Absolute Poker Scandal Become Big News

October 19, 2007 | 4 Comments

Online poker may never be the same because of the scandal that was caused by Absolute Poker. People may no longer trust playing poker online all because some people wanted to make a little more money the easy way.

The story starts way back in 2003 when Absolute Poker was in its developmental stage. They created accounts to test their program and one such account, #363, was created for just that purpose. This account could see everyone’s hole cards at any table to make sure that pots were distributed correctly. This account could be used to play for real money and it was tied to someone in the company.

Now in 2007, Absolute Poker was going to upgrade their software, so they were dealing with programmers. One of those programmers ran across the #363 account and decided it would be a good idea to use this account to their advantage but in a subtle way. Some way that wouldn’t be noticed that much.

Around this time there were four accounts that were opened by real players to play for real money. Those accounts were Steamroller, DoubleDrag, GrayCat, and Potripper. These players played at Absolute Poker for a little while. They weren’t the best players and eventually it seemed that they had all abandoned Absolute Poker to try their luck somewhere else. These accounts weren’t used for months.

Right before the new upgrade was released, these four accounts started to play at Absolute Poker again. At first these four accounts played pretty conservatively and they would win a little and then leave the game quick, talking about how dinner was ready. After awhile though it seemed the players started to get greedier and they wanted more money. So, their play started to get looser and they were winning more and more money. The weird thing though was that they seemed to never cash out. The four accounts never cashed out any of their winnings. It seemed that they would play certain other players and lose a lot of money to those people. Then those people would cash out their accounts a couple days later. Other players started to get suspicious of the four accounts, so they started questioning Absolute Poker. Then Potripper played a tournament that was a $1,000 buy-in, on September 12 against Marco Johnson. Johnson lost that tournament to Potripper and thought some of his moves were a little suspicious. So, Johnson asked Absolute Poker to send him a report on his hand history. For an outline of when things happened go to http://www.neverwinpoker.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44393. On September 17 the accounts of Steamroller, DoubleDrag, GrayCat, and Potripper were suspended and frozen so that their could be an investigation into their activity.

On September 21 Johnson received the report from Absolute Poker on his hand history in the tournament that he played against Potripper. He didn’t read the report right away because it was so big and it was pretty complex. Then on October 12 it came out that Johnson not only received the report on his hand history but he got the whole report on everyone’s hand history that was in the tournament and he was able to see everyone’s hole cards. By seeing this you could tell that Potripper was able to see everyone’s hole cards and that is how he won the tournament. It was apparent that he had cheat.

The next thing that had to be done was figure out who was behind these accounts. It was discovered on October 16 that Potripper’s email address was scott@rivieratld.com. This email belonged to Scott Tom who was the co-owner and president of Absolute Poker. They also figured out that Potripper was also using the account #363, so that they could see everyone’s hole cards at the table. People think that Potripper is really AJ Green who was the former Director of Operations at Absolute Poker. He is now the Director of Operations for nine.com. What everyone figured out was this scandal was done by people who were within the company. They stole thousands and maybe millions of dollars from people who were there just to make some money have a little fun.

This could be really bad for online poker. People may never trust online poker sites again with their money. The investigation is still going because they aren’t exactly sure if those two guys are the only ones involved but if they are they just ruined a whole business just because they wanted to get money quick and easy. This story has generated a lot of talk between people. Some people are really upset and hope that something is done to these men. Time will only tell.

Absolute Poker hasn’t made much of a statement. They have been pretty quiet about this story. Hopefully they will soon explain what happened and why. Hopefully those two men are punished for what they did. It has been said that the money will be returned to those players who played against these accounts but that is a pretty hard thing to do.

Stay tuned for more updates as they come out. This story is far from over.

Popularity: 19% [?]

Posted by Lindsay | Filed Under Articles

A Note on Variance

August 31, 2007 | Leave a Comment

People always talk about running bad, getting coolered then going busto. In short, I tested the veracity of these claims. The following chart show about 31k hands where a 30 Heros have committed exactly 1/20^th of their bankroll in pots they are either a favorite or an underdog. The average P (hero is a favorite in 1 hand) is 50.02%. This equates to a “2% edge” or 2bb/100. However, since Heros cannot always be exactly a 50.02% favorite in each individual hand, I’ve randomized Hero equity for each hand into 10 common equity buckets. When Hero’s are ahead, they are: 80%, 75%, 60%, 55%, or 66% favorites. Read more

Popularity: 20% [?]

Posted by JiggaManJ | Filed Under Articles

Snapping a Bluffer in Half

August 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment

Here’s why you should always pay attention to your opponents in a poker game.

So I’m sitting under the gun (seat 5) in my usual $2-$5 no limit Texas Holdem poker game at the Bellagio with about $550 or so in front of me. The game is fairly aggressive, but loose at the same time, a good poker game to make money in really.

The dealer shuffles the cards, tosses them out, and I’m dealt a pair of nines. I glance around the table, and didn’t pick up on much from the other players. I called the $5 blind, seeing what the aggressive players at the table do. Read more

Popularity: 22% [?]

Posted by admin | Filed Under Articles

Password Scams On Full Tilt Poker

February 15, 2007 | Leave a Comment

There have been several reports of individuals using the Full Tilt chat box as a means of deceptively acquiring valuable account information from online poker players. The scam in question involved scammers manipulating the text in the chat box to make it appear as though Full Tilt was awarding cash prizes for certain lucky players.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Posted by D.B.Murdock | Filed Under Articles

Cash equity at the final tournament table

November 12, 2006 | 3 Comments

Originally written by Rafe Furst of Full Tilt Poker

While cardsharping the final tournament table of the $1,500 Pot-limit Holdem event, I found myself in a mean condition when we were down to four-handed play. I was in the big blind and Rizen, a solid, respected internet tournament professional, was in the small blind. It was folded to Rizen who attested that he would raise the pot. With forced bets of $15k/$30k, his raise made it $400,000 to me.

At the time, I had nearly $400k in chips; Rizen had 750k and the 2 other players had near $250,000 each.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Posted by admin | Filed Under Articles

Absolute Poker Scandal Become Big News

A Note on Variance

Snapping a Bluffer in Half

Password Scams On Full Tilt Poker

Cash equity at the final tournament table

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