Live from the Two Plus Two Studios, June 4th 2010 - The feature guest on this bonus episode of the Two Plus Two PokerCast is Entourage Music Supervisor Scott Vener. Scott connects with Mike and Adam during the dinner break as chip leader of Event #8; $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em to talk about his WSOP experience so far and shares some Entourage stories. The guys also provide coverage of all currently running and completed World Series of Poker events. David Sklansky is back at it providing another edition of the Sklansky Minute about 'Profiling'. Mike and Adam also discuss forum static and give away the password for the June 6th Poker Stars VIP Club Invitational for Pokercast listeners.


PokerCast Theme - Demitone Productions Inc. © 2007 : Dark Days - You Say Party! We Say Die! - XXXX © 2009 : Fight the Power - Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet © 1990 :

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Wasn't quite believeing the 2 Pokercasts in one week until now
Just hoping you've remembered the p-word this time........

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and I vote for either 2 pokercasts per week OR 1 that's ~3.5hrs long (like from episode 122)

"Not a real dragon" lol

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Nice. Thanks for the bonus podcast

Pot Limit Stud was played in London, in the Vic, years ago.

Chip leader after Day 1 of the $10k stud is Michael Mizrachi, with Vladmir Schmelev 2nd! Poker's obviously a game of luck.

Great work guys, perfect timing for me I just finished listening to 123.

Zap

Mike wins, Chris Bjorin is Swedish not Danish

in before 2nd page

You're doing it all wrong FSL. Fix that or you'll lose your mind.

Just started listening to today's show, regarding logos:

I assume it's Harrah's who is the one who made the restrictions on the # of logos at the table. After there were 6 patched players from Stars at the 2008 Main Event final table, the decision was made for each site to be limited to three. I recall after this was announced last year, either Mike or Adam opined that it was UB pushing for that restriction to get more exposure of their logos.

They played the Vietnam national anthem for the Casino Employees event, and Israel's national anthem for Grinder's win.

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.

If any other site allowed $750K+ to be swindled from its players over 6+ months despite numerous player reports and then remained mum on the subject -- you guys would have hung their feet over the coals. But since it happened to be a show sponsor, it must be the game's fault?


Get real. We're not talking about complex algorithms required here...

If a new account suddenly rockets to the top of the leaderboard -- trigger an audit
If an account plays more than 10% of its games with another player, trigger an audit
If 3+ players from the same city consistently start playing together, trigger an audit.

DoNs bring in millions in rake. It isn't too much to ask for a couple of security personal who understand DoN dynamics (did you seen the emailed questions Stars security asked about routine plays?!).

I agree all sites should constantly be striving for the best security possible. If it's a simple algorithm that will instantly make this problem go away for good, then why hasn't someone provided it for them.

As I have asked a couple of other players, if you think the game isn't up to a level of security you are comfortable with in the DoN games why are you not sitting them out until the audits/safeguards you are looking for are in place. That is what I would do.

And for the record, my opinion on this topic would be exactly the same regardless which site it was occurring on (I'm sure the same thing is likely happening on other sites that offer DoN)

Slow down with the strawman and hyperbole.

First, he didn't say it was the game's fault. He said it was partially the fact that the DoN's are a format that makes colluding very easy and profitable.

Second, we aren't the internet poker police. The only site we "hang their feet over the coals" is AP/UB and that's because they are clearly corrupt.

There are tons of issues at FTP that I personally know about but I don't "hang their feet over the coals" about.

People really need to stop equating our outrage with UB/AP with our lack of outrage at every issue, such as this one, that comes along in the industry.

A possible defense to the Double or Nothing sit n go colluding issues:

Why cant they just have one button to join each type of sit n go by buy in amount/game type/table size that would require you to pay and wait a few seconds or minutes for the table to form (it could even look like it does now and you would be seated but no player names would be displayed until all players are seated)? This would create a list of players ready to play and it seems like they could program the software to choose players from that list that aren't in the same town or IP address and sit the number of players in the specific SNG required and start the SNG.

Does this make sense? Is this too hard to do in real time?

I realize this wouldn't completely solve the problem as players could still collude from different locations over the phone, IM, etc. I suppose pros wouldn't like not being able to bum hunt, but that seems like a small sacrifice and would probably help the players who aren't as good and therefore help the longevity of the game.

hi fell upon this show by accident a couple of months ago and since that i've listened to all the archives instead of listening to inane radio (the ones which plays music and ****), so i obviously enjoy it.

a couple of points

1. when i 1st started reading the DON thread i thought to myself, well at least the pokercast will have access to a formal response by stars (btw i don't play on DON's but do play on stars)

2. would it have been better to have discussed this last week b4 the WSOP began so you could give it a bit more time?

3. as a 2+2 reader i thought this thread seemed like a big and complex issue which deserved quite a bit of air time. i'm not sure whether you tried to get an interview with stars security but they seem to have avoided the issue so far.

4. i can see why ppl might see that this as down playing the issue. you started the section with a UB story , then went to a 'promo' section with the guy from stars, then discussed the issue.

however i do love the show, it is without a shadow of a doubt the best poker podcast (i have yet found). hope it carrys on!!

or for these type of SNG you join a player pool like in RUSH and then get randomly seated from that pool? however it wouldn't work for multi tablers or would it...............erm......... sorry started on the ale......can't decide!!!

When you interview Jennifer Tilly you should have this bit from the movie Let It Ride ready to drop...

Greenberg: She has very long legs.
Vicki: Thanks. They go from my ass all the way to the floor.

and you can mention the excellent little known Dave Foley movie The Wrong Guy.

These should be part of your prep work!

Dons were created to make the sites more money.

Dons took the fishes out of SnGs.

SnG playing Regs were manipulated into playing Dons as a result.

The main issue also involves the prevalance of large teams of players in Chinese sweatshops who have been cheating for sometime; not just at DoNs, but also stud variants.

PSs have so far declined to make any comment on the current situation.

I too think you treated the issue with kid gloves.

The impression created is.
1. PS Steve did not appear on Monday, and this his first absence, to avoid questions on this.
2. On todays broadcast you were then instructed not to ask him any questions and you complied.