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24
Feb

Cheating

Posted by PokerBarney on 7:43PM, 24th Feb 2006
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Cheating scoundrels!

Is cheating really that prolific? It's certainly becoming more apparent in the Maxim King Of Poker tournaments. There are several people who create multiple accounts (and are even cheeky enough to have almost identical names) and then play them all at the same time. This basically gives them loads more (collective) chips than everyone else, and if the various accounts get seated at the same table, a greater chance of winning!

Now, it's a freeroll tourny, so it doesn't make a lot of difference, especially as we're in the later stages so they can't muck up the leaderboard, but does this happen a lot online? I've been reading it mentioned more and more in various poker and online magazines, with tall tales of these little scammers making serious amounts of cash. If it's that easy, why aren't we all doing it?

What can be done about it anyway? From the point of view of the poker operator, there isn't a lot, besides monitoring who plays with who most often and flagging them up as possible cheats. The only real way of spotting it is to watch in real time and observe everyone's cards - this way, it would (eventually) become apparent who was colluding and who was just being slaughtered.

Plus, what about bots? Software programs designed to play poker automatically - no more fatigue, tilt, misread hands or wrongly calculated odds. They play all day every day on vast numbers of tables over tens of sites on all stakes, eventually gleaning small profit - it's the large numbers that make it worthwhile. What about poker bots working together to mince up unsuspecting fish? It doesn't bear thinking about... Online poker is going to have to face these issues sooner rather than later, but will it come out unscathed?



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