Sunday, March 12, 2006

Are We Safe?

'Sir, may I have your name please?'

After waiting for 45 minutes, you sit down with the max buy at the airport casino 50/100 NL ring. You know you got what it takes to reel in chips, win big pots with monsters, using well timed bluffs and accurate reads... You see a couple of familiar faces at the other tables but none atyour table. You are alone... with 9 strangers who also want to take people's money. You sit tight andwait for that hand. (No not wired As) Something like AK or AQ comes your way, so you raise, you play your odds, position and everything else well but it seems like the action is too loose and too fishy for you. (and the chance you don't hit the flop)You back down not only once but twice...

4 hours have past and you are down to 1/4 your buy-in, you decide to call it a night. So you stand up and cash out your remaining chips, grab a cup of coffee and head home. You are a tight player, so while driving home you recall some of the hands you played a while ago and figure out why you din't get paid. You felt like it was just one of those days were the cards weren't going your way, a losing day in short. You take a deep breath and swallow the loss and play again the next day.

The next day, you see that you're sitting again with the same group of players. Now you've got that sly grin on your face because you know it's payback.You sit tight again, wait, wait and wait for the right time. You win a couple of small pots, then you get a small beat. After a couple of hours, you look down at your stack and see you're down again. The action is still the same very loose and very fishy. You get Aces, you raise big, get 4 callers. The flop comes out very rough, but you push and get two callers. One having a flush draw, the other holding a f'ing two-pair. The guy with the draw takes down the huge pot. You go to the bar, (fuck the coffee) get a scotch neat, you down it and head home. While driving home, you recall and replay again the things that happened at the table, now you have profiles about the players at the table, you are so keen and sharp that you even remember the conversations at the table, the tells even the hands they played. Then you slam on your horn and curse all the way home, you grab your rear-view mirror and point it at your faceand you stare long and hard at yourself...you see a sucker... because for all this time you've been cheated.
_________________________________________________________________________

I just got a call from a 'friend' of mine. He's asking if there's any game tonight, so I tell him he could go down to the airport to play some rings. He tells me 'I don't want to because the people cheat there, they use sign language.' I take it lightly, and tell him well, there's a game at the libis area, you should check it out. I put down the phone, continue watching tv (rayban celeb poker) hehe... then it struck me. I have some violent reactions to cheaters because in poker - Cheaters can win by collusion, if they do it right.

Collusion is a very very serious matter in my opinion. For every serious poker player this is a mortal and deadly act. I would pop a cap in those motherfuckers heads if a group of players cheated their way to my money. It's stealing, more like a planned robbery. They better not try fucking any Danny Ocean shit at my table. Anyways, it is inevitable that we can encounter cheaters at everything, especially at poker becauseyou can play with absolutely random people all the time. As for me, I play online and the chances of me sitting with a player whom I've played with before are very very slim.

It would take a very sly and ingenius team to form a system to use at the table, an effective collusion plan that would make them profit. It's like the MIT group that brought the house down playing blackjack, there plan worked and they were famous for it. It's also like the ESPN series Tilt, where the matador uses collusion to get thousands of cash at the high stakes cash game. (For home games, the most effective way of cheating, is manipulating the deck, as seen on the movie Rounders were Edward Norton would deal Matt Damon, wired pairs at 7 card stud.) It is possible guys, and most probably there's already an Ocean's 4 or 5, roaming around the casino floors...

Online playing is no excuse, I think cheating is more rampant online that it is live. (I even have circumstances where a friend would ask me 'is it safe to play online?') This is done through multiple accounts & using messengers. The most recent controversy of cheating was done by the supposedly ZJ and JJprodigy, they would enter MTT's using 5-6 accounts. It's like playing a tournament with 6 lives. Total disadvantage to the other players. Luckily, there was a keen online player that observed the game so much that he reported it to the security department of the site. True enough, it was cheating. The plan was foiled, cracked, busted. Almost $200k+ was taken from the multiple accounts, and the criminals were banned from playing at that online poker room.

It's a shame that people resort to collusion to get money. It's not having an edge, it is cheating and it can be done by anyone. Here in the Philippines, people are trying so hard to put poker into the mainstream but then if it is only going to resort to cheating then that beats the purpose, poker would become a cheater's game. I guess history does repeat itself. (A little trivia, poker before was played at steamboats because gambling was illegal during that time at towns. So players would play cards or play poker - which is considered the 'cheater's game' - and the way the game is played is they would invite a rich sucker to join their 4 player game. Then these guys would play for hours and hours, cheating their way to wealth. At the end of the night the sucker would be down right bankrupt not knowing he was cheated ex. The movie Maverick)

My two cents, I would advice that serious players beware and be conscious. If you feel something going down at the table just stand up, try to report it to the authorities. Signs of collusion would be fishy all-ins, sandwhiching, chip dumping, sign language etc... there are a lot! I also would want the airport casino security to treat this as a very serious matter and they should take care of theirplayers because the future of the game is at stake...

