Kramerica,

Yeah I have mixed feelings regarding what will happen to the horses here too. It's just that the only way for him to get caught is basically to ask for travel documents of the horses and not the guy himself, thus to get the main guy you have to get it via horses. A ring like this has to end, it's eating everyone's profits way too much, and it's just really really bad for the future of online mtts. This is why these rings have to stop, the Romanians are already GG and this guy will soon be. There will be some collateral damage, as probably some of his horses are relatively innocent (were lured into it by him, were given the opportunity to grind from home where their families are, weren't really thinking straight etc), but it's just too big a thing to pass on. The guy was even tweeting the **** out offering his deals all summer lol.

Then there are milder cases where I think the correct course of action would be a milder sanction. Will have to leave it up to Stars but for example there's a very well known backer I know who takes over horses every now and then... the last clear case I can remember is from a few months back. I was watching warmup ft where his mediocre horse was, and after like 5 minutes of railing I knew it was the backer playing. This was confirmed to me later, and has been reconfirmed today by various people pming me about him ghosting people over the last couple of years when they make big runs. BUT he's also been backing a bunch of big posters here who have NEVER been ghosted by him and thus I don't believe he's running a huge sham ghosting operation but rather just getting a bit greedy every now and then when his horse who's deep in mu he's never gonna clear is 3/18 in warmup. I really don't know what should be done about a case like this so this is why I'm just going to process the facts, and we'll go through each case after EPT London with a team of few guys (I'm hoping mickey and shaniac will be willing to get involved) and then we'll present the cases to Stars with claydol. They probably will just warn these types of backers but it should at least discourage them to never do it again.

Then there are idiots like DonBartos who are publically posting (see: pokerstrategy.nl) about how they take over their horses. He apparently doesn't even bother to make it look like he's not ghosting, he just tells his horses to message him when they are deep in something so he can take over. This has been public information (at least if you know dutch) for years but Stars hasn't cared at all and I doubt they ever will. This is why ghosting is basically ALLOWED on Stars atm, they do not care as long as people keep raking, and this is what I want to make sure changes.

I really need to discuss this with others after the EPT but the way I feel is that the biggest operations (Romanian vpns, Vancouver thing, etc) should be closed down immediately. Then the focus should be on stopping all the shadyness from happening in the future, and for that we need to present evidence to Pokerstars which does involve people's sns, but the focus of that should be to make even the idiots on Stars to realise that this is happening AND HAS BEEN HAPPENING FOR YEARS, and that millions of dollars are being stolen from every one of us ALL THE TIME, it is happening the very second we are sitting on our asses at the meeting eating bagels sponsored by Pokerstars, and to get them to react. I don't really believe in witch hunts, I have zero interest in getting them to shut down every account who's ever been ghosted deep in a tournament because basically 1) Stars allows it atm and 2) it's so common that half of MTTc posters would lose their playing rights. Instead we should fight to stop them from ignoring it and making changes.

haha well u know what they say... loose lips sink ships! i always laugh on facebook when people post something from home and then the next day they are in a full schedule on stars/ftp.
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i also don't get how people trust these randoms with their account info and sh.it. couldn't the guy just steal their money? seems absurd.

Yeah I agree with you a decent bit here. If we snitched on every single person who's ever been ghosted, that would be some ridiculous number of regs. I've probably received pms of like 35 of the current P5s top 100 today doing it in one way or another. This is why I think it should be more important to get Stars to react, harsher punishments in the future, present them with the evidence but make sure it's the future and not the past we're interested in, and closing mostly just these large rings. While I don't think any kind of ghosting is actually ok, it's the truth that it happens so much every single day it's pointless to go after individuals except for using them as examples when giving the info to Stars. But when it's a greedy **** running backing operation of 60 people and habitually ghosting most of his horses this guy should get life banned imo.

i can relate to people wanting to play poker from the US as well, however it still doens't make it right.

