Table Finder
As many of you may know, a large controversy in the poker community has emerged surrounding collusion allegations leveled at Stoxtrader, the founder of popular coaching site, stoxpoker.com. Allegations have run wild in the high stakes community about high stakes collusion between the two Poker Stars accounts knockstiff and littlezen, and the Full Tilt accounts 40putts, and kinetica, which seem to be assosiated with Stoxtrader. In an attempt to prove or disprove the allegations, high stakes players from the 2+2 community attempted to cobble together databases to prove or disprove the allegations, but the data sets ended up being small or inconclusive.
As many of you may know, a large controversy in the poker community has emerged surrounding collusion allegations leveled at Stoxtrader, the founder of popular coaching site, stoxpoker.com. Allegations have run wild in the high stakes community about high stakes collusion between the two Poker Stars accounts Shortly after the controversy broke, NoahSD contacted PTR with a request to utilize our database in order to build a conclusive case. After some discussion, the PTR team agreed that it was well worth our time to help protect the poker community by aiding NoahSD and the high stakes community. We believe that it is absolutely essential for poker players to work together to police the games online and keep them safe. Without comprehensive data however, it is difficult to determine what happened, especially when events occurred years in the past. PTR is happy to provide that data.
The PTR team compiled a series of reports that include game play statistics for the four accounts in question and made it available to NoahSD. These reports show how these accounts played against each other, along with how they played against other frequent opponents. It is our opinion that it requires significant poker expertise to examine this type of data and draw conclusions about the intent of the players involved so we left the analysis up to the pros.
NoahSD concluded that Stoxtrader did in fact collude on the accounts 40putts and knockstiff with the accounts kinetica and littlezen. He, argues that anomalies in the game play statistics of how these accounts played against each other, and against their 49 most common opponents, could only indicate that these accounts were in fact colluding. A full copy of this analysis can be downloaded at the end of this article. We encourage you to read it and judge for yourself.
In the future, PTR would like to continue to help keep online poker safe at all levels for all players. Please feel free to drop us a line with suggestions and comments about PTR and how we can help the community with game security.
You can download a PDF of NoahSD’s findings here.
Links to the PTR profiles of the accounts involved.
knockstiff
littlezen
40putts
kinetica
K
5
They need to be banned from online poker to lay down a benchmark that ‘cheating’ will not be tolerated. Not sure however that having 2 players ’soft playing’ against each other at a cash table is any more of a disadvantage to others than having a couple of good short stackers at the table. More of a problem in 1 table sit and go’s maybe. 2 players sharing hole cards and ‘ganging up’ aggressively on others at the table together would be 10x worse.
The biggest poker robbery out there….. Stop this 20BB buy in short stacking krap, it aint poker. A good short stacking startegy robs the deeper stacked players at the tables, being able to move ya stack in first all the time preflop and on the flop is a massive advantage. Increase the min/max buy ins. 100BB’s is barely a deep stack, why not up it to 200BB table max buy in and 100BB as the absolute min.
buy ins should be between 200 and 400 bb’s per table that way we can play poker
thats a 1M$ scam, nice :p
Awesome PTR…. We put a lot of faith in sites and players when we play online and the dishonest must be eliminated
Good work, PTR!
RNGs, that is, RMGs are already rolling full speed so the last thing we need is more cheating by amateurs! So humiliating… I prefer being cheated by the pros, lol!
PS: The part praising your work is sincere and I fully appreciate the work you are doing for the poker community!
Soft playing is a form of collusion. Collusion means working together unbeknownst to other players at the table. Working together means changing your play in any way that would create an unfair advantage or unfair play environment, in any degree. It doesn’t specifically mean that you are sharing hole card information, etc (although it could be argued that how you play is sharing information about your hole cards). Soft playing is a form of collusion.
That being said, poker sites will not take action in the case unless they can prove that hand history databases were shared.
Actually this is what they look for:
“When reviewing ring game play for possible collusion, we check for the
following:
1) Best hand play – where cooperating players play only the better of their two hands.
2) Pot building, where cooperating players raise strategically to force a third player to pay the maximum when one of the partners holds a strong hand.
3) Squeeze play, where the two raise constantly to drive others out of the pot when both hold bad hands”
wholly crap… did anybody even read Noahsd’s report!? I’d need to take a week off work to get through that thing.
I would think the PokerStars Security Team, along with the report etc., would be able to conclusively determine collusion, after all they can see everyone’s the hole cards in the hand histories. Has anyone sent an inquiry to the PokerStars security team?
Isn’t anybody else outraged that PTR is turning over datamined data to a request from a player? What’s to stop innocent players from being accused of colluding, just in order to get their hand history databases released publicly? PTR routinely datamines all the major poker sites against their Terms of Service. Now, our shady friends are releasing this data to selected individuals. PTR hardly has the right to exist, it does NOT have the right to release the information it datamines!
If you want to scream “collusion!” when you see players softplaying at each other, nobody can’t stop you.
