Regarding Vlad027 and SHAQ 4 PRES possbily cheating/colluding in sundays first heat

this concerns everyone and i need as much feedback as possible so i posted in the public forum

for those who you who attended sundays first heat, you may have heard about everyone complaining Vlad027 and SHAQ 4 PRES colluding/cheating. I read reports of them raising and re raising etc and then folding against each other - i dont know if this is true since i wasnt at the event.

This obviously concerns homelessjim and mick jammer more than others since if these two people are found to be cheating, they will be moved uo from 6th and 7th and will be entered into the final instead of the cheaters.

Jim - i know you were really pissed aobut this whole thing - as i said im on it, but we have a few weeks before the final and it will be sorted by then.


Henry got back to me on it

In short, pokerstars doesnt have a system set up to investigate for play money players. You have to remember that ps probably has hundreds of thousands of play money players - this is a stance im sure most poker companies take.

For real money players - they do a thorough investigation - even requesting utility bills etc to prove 2 people arent cheating.

Freerolls sort of land in between. Henry has assured me that pokerstars are looking more into tightening up these controls - however they cannot put staff on this sort of thing for play money accounts as they get thousands of emails per day about it - i totally agree with this stance.

henry also wrote

"These are really your events and you can make decisions that work best for
you as long as thse decisions do not go against PokerStars policy. For
instance if you wanted to write these players telling them you are DQ'ing
them and why, then you could copy me and I could unregister them from the
$500 final and register whomever you wanted to promote.
"

firstly, i will make this clear, i do not want to make any decision that will get Henry into trouble - the guy answers several emails to me every week sorting out tournaments for us - in short hes a good guy and part of the reason this site is starting to become a success so i dont want to get him in trouble with his boss or whatever.

First off is Vlad027 - he is member Caine187. Who has since been banned. In further inspection it turns out hes also iballaz who was banned some time ago for spamming the forum to get into a previous freeroll ( i had forgot to ban his ip address)

already being banned from the forum is a valid reason for not being allowed in the tourney - so im gonna ask for him to be removed. The fact his profile says fuckdafonze is clearly his way of giving two fingers up to us for him getting through.

So ill email henry and ask him to be removed with homelessjim going in his place - i hope everyone supports this decision


With regards to SHAQ 4 PRES - i have no details on this guy whatsoever, it could be the same guy, a friend who hes talking to on the phone or he may totally innocent. Regardless, im not gonna remove him without any evidence - as this could backfire on henry and i dont want that.

If you have a history of the tournament or if you remember certain things at the table like chat, suspicious raising or whatever then please post it in this thread and ill get back to henry about it

Now i dont want to forget about Mick Jammer either. Im in a difficult position here - as if i start allowing people into the final who didnt make it, people may start accusing everyone and it could become a farce - though i dont think this would happen.

As long as its ok id like to include Mick Jammer in the final - if hes not added as the 52nd player then he may take my position and we can make a decision about who gets the bounty on their head later - this tournament is more for you guys anyways

Let me know what you think folks - ive emailed henry and said im gonna get feedback from you guys first so ill email him in a few days once we've agreed something.

Rest assured im doing my best to make sure no one feels cheated here and no one loses out - in particular those members who have made the final, those who may have lost due to cheats and henry at pokerstars.

thanks guys - im sure if we all stick together we can weed out this kind of thing in the next few months

and again - please be patient - the finals in a few weeks anyways so we have time but ill email pokerstars about this in a few days

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I think this is all a great idea. I personally never saw them cheating, but as the tournament went on, I heard "cheating" being mentioned, though I wasnt quite sure what it was about. Vlad did knock me out in 19th place, but I don't think that had anything to do with cheating, though he did get very lucky. Again, I think this is a great idea Fonz.

I think this is a good idea with reservations. I was not there at the end to see any thing suspicious but only what I have heard here. If it is obvious or very questionable I am whole heartedly for this type of discipline. I hope that it does not balloon into me making it one time and someone angry that I got there saying I cheated because of pure luck that may have went my way. But as long as it is more of an isolated issue and not every game I am completely for it. You trying to police everyone yourself is impossible. I agree with decision above 100%. I love the fact that you ask for input as well. There are alot of responsible people here and we should be able to keep this under control and weed out the problem children that will always try to cheat their way as opposed to earning their way. My congrats to homelessjim and mick jammer on making the finals. I hope to see you there myself, but thats another issue lol.

Thank you fonz. It was worth the wait to find out. I think this is the right decsion and I hope we find more about SHAQ 4 PRES. If he does cheat then everyone who has made it has a disadvantage. I know your in a hard position but just make the decsion you think is right.

Thank you.

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Good luck Homlessjim. If I do not make the finals I hope you get to take shaq oout. It would be sweet.

Fonz, you are in a tough spot and I think you are handling it as well as you can. Diplomacy is never reached easily, and as you well know, you can't please everyone no matter what you do. Just my two cents worth- I , personally, believe that it's better to let 1000 guilty go free than to punish 1 innocent person. What I'm getting at is, with all the what-have-you's regarding SHAQ 4 PRES , it wouldn't bother me to have mick jammer take an 'extra spot', just as a precautionary measure. Of course, everyone wants to see YOU at the final event, so PLEASE don't omit yourself. I see that this could cause some animosity in the ranks (maybe), but one little, bitty extra spot isn't going to kill anyone. Just soliciting my opinion. I know you'll do the right thing for the site. You always do.

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Fonz,

I ditto Matro on you playing and not removing yourself. I left that out of my response earlier. Add Mick but don't remove yourself. Thanks.

thanks guys

hope i didnt come across that i was saying it was mick or me, all i meant was that if people already in the final didnt want the goalposts moved with someone else stepping in i would give up my position.

But if no one as a problem with mike being in he can be number 52 - again thanks for your understanding. As matro said, im in a tough position. Youve probably realised by now you cant please everyone and i dont want people to think im picking favourites or whatever

ill wait for more feedback and email henry in a few days

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ShaQ knocked me out at 16th going all-in on me with JTo vs my TT...but I can't say that he was cheating...but an observer commented in chat (I believe it was Homeless) that shaQ was a double entry cheat and that we should take him down...ShaQ, remained quite and did not defend himself. It was also at my table where ShaQ took down that large pot with junk that appeared to be dumping,

As far as I'm concerned....I don't care if any of them are removed or not...the members are pissed enough at them that I would sure hate to be one of them entering into the finals, but the hurt 2 players should be added (homeless and Mick Jammer)