"pokerstars encourages you to play longer sessions and more tables during this promo"

Yada Yada Yada

Related: how much of an edge do you guys even think these guys got from doing this. Yes, they obviously were being dealt probably 10 times the amount of hands compared to your average user, but in the grand scheme of things, how many hands do you think were being dealt per second during the lead up to the 70BN hand..

Their amount of hands relative to that is a very very small percentage, I'd say at least <0.01%. It's not like they guaranteed themselves the deal, they also got lucky, however their creativity did give them a smaller edge.

lol yer im sure these guys were the only ones multi tabling HU folding pre

It's amazing some people in this thread actually defend the scammers. Just read the rule above.


1) Under normal conditions would the same 2 players ever 24-table HU and fold every single hand pre? (key aspect)
No.

2) Did they do it knowing they have way increased chances to ship the 70 billionth hand?
Yes.


1+2 = abusing an aspect of the Promotion. And as stated:

"Such action includes, but is not limited to, exclusion or suspension from the Promotion or from the Client, and the confiscation of rewards earned as a result of the abuse."


I'm sure they weren't the only guys doing this but if nothing happens to them I know I'm doing the same thing next time and so will tons of others.


Edit: I'm no hater, I wasn't even playing at the time. But I don't think it's fair to the ones just playing normally and also paying rake.

Hardly scamming, who are they scamming?


Obviously not. Yes what they did is 'unethical', but come on, just because they had the idea and went through with it doesn't make them scammers or cheaters.

Obviously. Why wouldn't they want to maximize their edge to win $70k? But they played as humans (they didn't use a bot), and they played without breaking any guidelines saying that they couldn't do that, and I assure you if they couldn't do that then PokerStars would've mentioned it and they would not have been awarded their prizes in the first place.


Good luck with that, as now one of two things will happen:

1.) PokerStars will realize that they need to make a rule to stop this from happening again.

2.) Everyone will be playing 24 tables of HU and folding pre, making your chances to win exactly the same as it was now.

I also find it funny how you go out and call these guys out for 'scamming', yet you mention that you would do it in the future. Bit hypocritical but ok.

i vote for the split it between 69.9 and 70.1 hand winners.

Ban accounts and seize the money.

Regarding 70 billion promo - I've searched but can't find an estimate for when the 70 billion will hit? anyone care to link? ty

canadians

I think you know what I meant by that... the point was that if players don't see PS correcting this, tons of others will start abusing the same way.


That's the whole point, the rule is already there.

classic, some people again justifying another cheat saying that more people were doing the same for sure.

like a boss

where is the cheating?

The point is that they gained only a tiny edge, and virtually everybody aware of the promotion will also have played differently around the 70b mark by playing quicker, more tables and folding hands they would otherwise have played to increase their chances.

OP himself admitted to play 24 HU tables purely to increase his chances of winning - he changed how he played to give himself an edge over players who continue to play their usual four tables of 6-max. Plenty of players will choose to open fold hands just before the 70b mark that they would otherwise have played in - this is not cheating. These guys just took it to an extreme but effectively did the same thing as above.

Interestingly, if they decided to split the money as some people are suggesting, I think they may have cost themselves EV compared to playing on separate tables. Playing 48 HU tables between them against other opponents, timebanking until just before the 70b point and quickly folding all their hands at a suitable moment would be a better strategy in my opinion.

There obviously is none. Can't say what they did wasn't a bit scummy but they were just smarter than the rest.

That doesn't work because it needs your opponent to be doing the same thing, when any "normal" play would involve your opponent making a variety of plays on the button i.e. limping or raising a certain percentage of the time, thus reducing your control over the number of hands/hour. Its the fact that they were both open folding it that makes it scummy.

op admitted play 24 HU tables...the point is that those 2 were nor playing. 2 friends folding every hand till the right one arrives...hope they dont get the money honestly.

This is bullsh*t... How can you guys defend these scums...

They didn't payed rake, and only did this to get a shot at the promotion prize. No one plays open-fold HU 24tbls.

If Stars gives them money(and they say there was no cheating) then we all know what to do for the next milestone promotion.

24 heads up tables?? Doubt that very much. he was 24 tabling LIKE A BOSS, never mentioned heads up

Also, i would expect pokerstars to do something here. Its clear case of collusion and softplay tho not in the traditional sense of the words

If you weren't busy getting so angry you would have seen someone already kindly answered your question only a few replies before your post:

Yes but the rule quoted above is so unclear. There's a difference between abusing the client (as in botting, multi accounting etc) as opposed to playing HU with a friend and folding pre. How does Stars draw the line as to what is "abusing to promotion"?

lol if you think stars won't take their monies .

But surely one can simply time-bank on each table until the right moment arises then rapidly fold all hands to maximise the number of new hands at the optimum time for the 70b hand promotion? 48 tables of this is surely better than 24 tables of open folding.

It's not really even that creative of them to be honest, this type of thing has been talked about and attempted a number of times in the past with Stars milestone hand promotions.

I don't think "scummy" is a correct adjective for this, it doesn't state explicably in the rules that this can't be done.

If they get the prize confiscated it will be a mistake imo, at the end of the day they were in the in hand and that's what should count. Smart idea by those guys imo...

If doing this heads up is abusing the rules then playing 24 tables is surely abusing the rules as well, both of these actions are avaibable to anyone playing on stars.

the problem here is that pokerstars is smarter than they are and that is why they dont have an explicit rule about this, just something like this which can envolve lots of things like this:

and they were not playing 24 HU tables, they were folding every hand, wonder why people cant understand this when its so simple.