i thought it was 40k but regardless its not the best way to look at it imo. how are you going to calculate it? i guess you could total up all the $ won while they were at the same table but then theyre in a situation where they have to research a million other opponents to see if he has any collusion with them also. its probably easiest for them to assume a cheater is a cheater and they arent allowed to profit

obviously both players that have been convicted of cheating have also withdrawn 6 figures already and are facing no legal action

yeah the punishment is harsh if you take their word for face value but as a player and taking the pokersites point of view the punishment needs to be harsh

ponty makes an interesting point about if their ability affected the punishment and its def worth discussion but imo the punishment is fair and regardless of skill level it should be harsh

when someone has a broken moral compass they can screw you and still have the most honest intentions

Except that Steve does not have a broken moral compass.

whos steve? is he one of the guys that thought it was no big deal to collude? is he one of the guys that thought it was no big deal to collude yet he kept it a secret with his collusion partner amongst all their poker friends/roommates?

you got to know him pretty well. did he tell you about his collusion agreement? you played in the same games im sure. did he mention to you that they were colluding while you were at the table?

cheers xela. appreciate the support mate. you don't have to defend my personality to people on the internet, though. i'm happy for people to make their judgements, it makes no difference to my relationships that matter.

you can't really blame juan for arriving at such an opinion given this single piece of information he has. obviously people that know me (and frank) better will not agree. i'd hope, anyway!

smb you get a lot of credit around here because people admire your skill and work ethic on the tables. i think you have also handled the situation since you got caught far better than most

but make no mistake about it. youre either dishonest or your moral compass is broken. saying your moral compass is broken is giving a convicted cheater the benefit of the doubt. i know i say harsh things but its the truth

madstranger got 10x the **** for confessing to switching accounts before he got caught iirc. timstone is right about how people would react if this was him imo. regardless of how you should be treated, you are in fact being treated extremely well considering the circumstances imo

somejuan needs to get a life

Except he's 100% right.

lol youre both right

ill be back in a few hours to unlife and spread some more sunshine itt

$280,26 was hoping for more tbh

So is enough enough yet? We know everything we're going to know, and Steve (juan, that's smb. Not sure if that's been clarified) has been kind enough to answer every question to the best of his abilities right down to showing us all of his correspondence with Stars. He could have faded into the mist leaving nothing but questions, and he was under no compulsion to provide us with the depth of detail he has. He's already suffered the maximum punishment possible so I really question what we're trying to accomplish here with the continued bloodletting.

Long time since I played with Smb and Mayo, but I would just agree with the fair share of people here: You seem like honest and nice people, with no intentions of actually colluding or cheat other players.

My interpretation is that you only tried to remove some of the variance.

Furthermore it would probably be smarter to just look over PT4/HEM HHs and just send the money back/forth.

I don't think it was the "brightest" idea to not follow the ToS. However you had to be punished because of the state that online poker are in these days.

Harsh? Maybe I'm not here to judge.

I haven't read all the discussion about softplaying in this thread because it's really long, but just to be clear, softplaying gives you an unfair advantage and is therefore cheating. That's really really obvious.

There are basically two options for poker sties:

1) allow people to profit from cheating; or
2) confiscate people's money when they cheat.

I prefer option 2.

It's hard to argue that they didn't intend to collude or cheat other players when they have admitted to planning to collude and cheat other players. They just used different words and focused on the benefits that they received that seem more benign (lowered variance) as opposed to the fact that doing this clearly allowed them to take money from other people by breaking the rules.

Fwiw he did not tell me and I had no idea he was soft playing (not colluding). Though unlike some others I have a life and also busy making loads of $$ at the table so will not say anymore on that topic as I said all that is relevant on that topic. All the best to Steve, Frank and to all those who like to argue on the internet as a hobby.

$466.42 here.

I agree with TimStone that everybody saying the punishment is way too harsh is biased.

It's weird to see two great regs out but at the same time, as juan valdez has said, there are way too many different scenarios where the hands would have been played otherwise.

I got friends that have been banned for 3 years for similar behavior too.

Couldn't agree more. I seriously don't really understand why are some people here defending or thinking that the amount of money confiscated should be returned to Smb/Mayo or thinks it is a tough punishment. I definitely think they are forgetting the fact that the $80k confiscated was just the sum combined they had at the time their accounts were frozed so the two of them probably cashed out a ton of money during the 12months (according to Smb) their agreement last.

P.D: I understand that all the money won or confiscated was not entirely due to cheating/softplay/friendly agreements. Yet, you definitely can't take smb/mayo's side in this one imo.

wtf is going on itt?? WHAT YOU WERE DOING IS CLEARLY CHEATING. IT IS NOT CLOSE.

i cant believe people dont understand that and are just giving people a pass. holy ****.

thank god for noah with some common sense in here, i feel like im going crazy. i cant believe that people are not understanding how this is clear, clear, clear cheating. you guys all play poker for a living? wtf?

I got $1317, kind of doubt anyone played more hands with you guys than me and I highly doubt what you guys were doing would have cost me more than that during the games, but it's hard to tell

theres a new rule golf, was inforced at the Masters this year i think for the first time in major competition..states like:in certain times if a player breaks a rule without knowing he was breaking the rules its a 2 shot penalty instead of auto-disqualified.

Prolly some merit to this rule in relation to the mayodon/smbsmb situ penalties

Sick, could you run any worse with Hull about to be promoted :-)

ha, unfortunately that's looking more and more likely. watford ****ed me over last night!