fwiw, if some random US reg vpns from the US on his screen name, i honestly don't care at all. yes, they're breaking the rules...but they risk getting caught and their money confiscated, and that's up to stars to decide. personally, i dont' care if people do this.

the MUCH bigger problem is all of these US regs who are getting new screen names and playing on these new accounts, coincidentally from the US.

now the issue here is you can't just pick and choose who to go after here...both sets of people are breaking the rules, so you have to go after both of them. in my personal opinion one set of people is doing something way worse than the other set, but it's impossible to just go after these 'extra bad' people

If someone is playing on their own account from the U.S., leave them out of this. They aren't gaining any extra edge imo. It's the guys that are playing from the States with new screen names that need to be outed.

In regards to the ghosting, it sucks but there isn't much anyone can do about it.

Also one last thing before I'm done for tonight.

When I look at all the PMs I've received today (close to 40), the chats I've had with several people today, etc etc, I've come to the conclusion that this is more about the loose policy with Stars than it is about the players.

I probably have something like 300 poker players on Facebook, and if everyone who's been either ghosting or ghosted in the past were given a death penalty I'd have less than half that. Then you add playing fts together with roommates, temporary grinding solutions in poker houses, etc etc, and you have like 2 ppl left alive. I can't remember but I wouldn't be shocked if I myself had asked someone I was grinding majors with in the same room at some EPT 3 years ago "do you 3bet here?" when the hand was being played out. I'm not a saint, and neither is anyone else, and it's a fact that ghosting in various forms is present and has been present for a really long time. And that's first and foremost because Stars doesn't give a **** even about large ghosting operations that result in $11 ABI players actually being online all time legends winning WCOOPs for 200k.

I also really think that most of the people doing it don't really understand how wrong it is. Actually now that I've thought about it some more, I can recall a night from I think early 2012 where I was playing some turbo ft in the same room with someone who was better at turbos than me. He was definitely not clicking buttons for me, and I was asking him more to just learn and not to make direct money (was a small tourney), but he probably verbally suggested (and thus effectively made) several of my decisions. And if we are all being honest, the vast majority of us has done similar stuff given that we have lived in poker houses with people.

So when does ghosting become unethical? I think the only case where it should be SEVERELY punished given the current setting (Stars basically allowing it) is when, and this is the key point, THE GHOSTER has financial interest. When a backer ghosts his horse, that ****'s gotta end, period.

But, at the same time, I even have some sympathy for some of these backers. It just happens to be a fact that pretty much everyone does that. I say "pretty much everyone", because I've been someone's horse for 2 years and we have never done that and neither has anyone else in our stable. I have also never heard of anyone in, say, zima's stable being ghosted ever. But honestly if I think of my ~300 poker friends who are backed or backers, probably about half of them have been ghosted/ghosting. It's just SO common, and it has only today dawned on me how common exactly, that it's impossible for anyone to be the guy calling out individual cases. We are years behind in this basically. I know of a guy who used to ghost his horses deep in majors in 2009, and it's my honest personal opinion that it just was so common back then that he didn't even think he was doing anything wrong. The same guy definitely does not do it anymore in 2013 because he's now realized it's wrong, but there are some who still do. And why does it happen? Because of Stars BS policy and total lack of punishments or communicating with players. In a way, everyone involved in these ghostings have been more or less allowed to do it by Stars and this is why it's pretty hard to personally judge anyone but the types who are running backing operations themselves and thus are CONTINUOUSLY getting financial gain from ghosting. If some guy was being ghosted in the biggest event of his life because everyone else was doing it too I'd be willing to give him a break. I probably wouldn't have been before today but it's absolutely bizarre how much it's happening.

