Quote:
Originally Posted by feint06
Handled the Stars Chinese collusion ring with kid gloves... Stars didn't catch it, players did. Stars isn't the only site that catches cheaters and refunds players (I've had refunds from Cake, Cereus, and FTP too so saying "stars is the best in the industry" doesn't at all justify their failure here).
And the point you really missed is how should Stars compensate the regulars? Guys typically play these because they tended to be very low variance, and very easy to mass table (I can play maybe 8 6max sngs at a time before getting stressed the **** out, but 40-50 DoNs). That means most regs who play these treat them more like a 9-5 jobs with almost a guaranteed hourly. That makes them very attractive for those chaing Supernova.
But when the cheating started, guys who had 3-5% ROIs with minimal variance, now developed -2-1% ROIs and sick swings. After a couple months, they drop down/change games etc and ultimately give up on SN/SNe. So here are guys that would have had an extra 5% rakeback and thousands in bonuses if Stars had maintained clean games, but is Stars going to reimburse those players for the lost opportunity? Not likely -- they'll be lucky enough if stars reaches into its own pocket to cover the money lost through cheaters' withdrawals.
Please remember on the show we are trying to explain the issue to a wide ranging audience and not just talking to people who already have intimate knowledge of the topic. I think we covered most of the bases pretty well.
The points you bring up are exclusively through the eyes of a DoN reg who makes a living off the recreational players who like these games. There are many different angles here.
The points you bring up just further re-inforce my argument that perhaps these games shouldn't be offered in the 10 man format until there is a way that everyone is happy that they are entirely safe.
While in a perfect world it would be nice if every game could be policed to everyone's satisfaction, it seems the DoN regs/grinders really want their cake and eat it too. They like that the DoN's are
a) games that the fish will flock to
b) they can rack up VPP's easily through multi-tabling
c) they have an edge strategy-wise giving them a pretty much guaranteed ROI
but they seem to want to take no responsibility that they have chosen a type of game that is currently more prone to collusion/softplay, much of it very subtle. By this statement I do not mean 'suck it up and accept the cheating as the cost of doing business'. Obviously, eliminating it altogether is the optimal solution but if you are knowingly participating in a form of poker that is tempting for colluders and you are fully aware of it, then you have to accept at least some responsibility for that decision you have made.
Basically I sense that some of the more myopic regs take is, 'Yes, I am fully aware DoN's are more easily exploitable by cheaters and are difficult for the sites to police, but I want to be able to keep playing these games since I love the guaranteed profit they provide. And whenever collusion does occur, I want the sites to be 100% responsible, and the fact I knew collusion was more likely be ignored' Seems the regs want all the benefits of these games and want the site to accept all the risk when they know providing a 100% risk free environment for DoN's seems to not currently be possible.
In a perfect world where every colluder could be easily caught by security instanteously, that would be ideal, but it seems that currently isn't reality. Not knowing the inner workings of online poker security at all, I don't know how difficult this Utopian situation would be to achieve. If it is in fact something that can be accomplished, that is the best case scenario.
As mentioned on the program, the ones I actually am most concerned about are the casual players who like the DoN's and are oblivious to the fact that this is an issue. They are either being colluded against unknowingly or if they do get a small refund from a site based on teamplay, their newfound knowledge of the situation could turn them off of playing online entirely. Big picture wise these games could end up causing far more harm than an SNG grinders difference between a 2% ROI and a 4% ROI.
TL, DR Cliffs - The problem isn't just security, it is the game itself.
Last edited by Mike Johnson; 06-04-2010 at 04:15 PM.