When the accounts eventually get found out by PS and the money confiscated it is always fractions of pennies on the dollar that they took out of the games so there is little risk in having the people who control the accounts find out that people are on to them. If anything the heat on certain accounts will get to be too much and they will likely stop using those accounts. If the people behind the bots/colluders want to keep their thievery up at the same pace that it was, they will have to start using accounts that have no history of winning at 6max PLO before. It is presumably much easier to spot new accounts that start winning at 6max PLO and get them banned more quickly than if the accounts had been playing for at least a few years. What made it difficult to get the first group of bots banned is that at least some of the accounts had a history of winning via (likely) legitimate play, the seregaxx account had been playing and winning since at least late 2003 which you can find out by checking sharkscope.

It is absolutely no problem to get a legitimate account with some MTT playing history. This is hardly an obstacle for any botring operator.

Stars is probably turning a blind eye to this, because they know what PLO rake numbers would look like without all these bot accounts. The midstakes would be even more of a ghosttown.
Let´s face it, they have no real reason to shut down any of these rake generators unless the pressure from the community gets too much.
Additionally, there are rumours about the sale of the Stars brand again, which makes it even more important to produce good quarterly numbers.
This is basically shown by some recent promotions for dormant accounts, where they offer +EV sportsbetting promos, heavy reload bonuses (the current MEGA20 or MEGA30 promotion for accounts inactive in the last month) in order to increase QAUs.
I would probably bet my life on it that the QAUs shown in the last quarterly report from Amaya are basically fraudulent due to the heavy reactivation of dormant accounts because of some losing promotions.

The number of QAUs for the Betstars brand is e.g. heavily manipulated because they offered thousands of customers a 5 $ freebet. Of course everyone takes this opportunity (who doesn´t like to wager free money?) and gets included as a QAU in the quarterly report in spite of having absolutely no interest in using their inferior sportsbetting product.
The main reason for this promotion was simply to prevent showing shareholders what an utter failure their sportsbetting brand is so far.

Let´s face it, if you were about to sell a billion dollar business you would do everything in order to produce good numbers for the relevant quarterly results.
To state it once more:
-lose some money on promotions in order to increase QAUs
-don´t shut down botting accounts, which generate a ton of rake, don´t use customer service and are fine with playing long hours for a small bb/100
...

I´m pretty sure they were aware that FedorZayse*, seregax* and so on were not average regs, but rather bots or maybe humans with heavy in-game assistance, but decided to don´t do anything about because of the rake they generated.
If I remember correctly some of these accounts were basically SNE or close to it.

My outlook on poker is very grim these days after witnessing certain sites behavior in terms of botting prevention. Stars is not the only one turning a blind eye to this due to short-term greed, iPoker is obviously much much worse and Microgaming is becoming worse by the day.

The only sites that probably are somewhat unharmed by bots are the heavily restricted sites like SvenskaSpel (hard to get accounts for bot operators and small playerpool), the NJ and Nevada sites.

And this is only the botting problem, we all know that a lot of in-game assistance and pseudo-GTO software is being used as well.
(not only since the latest Ben86 revelations).

Finally, I admit that Pastafiore´s posts are hard to read sometimes due to his poor af English skills (mine are probably not much better ), but at least he is working towards cleaner games at Pokerstars. Of course his detection methods are not state-of-the-art and produce a lot of false positives, but the general intention is good.

The behavior of some thread regs like AlexKP is simply disgusting and they should rather support Pastafiore in his efforts.

I´m also 99% sure that botting (and maybe collusion) is still going on at the Stars midstakes and instead of ridiculing him for his efforts everyone interested in playing PLO in the future should support him.
Either by investigating own databases or by at least not ridiculing his efforts.
In my opinion Pastafiore should investigate the accounts who fold 80 % of their Big Blinds and open too much from EP, because we all know that it is basically impossible to win with a playing style like this in Zoom200/500 these days unless you really are informed about the holecards of the other players.

Finally, Chicongo Joey & Codecci are obviously right, the owners of the previously discovered accounts were printing money. Of course they are continuing their business and are probably also going about it in a smarter way this time (different stats between bot accounts, maybe not as excessive playing hours, some random chat ...).

Oh lord, this tilts the **** out of me!

1) Of cause there are still bots out there. It's a no brainer. The second round of bots busted were still playing on ipoker just 1-2 months ago. They did not even care to adjust the frequencies and sizes postflop. I would not be surprised if one or more of the bots were playing on PS in a new customized version or on lower stakes. However, building/tweaking the bot-engine to not be discovered based on stats, but still be winning is not an easy task! The busted bots were not GTO-cleanmachines, but they played a very profitable style compared to the playerpool. Even that is not easy to do on z500 with the current skilllevel and amount of testing required. People with background in computer science will know how little it takes to screw the algorithm(s) up.

2) New accounts are always more suspicious, as it is way harder to create accounts these days with different ID, verification, deposit-methods etc. We already know that former "regular accounts" like FedorZ, emper0r, seregaxx and Samantha were turned into bots. This is way harder to discover as the bot-data is merged with human-data.