And lastly, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me that this is WAY too big a burden for me to carry on my own and that's why I'm seeking help to form a committee to go over the cases with me. It would be a dream setting for me if it would be me, omgclaydol, mement, shaniac, and a couple of other super reputable people who have been around forever and/or have Stars connections (say timex for exaple). I don't trust my own judgement enough to be anywhere near to be the guy in charge of who gets reported and who gets not except in the most extreme of cases. If you look at the last few posts itt and read for example katie's, jymasters and gags's, you can get quite differing views on whether the US regs vpning with their own accounts is "ok" (from the meetings point of view) or not. I think that it will remain to be my personal opinion that it's ok-ish, not acceptable but not something so bad that it'd make me want to out individual people remote controling just cos they have no choice. BUT since I don't want to be in charge of this decision that could realistically **** up people's lives and be a pretty big deal for the future of the MTTs themselves in general I want to have some minds smarter than me going through all this stuff. I will still happily be accepting any evidence by PM and I will still be presenting everything to Stars (and possibly outing ppl publically itt), but I want to make sure I get help from other people when it comes to decision-making about who to out and who to give a break. If everyone else in our mini committee thinks that every single us vpner should be outed then I guess we'll do it, but I don't think that's very likely to happen (sorry Katie) and it's going to be the mass operations we'll be focusing on.


Also, all this ghosting I've found out about today has more or less had me lose faith on the poker community lol. Seems like EVERYONE is being ghosted. Starting tomorrow I'm going to stop doing the old sharkscope for ABI when deep in tourneys trick forever, as every $11 ABI reg is going to be a shark in disguise in the ****ing hot 11. People buying runs for %, etc etc. So depressing. If everyone knew what I've heard just today (assuming it's all true and I haven't been able to verify most of them) MTTs would die. And that's the main reason Stars should consider finally ****ing acting so we could all have a future playing this game.

Anyway that's way too much rambling from one guy for one night.

Have a lot of thoughts on this but for now I'll add that the TOS should never be left open for player interpretation, and if a rule isn't explicitly detailed then it's up to the site to make appropriate changes.


How do you determine who is playing from the US anonymously to gain an edge and who is playing anonymously to avoid being outed by other players for breaching TOS from home? Or how about the guys who were allowed by Stars to get a new screen name with the caveat that the name change must remain private between the user and Stars security?

I really doubt two people engaged in business relationships with Pokerstars are going to serve on a panel of players who determine whether or not a TOS breach is acceptable or not.

Your MAC address is more important to Stars than your IP, so if you stay on the same computer you'll be fine.

How do you feel about people who use OPR or Sharkscope while running the Stars client?

Also best of luck to Calbears123 in TCOOP 2014!

(y) got it Cody.

Honestly I`m missing you. you`re rare guest here these days!

taht's the problem tho jordan...just because a bunch of people are ethically ok with these people vpning, it's still against the rules.

this is the whole stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family debate...in the end, it's still stealing, it's still illegal, and the guy is still going to go to jail

I feel like these people (VPN'ing on own name) are cheating PokerStars the company and not the PokerStars players. Stars can't change the rule in their TOS to say "VPN'ing from the U.S. is OK" because the DoJ is obv not gonna be ok with that. But we as a community could agree that it's alright if we so choose because screw the DoJ.

So what I'm trying to say is, if Stars catches the VPN'ers on their own name then so be it. But them being outed by the community just seems like nonsense.

still no reason to include them in a thread like this tho. agree w jy.

i personally agree with you.

however, i feel like when people approach stars with this demand on cracking down on vpning, stars may not share the same feelings.

if this is presented to stars and they say 'ok great we're gonna come down with the swift hammer of justice on all vpners'...and then people go 'wellllllllllll actually wait we only want you to punish these specific people that we've determined are REALLY bad people instead of these other just sort of bad people...we're just gonna sound very inconsistent and honestly like a bunch of amateurs

again, i agree with him too...just saying, it's a verrrrry fine line that you're drawing here, and in the eyes of stars, both sets of people are breaking the TOS

The only distinction should be whether they are on their own account or not. If they got themselves a shiny new anonymous account so they could play on a VPN from the states for family/personal reasons, then its basically the same as someone doing it to gain an edge.

The only VPN exception I think most players are ok with is when they are still playing on their own account.

