I, along with everyone else that plays at UB/AP, will purchase whatever tracker is compatible with UB/AP. If all the major trackers remove UB/AP I will purchase whatever tracker is developed for these sites. It's a no-brainer. These trackers will be throwing money away IMO by removing support for 2 of the major sites. Someone will develop a new one and will make a lot of money doing it.

People really just need to let the issue go. The 60 minutes thing is terrible for online poker in general. The lay person will see the special and think online poker is rigged. Hearing that 2p2ers and others don't support these sites won't mean a damn thing to 99% of the population. They see "online poker site cheats" and that is all. The fact that you keep bringing up this unfortunate incident (and yes, I do think it is unfortunate and I am not happy at all that it happened) is extremely harmful to your livelihood and mine. AP/UB is making money hand over fist and it's not likely to end anytime soon regardless of the actions being taken here.

The only 'extremely harmful' thing for your livelihood is you telling the poker sites its ok to screw you over and steal your money since they're not losing your business no matter what they do.

Seriously - if the revelations from the UB scandal is still not enough to make you stop playing there, what exactly would it take?

As for the 60 minutes story, players like you are the reason it will end with people having the (it would seem correct) impression that sites are free to cheat and steal with no consequence.

I doubt this.

People who continue to play on these sites risk the entire future of online poker (well, for the US and other "illegal" jurisdictions). They are basically saying "I will crap all over anyone to make an extra buck".

I get the impression from the rakeback forum that they are about to become one site. And I doubt somebody will make a tracker and HUD for just one site that may have problems attracting players in the future. Not a very big customer base at all if you ask me.

You are pathetic. Here's hoping karma slaps you in the face in the very near future.

If there are few pros playing there and lots of fish still left then it'd be +EV to just write your own HUD/tacker/converter (or pay somebody else to). We are all used to paying around $50 for a tracker/HUD, but if you had the chance of playing in far juicer games then how much would a custom HUD be worth to you? Even for a lone MSNL player it may be well worth paying somebody to write a custom HUD/tacker/converter...

I think this is a good idea in theory, but I'm afraid it just won't work in practice. It's effectively like placing an economic embargo on a country, but then having no downside to ignoring it - thus making it very profitable for the companies who break the embargo... The proposed "protest" won't work for exactly the same reasons: as soon as a significant number of 2+2 TAGs leave the games it'll just be ripe for anybody who doesn't care about the "protest".

IMHO, the only real way to hurt them is to hit them with bad publicity, but then you risk hurting the whole of the online poker business at the same time (alot of donks already think it's all rigged, so this will just fuel their beliefs). Is it really worth trying to punish UB/AP if that means you kill the profitability of online poker as a whole?

Juk

That train already left the station - there's a '60 minutes' program coming out about it.

Do you think the donks will be more comforted once they learn that the poker community kept playing at AP/UB as if nothing had happened?

I have around 60K hands on ub that i would like to analyze but i'm geting out of there as soon as i find a good alternative. Stars and ftp are the obvious choices but i just wondering wich one is easier to cash out of and ofcourse geting money on the site should be easy. As far as the current topic i don't think it really matters and will have little affect on ub. Most people don't even use huds and trackers anyway. Also it's clear that a lot of people think it's perfectly ok that ap/ub screwed poker players out of millons

I don't think the majority of donks even realize there is a poker community and I'm pretty sure any mainstream news or current affairs program that covers the story won't either. Every single player could leave UB/AP tomorrow I don't think it would make any difference in the eyes of an average donk, as the damage has already been done. In the eyes of a donk (or potential future donk) then "a couple of sites cheating them via super users" can easily be misconstrued as "most sites are rigged".

Juk

That may well be the case. Who cares? If one MSNL grinder is going to pay for his own personal software (thousands of $ minimum) just so he can get into games that are perceived to be juicier, he sure as hell is not going to share that software with others. Result: one grinder stays, rest leave, 80% less tables running -> 80% less rake -> UB goes out of business.

Just because a certain tactic has a low probability of success on its own doesn't mean that we shouldn't use it. It seems like a lot of UB/AP players are posting that "this won't work so don't even try it." Well we have a lot more to lose by not trying it. Letting sites steal from players and remain unaccountable could bring down online poker completely. Just wait until the US Congress starts debating a repeal of the UIGEA or similar legislation. You will here all about how sites cheat and get away with it. It would be nice if we could honestly say no they don't get away with it, they go out of business.

