Bookmaker Poker Possible Syndicate Play

[sharpcat]

I played in the $50,000 guarantee tournament on sunday and noticed an overwhelming amount of players who were all from Quito, Ecuador in the tourney who were all chatting with one another across tables throughout the tourney. I thought this was odd so between hands I began doing some research and found that there was about 20 players from Quito which all appeared to be friends, what was really alarming was the overwhelming amount of them who all included the word "FLOP" in their screen name.

PATYFLOP
CAPTAIN FLOP
PAPA OSO FLOP
XAVFLOP77
CARLITOS FLOP
NEGRA FLOP
ORLY FLOP

ANSHO
OBIWAN UIO
DESMADRES
MURRI11
ECU3233
DJ JUCABU
NOWITSOVER
ARESTIJIO
MALDITO1
ELGUILLE
MIPANA
JUAN MONEY MAKER

All players from Quito and every single one of them posted in the chat log at the final table as CAPTAIN FLOP and PAPA OSO FLOP played for the $15,000 prize.

Appears to be some type of colluded syndicate play in which a player could gain an advantage when playing a hand if he were to know the hole cards of another player at the table who has folded his hand, imagine if you had a gut shot straight draw and you knew that your friend at the table had folded one of the 4 cards that could make your hand.

I contacted Bookmaker about my suspicion and they referred me to support at TRUEPOKER who reviewed the issue and listed it as low priority. The case has been closed and I have heard nothing of the outcome so I am under the impression that they do not care who wins or how they win it as long as they get their rake.

Just thought I would give people the heads up because this seems shady to me and it puts the player at a huge disadvantage. 5Dimes and the Cris group all use this network so you may want to think twice about playing in tournaments with anyone using this network.

[downsouth]

If your chasing gut shot straight draws you have other issues to worry about other than groups from Ecuador

[BigDaddy]

yeah they have a ton of people from the same place

it gets pretty old when all speak in spanish at the tables.

[sharpcat]

If your chasing gut shot straight draws you have other issues to worry about other than groups from Ecuador

Depends what odds your getting compared to your chip stack

if I have a $10,000 chip stack and I can limp into the turn in a 4 handed pot for cheap I may definately stick around for the possibility of a huge payoff due to the implied odds of a 4 handed pot, but if I knew that my friend folded 1 of the cards that I needed that would definately alter my opinion because now my -EV draw is now even more -EV.

I was only using that as an example because a gut shot draw would be one of the most obvious hand along with where an opponent would gain an advantage by having seen 8 cards when you have only seen 6.

Thanks for pointing out the minor flaw in my analogy now do you have anything to contribute to the topic of the thread or would you like to tell me about any words I may have misspelled?

[downsouth]

yeah they have a ton of people from the same place

it gets pretty old when all speak in spanish at the tables.

It does get annoying and unforntunately not a whole lot can be done. Games are harder but pstars is best bet.

[sharpcat]

yeah they have a ton of people from the same place

it gets pretty old when all speak in spanish at the tables.

I thought it was odd that they were all so friendly, but Quito is a very highly populated city so it is very likely that they were just rooting for their fellow countrymen.

My main suspicion came from the 7 players who included "FLOP" in their screen name all in capital letters and all from Quito just seemed really suspicious.

[LegitBet]

I play on truepoker as a 5dimes customer. Certainly not the fishiest site at times but big advantage for me to be able to move money from/to poker sports instantly.
I had complained one and spoke to truepoker as in a 6 handed nl game all these names starting with 'BKR' followed by numbers were chatting up a storm in Spanish, and using google's translation feature I caught one telling the other to fold during heads up with me. I won with a monster and was pissed as hell that I was robbed two or three bets.
The truepoker
Cs kid could nit have cared less.
Be safe out there

[sharpcat]

I play on truepoker as a 5dimes customer. Certainly not the fishiest site at times but big advantage for me to be able to move money from/to poker sports instantly.
I had complained one and spoke to truepoker as in a 6 handed nl game all these names starting with 'BKR' followed by numbers were chatting up a storm in Spanish, and using google's translation feature I caught one telling the other to fold during heads up with me. I won with a monster and was pissed as hell that I was robbed two or three bets.
The truepoker
Cs kid could nit have cared less.
Be safe out there

BKR players are all Bookmaker accounts.

But yeah this is the biggest problem with online poker these days you have too many guys playing at 1 table who are chatting on the phone or via skype sharing hand info.

If you had a syndicate of 20 players all entered into a 350 man tournament and these players are all sharing hand information they greatly increase their odds of finishing in the money. A player could not gain a huge edge on any one hand by having this information but of the course over several hundred hands the advantage begins to add up. There is really no way for books to trace this unless the players are dumping chips and I don't think they really care. A group of educated advantage players would realize that they do not have to go as far as chip dumping to gain an edge.

[mikejamm]

I thought it was odd that they were all so friendly, but Quito is a very highly populated city so it is very likely that they were just rooting for their fellow countrymen.

My main suspicion came from the 7 players who included "FLOP" in their screen name all in capital letters and all from Quito just seemed really suspicious.

I would have to agree with you Sharpcat. Just seems unusually strange they all have the same ending to their screen names. And nobody is that freak'in chatty at the tables! Who really knows with these offshore books, they could have a whole poker syndicate like you said, rigged up for poker and to take advantage of US players. Shit's been done before and like you said, even though you reported it, BM didn't act like they were interested in checking it out. Thanks for the heads up though, I'll be checking and watching for the same scenario if I play there again.

[BeerDog99]

I find a lot of Spanish chatting at DSI also. Quite irritating.

[RANDAZZO]

Play on full tilt. Everywhere else is horrible

[LegitBet]

The skins (books) that people play through are not the problem(5dimes,bookmaker,etc) it's all on truepoker as they take the responsibility once your sports site 'hands you off'.

[gamemastere]

be interesting to know how many hands these guys play with each other or do they avoid each other all together because they know each others cards

[noober]

would be nice to know more than your cards

[Czu81]

thy should alow chat only english...

[BeerDog99]

The skins (books) that people play through are not the problem(5dimes,bookmaker,etc) it's all on truepoker as they take the responsibility once your sports site 'hands you off'.

So DSI is a skin on Truepoker?

[apkboston]

there was a huge collusion scandal at poker stars in the double or nothing sit and go's, however its unlikely they are going to get a massive advantage unless they are extremely skilled players, just play your game.

[aceking]

i have seen sit and go with 2 exact players at every game . coincidence ?