But it’s necessary to draw a clear line between this mild form of “collusion” and the really dangerous ones. These are (I quote from other post):
“1) Best hand play – where cooperating players play only the better of their two hands.
2) Pot building, where cooperating players raise strategically to force a third player to pay the maximum when one of the partners holds a strong hand.
3) Squeeze play, where the two raise constantly to drive others out of the pot when both hold bad hands”
Why are these forms of collusion so different from softplaying? Because they could allow fish-cheaters to take money from better opponents, in virtue of the collusion.
In contrast, softplaying could do nothing to separate non colluding opponents from their money. In fact, if two weak players known to softplay each other proposed me to play three-handed, I would gladly accept. They are protected against each other, but what’s gonna prevent me to win against both of them?
Softplaying can be considered collusion, but the victims of it aren’t the other players. The only “victim” it is the poker site, which looses money from the potential rake of the pots between the colluders, which were kept artificially small.
Apparently Pokerstars and Fulltilt drew this line of divide bewteen softplaying and “hard” collusion, in spite of the fact that softplaying is precisely the kind of collusion that cost them money. That’s good news.
looks sus to me. On all 4 accounts there best game is 5/10 NLHE
I’ll tell you what else is suspicious, the Hatian earthquakes.
@OrbisTertius – Good point. However, keep in mind that it is very difficult to prove “Best Hand Play” without the actual hole card data. The Soft Play as was proved here could very well also involve Best Handing, but is difficult to prove from datamined hand histories alone. Only the sites themselves can determine if that went on.
Better to play brick and mortar…
Its always great to see that this kind of behavior its not welcome in the already damage online poker comunity about its been ridge…CONGRATS¡!¡
Soft play in NV is collusion………. is not allowed…. as a floor Sup for one of the bigger rooms here in town, we frown on it and if brought to our attention by a dealer or player……….. we will watch for it and ask the players involved, to leave if ever seen… This IS a form of collusion………. 2 players soft playing eachother…is wrong for the game……. As with online…. Have seen it online and am no longer on those sites……….. Have sent an e-mail to PokerStars and am still waiting for a response… however as I said waiting for a response…………………..
Can someone explain to me how two players soft-playing each other would affect me?
1. If I’m out of the hand, then it’s impossible.
2. If I’m in the hand with a draw, their softplay (no raising etc.) would let me draw cheaply and with odds.
3. If I have a good/great hand, they couldn’t soft-play, because I would be raising them out, or they would be calling and I would be winning a decent pot.
Please tell me if I’m missing the point here.
Regards,
PTR2010
@PTR2010
Softplay certainly can hurt everyone in tourney where a player could be knocked out or crippled but isn’t.
In cash games the same is true but to lesser extent obviously. I’ve seen it happen a lot in LA on the piker tables where there will be 3 or 4 people who know each other and check it down if they are the only ones in. I may not be in the hand but having a player not lose any of their stack keeps them stronger than they should be on the next hand that I do play against them.
So while it may not have any affect on anyone for that one hand it does have an affect in the long run…imho.
@PTR2010
You ask “Can someone explain to me how two players soft-playing each other would affect me?”.
Well, that’s was also my point (see my previous comment): softplaying isn’t enough to hurt other players. But JohnAnthony_$1M gave us the answer: softplaying can hurt if it’s it is added to “Best hand play” (where cooperating players play only the better of their two hands).
For example:
Let’s assume you have been dealt (J-10) and you flopped the nut straight (Flop : A Q K), when your cooperating opponents have both flopped a set: (QQ) and (KK). Now you are gonna stack only one of them (not both), because the queens guy is folding, knowing his partner has a better set.
When your opponents practice “best hand play” (which is difficult to probe) you win less when you win, and you lose the same amount when you lose. Then you lose in the long term.
Soft play is certainly damaging. In this case, it was a sophisticated strategy, used in combination with a short-stack approach, that cheated high-stakes players out of expected value.
Best hand play would be too obvious and would be caught by the sites. What these players did was when one player raised, the other, holding a strong hand, would only call. That increased the likelihood of someone else entering the pot, and if they did, they would be facing two strong hands, which could then play for value.
NoahSD did a great service in proving this. It is disturbing that neither PokerStars nor Full Tilt recognized the situation when high-stakes regulars reported it a year ago.
Very interesting. I’m honestly surprised PTR turned over the HH data. I’m sure NoahSD had nothing but good intentions in mind, but what if the next player who asks for HH doesn’t?
The sad thing is that there’s collusion around poker sites everywhere, especially at the mid-stakes. Its too bad there’s no way to really punish these players for stealing, because that’s what it really is.
Their full names and addresses should be sent to all online poker rooms and the players should be banned from playing like they would in a real casino.
I know, old thread.
Soft players aren’t going to be only soft playing though, are they. In non-tourney games, they’re going to doing double nibbles at a third player’s chips, ensuring that the nuts guy wins more.
As such, there’s no such thing as innocent softplaying.
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