Let skill trample over luck and cheaters.

I would be pleased, if you guys would share your reactions... because we ALL can be victims of collusion.

10 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

We should be very vigilant about it but don't come into quick conclusions. Lets just hope that this thing doesn't happen. But if it does....

SUGOD MGA KAPATID!!!

8:43 PM  
Blogger ivegotdnuts said...

This is a very serious matter. If you lose 20k because somebody used collusion against you it is no fuckin' joke.

8:53 PM  
Blogger Maverick said...

i might have an idea about what youre talking about.

Its nothing like the movie rounders, where they play with each other but not really against each other. they go for the "live" ones.

collusion and cheating, on the other hand, is plain criminal. Signs, signals, soft play, marking cards, there are a lot of ways to cheat at the tables.

i havent played at the ACF for a while. i'd like to go observe this phenomenon, and im prety sure i also have an idea who to look out for...

dont worry my friend, we'll have our revenge. MWAHAHAHA!

8:23 PM  
Blogger ivegotdnuts said...

Do not get me wrong, I have no intention of throwing stones in the sky, or indirectly attacking some 'players'. I'm just saying that it is possible and anyone can do it. We just have to be aware and alert when we smell something fishy, we're poker players for godsake!


I respect the 'live ones' concept, we play for money and nothing else, but let us not resort to cheating to gain a couple of bucks.

The only time people should steal if I get a whole lot of cash (millions or billions) that would make them not play poker anymore for serious money, not work, and live like a rock star. If you're going to steal something, make it worth it... that's the way stealing should be hahahaha

11:50 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've played in the ACF a lot. Had a string of 12 straight days, averaging 8 hours per session. Played 50/100, 100/200, 20/40 and once a 100/200 limit game. I usually go around the tables and watch for lose players, I once played with this bald guy who raises 500 pre flop every round in a 20/40 table, i got hit a couple times but he got cleaned out almost 50k by the whole table. The regular players in ACF DO NOT have the mental capacity to cook up scams on the table. The guys who you might think are colluding are probably the ones notorious for it already, so why sit on the same table? Its going to self destruct sooner or later explode right in their faces, i've been assured that every time they step in the room, the cameras are locked on to them already. One wrong move...hehehe...If the BBC were alive they would have been found a long time ago floating in Manila Bay. Just dont sit on the same table, crack the stupid players and scream Gatcho on the river!!! hahaha!

-Aiza Seguerra-

1:08 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Nice comment Aiza Seguerra. Hope you reveal yourself to us hahaha

4:07 PM  
Blogger boy of destiny said...

hahahaha Aiza, ur better than pretentious mike. :D

8:20 PM  
Blogger nickg said...

wow...cheats and hax0rz...

from what you recount in the beginning part of your article, it looks like the only way cheating could have been perpetrated in your two sessions was through signaling. Did you note any signaling going on? Or were there things about the game that stood out to indicate explicit cheating?

You may have fallen victim to implicit collusion, or semi-explicit (if there's such a term) "OK pare if this guy jams and you call I'll call too"...to give themselves a small edge.

Those edges can be overcome over time though, if you're a better player than they.

My wife and I play online quite regularly, and as you mentioned in your article, cheating is more rampant online. But it doesn't make the games unbeatable...just have a look at Barb's spreadsheet (not mine, lol).

Let's bring this up to the casino management...*IF* it's going on, it'll likely the type of collusion that's easily detected.

11:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Report it to the ACF internal security? Sad to say, that I've seen first hand that they are questionable.

I brought something with me to ACF and an event happened. It's clearly the fault of ACF, so I demanded that they pay me back. Just a f***ing 40,000 they won't even pay me back. It's like, sorry boy, we'll just stick with our own guy even if he's questionable. They have video tapes that can prove that it was NOT my fault, that's why they don't want to view it again. Sadly, I doubt that the tapes are still kept.

AIZA, you've been assured that "the cameras are locked-on to them already"..I don't think so =) That's my opinion, unless I see how they really use their cameras (if most of it work & archived the right way).

For just a small price, they would deny their mistake. Even if it would cost them something like half a million to pay me back, that's still nothing to their earnings. They stand firm that it wasn't their fault.

Now I share this story because I'm tired of asking for my money. They didn't treat me as a customer. I just hope you guys would be a lot more careful when you enter ACF. Because if something happens to you there, don't expect their security to fix the problem for you.

Collusion and cheating can happen for sure. even if it's easily detected, don't expect security to be as smart as you. Expect the cheaters to be smarter than you. Don't expect that if you're intentions are good, that other people won't see you as a big fish.

11:07 PM  
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8:13 PM  

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