What a mess
Monday, October 22, 2007
You may have seen what is going on at Absolute Poker at the moment. Apparently one of their staff or a hired consultant has been caught playing & cheating in one of their tournaments. They have released an official statement on the matter, but it has obviously been written by lawyers and doesn't really explain much.
We've never recommended Absolute here at Poker.com, but have met a few of their staff at tournaments or other events and they seemed like nice, honest people. But their software development was outsourced to Asia and their offices were set up in a third world country - two factors that can sometimes spell trouble.
One of the major rules of running an online poker room is that staff do not play in your room - unless it is some sort of special event and they are clearly identifiable. Pro players that endorse a site are different - they do not have access to sensitive information - and it's fine for them to play whenever they want and are not classified as 'staff'.
I know that most poker rooms have very strict controls in place when it comes to their staff having player accounts and their software is written in a way that makes it impossible to cheat. Opponent hole card information simply is not sent to the client software until showdown, and some rooms will take the extra step of banning all IPs from the country where their offices are based. There is no such thing as a 'superuser' account on any of the software platforms that I have inside knowledge of.
What actually happened at Absolute perhaps will never become public knowledge, but it reinforces the fact that you should only play online at sites where you know the games are safe, and the site takes extra precautions to ensure game integrity. If you don't know this sort of thing yourself, trust the people that know - like us. And trust the public companies.
888 is a publicly owned company, and the software provider for Titan Poker is a public company. PokerStars is the largest and most trusted poker site online and Bodog have continually proven their integrity over more than 10 years in business. Full Tilt Poker is where the pros play (and invest just quietly) - they have the highest of integrity standards because they have laid their reputations and wallets on the line in developing Full Tilt.
That's why we recommend these sites for you to play. That's why if you play at a site not listed on Poker.com you run the risk of maybe not playing in the fairest game online...
We hate to think that anybody that ever plays in a game of poker would cheat, but sometimes people just need to learn lessons for themselves. We all have that inherent sense of right and wrong that speaks to us, that stops most of us from even contemplating cheating at anything.
But there will always be someone that needs to learn the hard way. In the wild west they were shot - I wonder what Absolute will do to the person that has ruined their reputation?
You can talk about this issue in the Poker Forum.
We've never recommended Absolute here at Poker.com, but have met a few of their staff at tournaments or other events and they seemed like nice, honest people. But their software development was outsourced to Asia and their offices were set up in a third world country - two factors that can sometimes spell trouble.
One of the major rules of running an online poker room is that staff do not play in your room - unless it is some sort of special event and they are clearly identifiable. Pro players that endorse a site are different - they do not have access to sensitive information - and it's fine for them to play whenever they want and are not classified as 'staff'.
I know that most poker rooms have very strict controls in place when it comes to their staff having player accounts and their software is written in a way that makes it impossible to cheat. Opponent hole card information simply is not sent to the client software until showdown, and some rooms will take the extra step of banning all IPs from the country where their offices are based. There is no such thing as a 'superuser' account on any of the software platforms that I have inside knowledge of.
What actually happened at Absolute perhaps will never become public knowledge, but it reinforces the fact that you should only play online at sites where you know the games are safe, and the site takes extra precautions to ensure game integrity. If you don't know this sort of thing yourself, trust the people that know - like us. And trust the public companies.
888 is a publicly owned company, and the software provider for Titan Poker is a public company. PokerStars is the largest and most trusted poker site online and Bodog have continually proven their integrity over more than 10 years in business. Full Tilt Poker is where the pros play (and invest just quietly) - they have the highest of integrity standards because they have laid their reputations and wallets on the line in developing Full Tilt.
That's why we recommend these sites for you to play. That's why if you play at a site not listed on Poker.com you run the risk of maybe not playing in the fairest game online...
We hate to think that anybody that ever plays in a game of poker would cheat, but sometimes people just need to learn lessons for themselves. We all have that inherent sense of right and wrong that speaks to us, that stops most of us from even contemplating cheating at anything.
But there will always be someone that needs to learn the hard way. In the wild west they were shot - I wonder what Absolute will do to the person that has ruined their reputation?
You can talk about this issue in the Poker Forum.
Posted at 2:20 AM Permalink | Talk on the Poker Forum
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