Suspicious Play?

[Reel Deal]

Want to get opinions from the guys here that have extensive experience playing online... something I view as suspicious happened at a table I was playing at last night and I want to know whether people here think it warrants contacting the site regarding a possible investigation.

Here are the facts and my observations from the table:

Site:
Table: Kluane ($1/$2 - $100NL)
Date: Wednesday January 11, 2006
Time: approximately 8:45 to 11:30 p.m. (US East Coast time)

Observations:

In my opinion the statistical probability of what this player did is outside of what can be considered reasonable. In all my time playing online I have never seen anyone come close to what this guy accomplished over a relatively short period of time all while playing loose/passive.

Please give me your feedback as to whether you think I should ask the site to look into this matter.

Thanks.

[BlibbityBlabbity]

A while back when EarthPoker was starting up they had 6 player SNGs for points toward a leaderboard thing and there were 80% bots playing the tables. What you describe is exactly the play they employed and there was NO QUESTION that these were not reall players. This was for play money though, and I have never seen eveidence of this at any site where real money was in play (while it is certainly possible).

That said, that style of play is TOO easy to beat. Just wait till you have the best hand and keep raising. They will gain a lot of chips if noone notices how they are playing because people will continually try to bluff them out not realizing that they have no chance of succeeding.

The question would be was it a PokerFantasy bot or someone's personal bot that they have playing there. In the first case, stop playing the site (or play there more since you are playing against easy targets, your call). Second case, contact support and report the account (OR, buddy list the account and try to find it playing in a cash game.... sucker will wake up in the morning and wonder how Robby the robot got beat so bad)

[Boobie Lover]

It doesn't sound like bot play to me. If players would raise and reraise only against each other with marginal hands, then fold whenever some other person got into the pot, I would suspect a bot. Go play at Poker Blue (Pokertropolis) if you want to see some bots in action.

I would say that playing at a non-reputable site is always in danger of these things occurring though.

[Talking Poker]

This is the key. I've never even heard of Poker Fantasy. I'm CERTAIN you could find clean $1/$2 games elsewhere - Stars, Party, Full Tilt, etc, etc, etc... This is the risk you take when you go with an unknown.

As for whether it was a bot or not, I don't know. Definitely sounds suspicious, but also sounds like a really badly programmed bot. Most user bots are programmed to play limit - NL is far too complex of a game. If you found a NL bot that was winning AND folding when other players had AA, KK, etc.... I have to suspect foul play with the poker site. And if that's the case, obviously reporting your findings to the site is going to do nothing.

Ok, I just looked at their site, and I don't think they are even regulated by any Game Commission! They claim to have anti-collusion software (oooh, big deal), and they say that their players are protected from Identity Thieves, but I see no mention of their random card generator or most importantly being regulated by ANYONE.

Major red flag. If I were you, I would withdraw and never go back, and be a bit more selective of where you choose to play in the future.

[Govman6767]

Very Suspicious but..... you can look at it this way

Some ppl do play crazy like this calling every raise. They will make a ton of dough in a short period of time or lose a ton of dough in a short period of time
good and bad for you.

I would love to play at a table with a few of these players.
But the fact that this player was folding everytime someone had AA or KK
Would be a sign to get the hell out of there As fast as possible.

I can say this because I was at 450 with my bankroll went on mad tilt cause of a few bad beats and was playing every hand calling every raise went though big swings over 30 min. Lucky for me I hit a few hands and my bankroll is back at 424. So there are ppl who do play like this lucky for us I don't think they last too long once they hit a losing streak.

[Reel Deal]

Couple other odd things I forgot to mention...

First, when I tried to request the hand histories (you have to do it in a pop-up and can request a specific hand, your last 10, 20, 50 or hands from a certain table from a certain time/date range) I tried to request from this table during the time/date range I was there and it came up as not being available. The other odd thing (but probably just coincidence) is that right before this happened someone came to the table and asked what we thought of the site, I said I thought it was pretty lame because of x, y and z.

[Reel Deal]

This is how I played it and he/she/it kept hitting miracle cards to win.

[Talking Poker]

Dude - leave that site and don't go back.

[junYUN]

ive seen stuff like this before online... but i never really got too in depth to really investigate it.. because really all it would do is drive me crazy. in this situation i'd simply pull my money off the site and never go back.

[Reel Deal]

I will. I'll also be firing off some emails to the company that provides the gaming software to this network. It's a Canadian company called Chartwell Technology Inc. (they're traded on the Canadian stock exchange so if I make enough noise they may have to listen). I have the CEO's email address and he'll be getting a friendly note from an attorney in Florida today.

Of course, I'm having a hard time finding out any info about the network which is called pokernexus and run by Eliteclub Management N.V.

[jaeh00d]

i'm sorry this might be a bit off topic, but has anyone encountered any experiences such as these on absolute poker and/or poker time. has anybody played on these sites?

but yes, like everybody said pull your money from that site. I have never heard of it. I had a small encounter with two players once at pokerstars it in a 20sng. It just seemed really odd to me, one player would make an initial raise, be called by someone, the re raised by another. The original raiser would be push all in with for say j8 and be instantly called with A10. both of the players accumulated quite big enough stacks and the play was just horrendous. then again it might have been just my imagination. but lets somebody raised then re raised by 33, the re raised by AQ, original better folded and 33 pushes all in and immediately called by AQ.

that happened about three times it was some what suspicious. Neither of the two would respond to any of my claims in the chat. It just didnt seem right.

[ChipFish]

Has anyone even thought of the possibility that the guy was just a reeeeeeallly bad player who got lucky.

Or he had a good lag style?

It's alot of effort to reach for the old tinfoil hat, so wouldn't a larger sample than say; 3 hours of a guy running hot for a while, be needed?

[jaeh00d]

No youre exactly correct thats most likely the solution to all of these scenarios.

BUT...

realdeal has his suspicions and i honestly would leave that site also after seeing that. Not just that, but for reasons that Tp stated as well. The whole site just sounds really really bogus to say the least.

[Reel Deal]

I've never seen "luck" like that before.