PokerStars Gets Tough on Online Poker Players in China Because of Cheating Scandal!

Source: Part Time Poker

If you play online poker from China, game selection just got a bit tougher on PokerStars. That’s the result of a new rule on Stars, rolled out sometime this week with understandably little fanfare, that limits the amount of players from China that can be simultaneously seated at any given ring game table to one.

There’s been a similar rule in place for many SNG tournaments since late August, as a result of a massive collusion ring that Stars unearthed involving Chinese players and Double-or-Nothing (DON) Sit and Gos.

PokerStars paid out a reported $2.1 million in compensation to those players impacted by the collusion. What’s different this time? Well, the order of events. There’s yet to be a massive collusion ring reported at cash tables on Stars, but Chinese players are subject to an identical restriction on ring (cash) games as they face in the DONs.

That’s led more than a few people to wonder if this is simply a proactive move by PokerStars, or if it’s a response to another, as-yet-unreported, collusion ring identified by the world’s largest real-money poker room.
There’s no evidence yet to suggest that the latter is the case. Stars has a long history of issuing refunds to players impacted by cheating, and the uncovering of a massive cheating ring would almost certainly be quickly followed by a string of refunds that would definitely hit the radar on major poker forums like 2+2.

My Take: Well, China is a big place...and there's always gonna be lots of room for online poker cheats!

2010 World Series of Poker is Over...So, Was There Any Cheating Going on?

Now that the 2010 WSOP final table has played out with Canadian Jonathan Duhamel taking home the whopping $8.9 million and gold bracelet, I am required to make my 2010 World Series of Poker Final Cheating report.

Well, believe it or not, I don't have many cheating incidents to report on. Besides the usual chip dumping and slow playing by the professional poker tournament syndicates, there isn't much to say about cheating at this year's tournament.

As far as the championship event goes, I always point out beforehand the dangers of the four-month interim between the determination of the nine players at the final table and the play of that final table. There is always the possibility, or I should say probability of deal-making, which is a form of collusion, which is a form of cheating. I can't say for sure who made what deals, but I would bet that some major ones were made between July and November.

As far as that incredible hand between Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi and Matt Jarvis where a full house made on the turn was beat by a higher full house made on the river, it was legitimate. No way did the dealer or anyone else maneuver the cards to effect that amazing outcome.

So overall it was a pretty honest 2010 World Series of Poker. In fact, the dominant cheating news during the play of the final table came from the European Partouche Poker Tour event where big-time poker cheat Ali Tekintamgac used phony bloggers and media reporters to flash him signals of opponents' hole cards.

Obviously, he got caught!

Negreanu's sunglasses-wearing PokerStars TV Commercial Confirmed!

Since I posted the entry about the alleged TV commercial of Daniel Negreanu, the anti-sunglasses cheat famed poker pro, possibly wearing sunglasses at the poker table, I have received emails from several people telling me they saw the commercial and that Negreanu was indeed wearing sunglasses.

Well, that's good enough for me.

It was the typical super-hype online poker commercial for PokerStars with the hot babe and the suspenseful poker hand, and of course the "dot-net" instead of the "dot-com" to intice players to the real-money games via the so-called free games.

All this goes to show that Negreanu is a super piece of crap, sunglasses or no sunglasses, and that he'd sell his sole to the online poker devil for a few hundred thousand more...not to mention (AGAIN!) his main-star status on the GSN "High Stakes Poker" show, during which, by the way, his sunglasses commercial appears.

For those of you who don't know, "High Stakes Poker" is completely full of shit. No one wins or loses a dime on the show. It's all a big show-and-tell donkey show and Negreanu leads the donkeys (anyone watching the show who believes it is real) to the big dumper in front of the television screen. All the stacks of purple chips and packets of $100 bills are returned to the players or the sponsors or to whoever put it up before shooting began.

I only wish that more of you saw through all this shit and stopped watching High Stakes Poker.

Like Negreanu, it is a piece of crap.