You argument about cheating on an embargo has more to do with the current situation than the situation if no HUDs existed. Currently a lot of 2p2 types refuse to play at UB/AP. So in theory the games are softer and those that do play have a higher win rate. Well if those that continue to "break the embargo" don't have HUDs, they won't be able to play as many tables and their hourly rates will go down by 1/2 or 2/3 or whatever. The only way to break this embargo is to write your own software as you suggested earlier.

There are a lot of real ways to hurt them and we should take advantage of all of them. I really don't understand why a well respected poster like you that seemingly doesn't play at UB would be for hitting them with bad publicity but against trying to shut them down in other ways.

As you correctly point out, hitting them with bad publicity could hurt the industry as a whole. How does that jive with your stated opposition to a campaign specifically targeted at only UB/AP?

I guess it kind of sounds like you want to just let them off the hook because bad publicity could hurt the industry. Well the industry might not last too long if we take that route, especially in the US.

Indeed, the damage has already been done - that was my point. Letting the site get away with this will only further the damage though.

Also - I have a real problem with the attitude that we should let the sites get away with whatever they want because making a fuss about it might harm online poker. With that kind of thinking, the AP/UB scandals shouldn't even have been looked into, but the players who started suspecting something should've just kept their mouths shut because if their suspicions did turn out to be true, it could hurt online poker.

There are two things here that have harmed the reputation of online poker - one is UB/AP cheating and stealing from their users. The second is players who are aware of the situation continuing to play at the sites because there's some short term profit to be made there.

Trying to turn things around by claiming it's the attention to the scandal and the consequences of it that's harming online poker is simply very flawed thinking. It's too late for this to just go away - we can't just sweep it under the carpet and hope noone will notice.

Trying to hide a problem rather than deal with it never works out in the long run - at least not when it's as big and well known a problem as this one.

I dont see how one person having a private tracker/HUD changes anything. Its just one person.

And Im far from convinced someone would employ someone to write a tracker/HUD just for them. How many hours are we talking for that? Even a midstakes NL grinder is going to think twice about covering the entire cost themselves. It would surely cost them 10s of thousands. It cancels out any benefit. And with no guarantee the games are going to last there. Whats the 3-6NL and above traffic like at those sites these days?

It's just not that hard I'm afraid. To write a hand history converter and get it working with something like GameTime+ would only take a couple of days at most.

I didn't really say that I was for/against, but simply that I don't think anything other than bad publicity will have any noticeable effect on them.

Donks just won't understand it like that. I'm pretty sure they will just see bad publicity about two sites and this will just pour water on the seeds already in their minds that it's all rigged after all (what they would love to believe as this explains why they lose on other sites too...).

I don't think the industry will last forever whatever we do and I can't see how bad publicity, however well intentioned or targeted, is going to do anything but decrease the lifespan of (profitable) online poker.

Juk

I can quite confidently say it would take 2-3 days at most. If all went to plan and you didn't run into any serious problems, then it would take less than a single day. There are already examples of site-to-site hand converters written in AHK, and two free HUDs (GameTime+ and _dave_'s AHK HUD).

I'm pretty sure nobody would charge more than $500 to do it (there are plenty of Indian "rent-a-coders" who do stuff like this for peanuts...) and perhaps some here would even write it for free or for donations (the proliferation of Stars hand-grabbers and database sharing shows this is very likely whatever the general 2+2er view is). Even $500 is a drop in the ocean for a single MSNL player, not to mention that several players could group together to make the sum via donations.

I also don't think the "2+2er HUD user" is actually a very large percentage of their customer base. If that was the case then the large number of 2+2ers who have already left would have made an obvious dint in the player numbers. So it seems that trying to make a "protest" like this will only stop those few HUD users who haven't already left and are not smart (or computer savvy) enough to find some way around the "protest" (ie: a very very small %).

Juk

Why do people think online poker is going anywhere? Seriously. It's not. The games are likely to continue to get tougher, but it's not like everyone's just going to quit playing.

And can somebody post a link to a thread discussing why we shouldn't play on AP/UB? I don't think the risk factor is a compelling argument alone, but there are apparently a lot of other reasons, which I'm sure have already been well stated. Also, what's up with these mob guys threatening someone? I had never heard of this until recently, and I think a lot of people are unaware of the details of that situation.

indeed, make your own tracker/hud easy enough.

however, the main advantage imo of not having support for these sites in the main products, on this site, and so on would be the lack of positive publicity / getting their name about in the applications, their help files etc., and in their support forums.

