The point is that it is not clear that this gives them much of an advantage, if any, over other players who adopt more "legal" approaches. If I time banked on 24 heads up tables in order to fold all 24 tables at around the optimum moment, I don't see how these "colluding" players would have an advantage over me.

well the thing is if you have been playing or just folding every single hand. if you have been playing with a stranger or with a friend who didnt need to raise to take your blind, etc etc. colluders have advantage over anyone who was really playing poker.

it was more like a rethorical question. i thought exactly what u said but even then, it's a huuuuge concidence that the hand hit on one of their tables.

My first instinct was that this is probably against rules and defiitely against the spirit of the promo. But after thinking about it I changed my mind simply because thinking about it there is no doubt many of the people logged on around the time of the promo were purely there because of the promo. i.e. They logged on and sat at a bunch of tables not to play poker but to try catch the lucky hand. At the same time, many of those that happened to be actually playing a session probably kept an eye on the hand count and adjusted there play slightly right around the critical time by playing faster and folding hands they may usually have played.

So if you consider that probably half the people online at the time were tweaking their play to try and win the bonus it seems hypocritical to come down on the guys that took it to the extreme.

most investigative thread ever!

Definitely not.

Was probably Jungleman and Girah on their other accounts.

This!
Sad to see that even on 2+2 this kind of thing receives support and is seen as a clever thing to do...

This

Been happening for years actually. Seems like the first time it worked.

If you have never seen something like this before during these type promos then you have to be new, SNG or tourney player, or living under a rock. Hell i've seen entire tables try to collude by everyone folding. Or guys getting on new tables and telling everyone to fold.

clever, but seems like justice will be served

yeah, okay ... but it comes right after the "phil Hellmuth ridin' a giant hotdog" thread, imo

sweet job op . thank you

stars will take the money just based on the uproar now, its +ev for them

Yes but the problem about not having 'specific' rules is that when a situation like this comes up, how and where do you draw the line on what's acceptable and what isn't.

The players in question didn't run any third party software to play for them, they just sat down and folded every hand.

Would you say that other people who were playing 24 tables were cheating? What about the people that joined tables and told people to fold? What about people who timed down until milestone hands were arriving? In a case like this, there needs to be a clear rule as to what is acceptable and what is not.

And personally I do believe that this rule should be added (not being allowed to do this), however it wasn't there [specifically], the players did it, and others could've as well. It would be extremely unreasonable for PokerStars to take the money off the winners.

They will not and should not receive the money even if rule 8 was not in effect. Baffles me how people can think its all within the rules. Yes it was creative but is still cheating.

Lucky for us its up to PS management to decide and not all of you who believe it was all fair. Just my opinion.

Hell. they should ban/close and confiscate their monies too since they were defiantly colluding. =)

I just pissed my pants a little

A tiny edge VS the total hands played/minute, but a HUGE edge VS a random single player. What to be weighted ?

Its like a big lottery where the players chances are lets say 1 or 10/10 000 000, then someone take advantage of the system and gets 1000/10 000 000. Still SMALL chance, but 100-1000 times better then all other players.

Who cares... pay the money.

move on with life BOSS!

I won a milestone last time they ran it and I did the "wait to fold hand until close to millionth hand count" and felt sort of bad doing it. Doing this is just plain ******ed and I really hope stars take their money and somehow distribute it back to players fairly

Didn't Stars shut down the HU tables during a previous promotion because of problems like this?

There were probably lots of people doing similar things, but I'd be very surprised if Stars pays out to this "winner". Obviously, the two players going heads up had an agreement with each other to split the winnings if they got lucky and hit the milestone hand. If two players agree to fold every hand, then they are colluding by definition. I mean, they weren't actually playing poker against each other were they? They were colluding with each other against Pokerstars and all the other players hoping to get lucky while playing their normal games.

Instant BAN!!

and stars never had to enforce the rules since this has never happened before where the person won though, thats the difference. Just because it has been done in the past does not mean it is allowed.

I would be really disappointed if stars didn't actually do anything.

I honestly can't believe people are justifying their act, sounds more like them and their friends getting on 2+2 to defend themselves so that PS doesn't take it away.

This clearly falls into the...

8. During the Promotion, strict rules regarding player behaviour will be enforced. PokerStars reserves the right to take action against any player found to be abusing any aspect of the Promotion. 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. The decision on what activity constitutes abuse of the Promotion lies with PokerStars management in its sole discretion.

If that's not abusing, i don't know what is.

The people defending it were obviously doing the exact same thing.

anyone who says this isn't cheating or colluding is an idiot. it clearly is. they clearly do not deserve the money, and they should be punished for ruining an awesome promotion.

if they pay out these scumbags, nobody will be playing any actual poker during the next milestone promotion. it's a pretty safe bet they won't.