This is a good point. Make it people who arent connected to stars at all. Not saying they wouldnt do a good job if they did it but its a bad spot if youre actually employed by Stars. Although Stars may want them involved.

Also Chuck, youve all but named this VPN new account/ghosting ring in Canada and if it is a load of regs theres no way they arent aware of this thread.

By not naming them now youre giving them time to prepare a defence/hide evidence while everyone else is still guessing. I think you have to just out them now to get rid of any advantage they still currently have by remaining publicly anonymous.

in stars agreement with the DOJ they said they woudln't allow people to play from the US

there is a 0% chance that stars will be ok with ANYONE playing from the US, regardless of their great moral reasons

It's going to be pretty hard to gain evidence for being in Vancouver in the past when Stars asks you for travel documents. I'm not going to name anyone until I've had a chance to talk to a few ppl and that it seemingly not happening until the end of EPT. You also have to understand that what I have is still basically hear'n say. I say basically, because I'm getting the same information from multiple individual choices and thus believe it to be true, but it's harder to actually prove without Stars cooperation, for which I'm still waiting. I have emailed them about it earlier today though and it's my hope the wheels are rolling when we speak. I don't see what outing anything on 2+2 (yet) accomplishes. I don't want to be remembered as the guy who publically called out someone and was wrong. I'm 99% sure most of the information regarding all these cases is correct but I want to seek the help of people smarter than me about what to do with it. And the main incentive should be to ensure we will have poker mtts to play in the future and making Stars to act on these scams and tighten their policies, not to witch hunt single guys down. I don't want to risk any bigger picture developments to get 2+2 a new drama bomb to chew.

Yeah, I agree, not for the sake of drama, but if you wanted to wait I think youve gone way too close to hinting at who it is. I.E. they will 100% know youre talking about them, and waiting now wont be as good as just outing them as info youve received from multiple sources. Let them refute it etc, at the very worst everyone will know who plays with them.

As they now know you know and intend to spill the beans the longer you keep it quiet the more chance they have to get out of it/come up with believable excuses.

Well I did essentially all but name them in my cv thread so it's a bit late for that anyway. I went more in detail here because I wanted more evidence and screen names to be sent over to Stars. I think I have enough if they take it seriously but I'm not too sure they will.

They take away EV from people who have relocated ,but i also agree they shouldn't be outted, **** the govt we use to have, seriously.

Why are u waiting chuckster? If u think ppl should be outted 100% I really couldnt understand a reason for waiting considering every day that passes is another day these ***** pogs get away with more money.

With that said I think you should out 1. known M/A'ers 2. Ppl who get ghosted deep 3. Ppl in the states with new names. Im sure there's other stuff

Also, I am not saying it's like cool or anything to stay in the states and play, some people have kids etc and can't necessarily move as easily so good on them if they wanna rip the schedule from the states from their old name and not a new one.

TL;DR **** the Gov't, Mexico is the tits anyway

So, itt people seem to be in agreement that;

1) its ok (maybe encouraged?) for low profile players to play on their own name VPNing from the US

2) its NOT ok for high profile players to disguise their identity while VPNing from the US

3) we must end the systematic, assembly line MAing schemes that are as old as online poker itself

is this right?

I don't think the profile of anyone has anything to do with it.

how long do you really think a high profile player (with more attn on them) can get away with VPNing "honestly"?

I can understand people are frustrated with other people staying in the USA to play online poker on PS or other websites but they don't do so without risking there own money being confiscated or them (maybe?) being arrested and prosecuted for doing stuff illegally.

This is the reason why the other players (the usa players who are annoyed by fellow Americans doing the same thing) are against this as well, but they have there own risks. You (as a moved american) can choose to stay and use a VPN, at your own risks...

They don't hurt the community by stealing equity in forms of MA'ing, Ghosting or other stuff.... So to me, they dont do much wrong (compared to what this topic/subject is about) and shouldn't be outed for that, since its a different scenerio.

It's unethically towards the goverment and pokerstars, not hurting any of the players or anything.