THE NIGHT BEFORE ONLINE POKER SAFETY

THE NIGHT BEFORE ONLINE POKER SAFETY

Twas the night before online protection, at an online poker house

All the supers were playing, even PotRipper louse;

The bets were all made with correct odds and care,

In the hopes that the river wold bring no despair;

A super user is ready for signal all green,

while images of everyone's hole cards flashed on his screen;

And “Dan Druff” in his skivvies and me in my suite,

were ready for all sites to give supers the boot;

When on the poker table there popped up logo,

I leaned forward to see if it was time to go go;

Away to my screen I logged on in a flash,

supplied my credit info and put in some cash;

The picture of the Bull Dog on imaginary felt,

gave the feeling of integrity of all cards to be dealt;

When I realized my eyes were seeing quite clear,

The DealGuardian logo erased all my fear;

With a quick riffle of cards and the click of the mouse,

I knew it was safe to play poker in this house;

As fast a each card was secretly dealt,

The supers were leaving without bringing us to felt;

No PottRippper! No NioNio!
No Sleepless or WhackMe44!

No nvtease! No flatbroke33!
No UtakeIt2 or WhakMe!

Log off! Log off! Your ineffective here!

So leave us to play and you can kiss my fat rear!

The DealGuardian logo will be here for days,

And let us do poker without your cheating ways;

Our hole cards are secret, and future cards too;

Your inside help is no good so eat some poo;

And now sites are dealing, with players in mind;

I'll make my pot sized bet, like every good grind;

That DealGuardian logo has shown up in time,

I now know these sites are free of the grime;

My skills are now winning, I have no despair;

The decks are not stacked they are shuffled with care;

The DG Logo with teeth showing bright;

Will let me hang on to my bankroll tonight;

That spiked collar shows that protection is here;

And all poker players can play without fear;

He has a stern face and his eyes in dead stair;

For cheaters he hates and a new one he'll tear;

He's a watchful old canine, he protects every hand;

He makes supers, NOT supers just helpless and bland;

With a riff of the deck and my public key given;

He deals me my cards and and keeps everything hidden;

He does not say much, because that's not his job;

He deals us the cards so no one can rob;

At the end of the hand, that old Bull Dog supplies;

The results of the hand so the card room complies;

He does it so quick, that the players don't know;

The card room does not even have all the info;

So I proclaim to all, ask your card rooms tonight;

Help fill all you super users with DealGuardian Fright!

Merry Christmas from Secure Card Dealer!

Why would online poker rooms want you to bust out?

Why would online poker rooms want you to go bust on their site? At first glance this question appears to have no merit. Online poker rooms make their money on rake and tournament fees, so there would be no reason for them to want me to bust out. How about this?

The cash you put into an online poker account is sitting in an off-shore account. This account is owned and controlled by the poker site. As more people deposit at the poker site, the larger the account grows and the more interest it is able to generate. If you win enough playing online, eventually you are going to pull money out of this account. If the poker room is using the interest from this account as a part of their revenue, well then they get hurt when withdrawals are made from their account. But, if you go broke there is probably a good chance you will re-deposit and grow the poker sites account.

Re-deposit bonuses are a good way to attract players to put more money into an online poker account. Even if you do get some of the bonus cash promised to you, the poker site still has all of it in their account. Heck, the bonus money does not even have to be real unless they get enough withdrawals to have to pay up. Given the number of players they have, this should not be a problem for the poker sites. And, if the hands are being manipulated so that more people go broke instead of winning, you may never see the entire bonus amount or will end up re-depositing to try to win that bonus amount.

If sites need something to attract new players or want to have players re-deposit, they should consider having services which protect the player from fraudulent activity. Prove to online poker players that they are not just trying to grow and off-shore account, but want to provide a service which is fair and unbiased. Better yet, allow the player to get the interest from the account with monthly statements from legitimate banking institutions. If we ever see a site providing such services, we will have truly reached an age where online poker is legit.