As a newcomer to poker, it is fairly asy to donk of a few deposits, and it really doesn't matter where donks do this - software isn't gonna change this behaviour.

but some of these donks decide to "get serious". they soon enough find out about forums like 2p2, tracking software, and so on. At this point, they often learn just how many sites there are to choose from. If they are lucky, they will find out about rakeback - but that's another way they get stuffed.

If said donk gets a tracker, or at least starts reading about them, finds no mention of cheating scum sites, and chooses to "get serious" on any legitimate site - excellent.



Another point: Myself - and I'm sure the vast majority of 2p2ers - would far sooner Josh, Phil, Roy and all other developers of new products, spent their time fixing issues / providing support / adding new features that are actually useful to us. AP / UB support is not useful to most of us, some would even consider it insulting.

There is also the reasonable probability these site owners will just run the EV calcs and come to the conclusion business has dropped sufficiently that it would be more profitable to just run off with everyone's bankroll / shut down / move on to the next con. Then any time devs have invested really would be wasted.

Juk seems to be the only one here that is making any sense. Why does it seem that 2p2ers think that they are the majority of poker players? The majority of players are random people who just feel like logging on and playing a few hands. They know nothing of PT, HUD, or the scandal. They see an advertisement and log on. Taking trackers away will not affect them at all...they don't even know they exist. And as far as the regs at AP...I know most of them, and I doubt any of them would leave if we lost tracker support...I know I wouldn't.

As for calling me pathetic or whatever, I don't care what you think. And plz people, stop comparing AP to Al Qaida...that's just absurd (can't remember what thread this was in).

No support simply discourages people who play on UB and AP from playing on UB and AP. A very good thing, imo.

It was in the ATF thread. i thought the analogy was actually perfect. I am curious how you consider it absurd - or are you sure the criminal organisations you fund are only involved in petty crime, nothing major?

Your whole argument boils down to: "it might not work so we shouldn't try it". What do we have to lose? The only people that might lose something are the software developers but they stand to gain a lot if this succeeds. They probably won't lose anything because people that would have bought their software to play at UB will buy it anyway for the times they play at other sites. Those developers that do boycott UB will be known in the community as people that stood up for the long term interests of everyone rather than selling out for a quick buck.

LOL at spending 2-3 days to get gametime+ working. Who cares. Continuing to use PAHUD+PT2 is better than that. This is about 3rd generation trackers/HUDs. If gametime+ is the only HUD for UB/AP, people will leave the site.

If somebody comes out with a commercial HUD just to get around this, then all the developers can end the boycott at that point. It would be worthless at that point other than to maintain good will in the community. But any reasonable person will realize that is the case and realize that it isn't going to be profitable to spend a bunch of time to make a commercial product just to have HM/PT3/PEV spend an hour adding UB support and take all your customers.

If 50 people get their own custom private software, good for them. UB still loses a ton of rake and those 50 people could have found softer games with a lot less effort by playing on Euro sites through proxies.

Wow, planning out and killing thousands of americans by flying airplanes into the twin towers is the same as the superuser scandal? Really? I mean, the scandal was awful, don't get me wrong, but shouldn't be used in the same sentence as al qaida. That's like saying petty theft is the same as murder.

(plz don't read into this by saying I think what AP/UB did was ok or petty theft...I'm simply oversimplifying it here.)

The first thread has links to most of the relevant stuff


Working on a UB scandal sticky (requesting links)

Couple others:

ULTIMATE BET Silent About Insider Cheating Allegations; Millions Suspected Stolen
Discussion about the UB Scandal (7/21 - ?)

If you want some information on the other illegal activities of the KGC (group that "investigated" the scandals for UB/AP) see this thread by Cornell Fiji:

My retraction of certain statements made about UltimateBet and Joe Norton

it is a pretty entertaining read

I don't support criminals no matter what the crime. I'm glad to see that your only argument is that Al Qaida is worse than UB/AP. You could probably be elected to two terms as President of the United States if you just stay on message.

I mean seriously, who knows? superusers were used to steal plenty millions of dollars, which went somewhere.

It may have just gone to someone's secret swiss bank account, it may have gone anywhere, been used for any purpose. All we know is it was stolen, and covered up by secretive criminal organizations.

I did lol when certain US politicians claimed "illegal internet gambling" was being used to fund "terrorism and organized crime" - now I'm not certain they were entirely wrong...