3) The biggest problem here is that Pastafiore is not able to prove anything - not even close. Nobody is going to take your feelings about hand selection, countries etc as proof with your history of accusing others for cheating. How players create a 20% UTG-range does not prove ****. Some will open A234ds, some don't. If you suspect cullusion, it should be kind of easy to prove - both from HH's and DB's.
Share some information, create some evidence (or get help) and approach it like a scientific problem. Otherwise no one will take you seriously and it will scare away net-depositors!

so asking for help here is wrong, because i do work too, and haven't been able to prove those as a bots for 100% sure (sofar)?


and it would not be right to talk about here, if im not the one who does bust them? - i dont care who will get the 100% proof of those, but at least i even try. there have appeared few other regs also who are helping too, because this messages.

i really dont understand what the **** is your problem with that/me, if im trying at least. maybe the way i'm spelling here is not that nice, because my english or saying things straight for example, so what? - it makes zero difference. i ****ing hate communists too for example, but i still do treat them same way for them as normal people, unlike some of them do.

players, who do play plo500 and lower stakes, have at least 50k hand sample from there, and do have spotted even a few suspicious accounts(more=better) for yourself; please pm me, i need a bigger sample to prove propably very heavy stuff. there's a chanse we could have caught them now, if you cooperate with this. i just need a screenshots from you, not your databise, and its not even necessary to tell those suspicious nicks, and you still can help really much.

In 1) and 2) you basically paraphrased what I was already saying, therefore I don´t really see any need to discuss further.

Regarding 3):
Even there we agree, I already admitted in my previous post that Pastafiores methods are flawed/unscientific and therefore are hard to be taken seriously.
But the last time the discoveries of the bot accounts started out exactly the same way (gutfeeling of some regs) until Schwein & you started digging through databases and discovered the striking similarities between some stats between the bot accounts.

Oh, you are worried that I might scare away a net-depositor so you can continue grinding out a small winrate in bot-infested midstakes games? If I would manage to drive a few losing players away from the game this might hurt your bottomline, but it may also be the trigger for the sites to finally get their **** together and really start working towards cleaner games.

To sum up the current situation in this thread:
-we have a guy actively working towards discovering potential bot accounts, but who currently uses a rather unscientific approach (Pastafiore)
-some former HS reg who ridicules the one person actively doing something positive for the game (AlexKP)
-various posters like SeaKing who bash Pastafiore for his unscientific methods instead of helping investigating suspicious accounts
-scared regs like Grethe who are afraid of losing the opportunity to prey on the few remaining net-depositors and have no problem with letting the funplayers get slaughtered by bots as long as they still are able to get their cut
-a few voices of reason like ChicongoJoey, Codecci and obviously myself who don´t really have a horse in this race anymore and can therefore post some unpleasant truths

Maybe Galfond is reading this and can make sure that at least his site will make a serious effort in the fight against bots and in-game assistance.
(TOS breaking in-game assistance, I´m not talking about simple HUDs here)

You are misunderstanding - and I should have made it more clear. My post was not angled towards you, halcyon.

only card sharing would explain this stuff propably, if i had a bigger sample. that's why i would like to you cooperate now. at least whose who ive asked from. they can't/couldn't run below ev in upper sample, if they do share cards.

this is not 100% same thing as i told in PM's. but that what ive asked, would still help. with a bigger sample we'll propably get most of them at least.

Pasta, that doesnt prove anything .

Maybe it doesnt prove anything but it doesnt mean he's not right... Unfortunately I can't help you but even if he's right only 1/10 it's worth PLO player's time to investigate this deeper.

and that's why im asking for help. it will prove for sure, if i do get bigger sample and numbers does not change much. pretty sure ur wr is in that upper sample very close of -20bb/100 for example. and that does not mean ure not winnig/bad player.

I agree, not much to lose here apart from some spare time

Sent from my LG-H815 using Tapatalk

If I was you I would def not buy all these players hands from an online hand dealer.

Pasta , can you please explain me what are the benefits of not telling the sns "involved" ?

And i told you i can check on argentinians ...

Also it doesnt matter mine, or yours wr there, it doesnt prove anything.

Pretty sure most regs are willing to help , but u have to stop being paranoic.

ive told reasons here for that, and there's nothing wrong to be paranoic here. for example ppl behind is worldclass player already.

ty for notice, i had no clue about thta there's possible to buy hhistories. got pm about that also, ty. this would prolly take few days now at least, after i do have something. ive shared most of stuff with legit regs, and a few nicks with few another regs i dont know irl, but are legit. recent zoom hand histories still cant be bought?

Unsub until spam stops

take a look in the mirror.

What do you think is proven here?

Dear HS community, your advice is desperately needed here

Tough River spot

Just made it clear we've something going on still, and it will still take a while. you will see. normal tables db(8figs) is now big enough, but prolly needs more zoom hands. at least it proves more than similar pf/postflop stats if we're right about what we've found now. and i also would like if others cooperate/start doing something for this, for example you grethe.

Cliffs of what pasta is saying going on?

Pasta suspects collusion between an unknown number of accounts. His theory is, as far as I understand it, that the suspected accounts are playing a fixed UTG-range based on cardremoval.

The theory is of cause worth looking into, however nothing is proven as-is. Not even close.

havent told its only utg, but it's propably easiest to prove. there's lot more too.

Beat: Didnt set up my own botfarm

Brag: Bots have no soul; I do

Variance: My soul is triple mortgaged to the devil, isis and mitt romney (dont ask)

What stakes are we talking here?