Food for Thought

Why do Full Tilt poker commercials talk about and demonstrate live play scenarios for an online site? Just about every commercial talks about why people play poker and most of them are about tells or situations involving live play, but are impossible to experience in online play.

Is the general public so gullible that they put together a series of commercials that play on their intelligence? My guess is that online play has too many differences to live play and this information would drive people away from online poker. Electronic data is easily manipulated and snooped but live cards are not.

Sitting at a live table has players policing the action, but online the players can only see their cards and the board. What happens electronically is completely hidden from their eyes. Did one of the other players see what I was holding? Did the dealer deal off the bottom of the deck? Online you have no idea. These are the things online poker rooms don't want to advertise.

Full Tilt presents the positives of live play while falsely giving current or new players a warm and fuzzy feeling that playing online is just as safe and secure as playing live.

Online Poker Fraud Revealed

I just finished watching the piece on 60 Minutes about the Absolute and Ultimate Bet poker scandals. As online poker players we need to be very careful when playing these sites. I have heard stories from countless players claiming the hands they play appear to be manipulated. There are chat rooms out there making the players just feel like they play poorly, when in fact if you were one of the victims at Absolute an UB you were just being cheated.

What we need is a real time regulatory body or service that can prove to the players the hand they were just dealt was on the up-n-up and that none of their competitors had an unfair advantage. We need a product like DealGuardian to protect us from internal fraud and scams. But until we unite and demand such a service from the sites we play, they will gladly keep taking our deposits and drain the US economy out of billions of dollars every year.

Looking for a more realistic poker experience on line

I spent a better part of the day yesterday playing $5 SNGs at FTP. I found two things disappointing. First off, some of my opponents appeared to be BOTs and second I have a pretty good idea I was the victim of collusion on more than one occasion.

Do I have any proof of these accusations? Sadly no. There are not any viable technologies to prove them unless the poker room has the proper analytics to track down this behavior. Collusion is a tough one, so I'm going to focus on that another time. Today I'm going to focus on the poker aids employed by many of the on line players, including BOTs.

I would like to sit down at an on line poker table and know that I'm playing against other humans and that they only know what they know about me through playing me. Just like live poker, I want to play human-vs-human. That is where the true skill lies. Playing, remembering and making decisions based on experience, not what the HUD is telling me. For the record, I do not use any of the poker tracking tools available to on line players.

In short, on line poker can have it's BOTs and HUDs because a good number of players use them. What I want is an on line poker room that prevents players from using such tools. That technology is easy to develop and it would be nice when an on line poker site steps up and tries to cater to the traditional player. One who wants to match skill-against-skill, not skill against computer.

How about insiders at the poker site?

Can anyone at the poker site see what your holding? What if they used that information to help another player? Remember UB and Absolute. If it can happen once, it can happen again. What if there was a product that can help stop this type of cheating...would you demand it from your poker site?

Can you see the cards being shuffled on line?

When playing at a live table, you can see the cards being shuffled and dealt. How do you know the cards are being shuffled properly on line? How do you know they are being dealt in order?

A question for all online poker players

Would you be more comfortable playing at a site which incorporated a 3rd party service to manage the cards for each hand you play?

On Line Poker Integrity

This site is intended to explore the issues with on line gaming, specifically on line poker, dealing with the trust and integrity of the electronic data for players. The data in this site is intended for on line poker players who feel the games they have been playing don't quite feel entirely fair.

The bottom line is that on line poker is different than live poker in many respects. The most important aspect is that in live poker players are witnesses to the integrity of each hand they play. They can physically see the shuffle, the cuts and the deal. They conceal their own cards and have complete confidence that no one playing knows what they are holding. On line poker does not provide a player with this confidence. The player has to completely rely on the poker site to ensure the fairness of the games they play. And I believe most of the sites are trying to do the right thing, but are they doing everything they can to build player's trust?

I don't think they are and I think it's going to be up to the players to demand the right steps be taken to provide the necessary information to prove the games being played are fair, unbiased and free of internal fraud.