human that can't see your cards. If that isn't the case because the site uses bots to fill games then that means that sometimes these bots win money from the players and that's a problem. The big thing with poker is that you aren't playing against the house but other players but paying the rake.

Just imagine you are the CEO of Party Poker and you call a board meeting with your top people in for a strategy session. You ask them to think of ways that we can make more money and someone says "let's start giving some players fewer hands in position so that they will be at a disadvantage and make the games more even for the fish". Then if you as the CEO say "great idea". Then are you going to tell me that they are going to stop there? That's what I don't think people are getting or understanding. Since this is confirmed from Party that they are doing this. THIS ISN'T THE ONLY THING THEY ARE MANIPULATING. What's the most important factor is the RNG so if they are taking away hands from certain players then they are definately messing with the RNG. I think that it is crazy to think that they would do this but not mess with the thing that would influence the games more than anything else. If they were going to manipulate the games, they would start with the RNG. Nobody would start messing with the things that are less important first. It just doesn't make sense. The thing with the RNG is that it is extremely hard to prove that without looking at their code. I haven't played on PP so I can't go by any experience but I think most of these sites have a similar code for their RNG. That's my guess and I played on Coin Poker because they have an open source RNG. I spoke to them about this and I was told by their support that many sites use the same one they have and it is common. In Coin Poker's code, I had trouble understanding what any of it meant because I don't have a coding background but I did see a couple things that made me suspicous. First thing was that the player names are in the code which is a huge red flag. There is absolutely zero reason why the players should be identified when dealing the cards. The only reason why you would do that is if you wanted to give an edge to someone. It shouldn't have the username but should have the position at the table and if someone is sitting there or not and that's it. Playing on Coin Poker, the last thing that comes to mind was "random". Now Party Poker is not Coin Poker but I think a lot of these sites do have similar software. I looked at my position stats and I have less hands in the cutoff on all Ignition and ACR so this seems like is not just Party and if these companies use simlar seating algorithm then they probably have a lot of other similarities as well. Party is supposed to be regulated but the New Jersey Gaming Commission has shown that the whole legal and regulated thing is a complete joke. I think that is another thing that nobody is talking about and should be getting more attention. If a site that they are regulating is manipulating the games and taking money from people isn't enough for them to step in and do something then what would it take? I contacted them but since I don't play on Party Poker they won't talk to me as any complaint made has to be sent with the orginal complaint that you made with Party Poker directly. Since I don't play on Party Poker, I can't send them a complaint. Have you contacted them? I would and see what their response is. They should be monitoring this type of thing and they are just turning their back to it. Either way, it's not a good sign for things to come for online poker when things like this are happening. Party Poker said it was a bug but haven't fixed it. Pretty sure if it was a bug then they would have fixed it.

I don't play on Party Poker, (once I heard about their regular table hustle back in 2014 I have been wary of them ever since), but I do think that regs across the board should stop playing these fast fold games as they are too open to manipulation by the sites and the sites have far too much incentive to do so as well.

If regs stop playing them, then perhaps these fast fold games die a death and everything goes back to regular tables and proper poker.

I know that if everyone just quit, then suddenly the fast fold pool will just be full of 20 fish so regs would be tempted back in though, so the solution is not so easy to just stop playing this format.

I don't think people should stop playing that format, I think everyone should quit playing any format on Party. If everyone said we aren't playing until this is fixed, they would cave in week. They have stockholders to answer to and without players they don't have a business. These sites do it because weak people let them and very few stand up and say that they aren't going to stand for being cheated.

I would be surprised if PP was using bots to fill FF games undisclosed. I believe I read somewhere this discrepancy was tied back to multi tabling. Since more regs than recs multi table the regs take the hit.

so who is going to fund this lawsuit guys

They probably have no way of easily fixing it, and it is in their interests to keep it as it is, so that is all they really can do, and just hope that people naively continue to play this format.

On one hand, sorting out refunds would seem impossible as the money in theory would need to come from the other players that have (unbeknownst to them) unfairly gained from unequal seat distribution, but those accounts have gone bust long ago so their balances are dry and they have no funds to pass over EV compensation to their affected opponents.

Those losing accounts did at least get to play more hands of poker than they 'should' have done before going broke though, and more money was indeed raked as a result of this, so Party have that extra rake, so you could argue that Party could and should make this right themselves, so of course there is that argument too.

This situation is such a pickle, but it seems like the only solution is for regs to stop playing these fast fold games and stick to normal regular table poker where you can see what is going on around you and you can ensure that your seat distribution remains fair.

they are largely dead outside of promotional events, the only things *consistently* running are like 2/25/100nl, and 100nl running off hours are like 50 entries of 9 players kek. The promotions are not sustainable for party long term tho, so eventually they'll have to change something or just move on from FF.

It would be unreasonable to take money from other players even if they had a balance. If you had money confiscated for this reason wouldn't be outraged? It's not as if the people who unknowingly benefited did anything wrong.

Party should eat the loss.

Well yeah, I agree with that. Was just trying to offer up some food for thought.

no the money would come out of party's pockets, any other solution is insane