Controversy regarding multiple accounts
For those who haven’t been paying attention, a big controversy has blown up after people found out that JJProdigy played the Party MTT on at least two accounts that we know about. Some of the relevant threads can be found: here, here and here.
This is a difficult issue to deal with — not the issue itself, but how people discuss it. I don’t know how many people truly understand exactly what is going on. Here is what has been going back and forth.
Disclaimer: This is not directed at JJ as I don’t know his situation. I only know about this happening in the past with other players. Don’t think that a comment I make here is directed specifically at JJ, although I do think that a number of them could easily apply to him.
A lot of people are saying that it’s against the rules to knowingly enter more than one account in a tournament.
My response: Agreed, it’s against the rules.
People respond that they are playing on their brother’s, dad’s, mother’s or cousin’s account.
My response: C’mon, be serious, that’s not what’s happening. We all know that’s a way to play on other accounts while staying within the rules (somewhat).
Some people even say that they take over someone else’s account after that their normal account busts, which should be okay because people take over for each other all the time.
My response: We all know that people take over for each other. Everyone has done it or had someone do it for them. If you haven’t, then you’re in the minority. That being said, using that as an excuse for playing multiple accounts is pretty transparent. We all know that people don’t just suddenly have 8 relatives playing in every big sunday tournament from the same house. It’s just another way to try to present it as if it’s within the rules. That’s not to say that it hasn’t happened legitimately, but most of the time I believe it’s used as an excuse.
Various onlookers who clearly don’t know what’s really going on in online poker all get outraged when they find out that people are playing under the disguise of being their sister or friend. They demand action on the part of online sites to deal with this “cheating.”
My response: Sorry, but it simply doesn’t work like that. An online site can’t stop something like this with some magical line of programming code (I’ll address this in the next paragraph). Also, this isn’t quite like cheating as most people use the word. True cheating is collusive activity such as sharing hole cards, dumping chips or the like. Playing two accounts that are very likely to never get seated with each other is certainly cheating, but let’s not get crazy here. It’s not on the same scale. Don’t claim that it is, because people who do are being just as ridiculous as those who claim there’s nothing wrong with playing multiple accounts. Let’s be honest: it’s wrong, but not nearly as wrong as knowingly dumping chips or sitting with a friend at a cash game table with the intent to share info. The two situations just don’t compare on the same level.
On to the technology aspect. Does anyone really think it’s possible to stop this type of activity? I’ll clue you in now that not only is it hard to slow this activity down, it’s impossible to stop it. The main suggestion from internet newbies is that sites can just ban MTT activity from the same IP address. That doesn’t work for a few reasons. First, people play at their friend’s house all the time. Second, getting a new IP is INCREDIBLY easy. You can get a new Verizon DSL internet connection for $15 a month. If I want to play 8 entries in every Party Poker tournament, you don’t think I’d just pay a few hundred a month for more IP addresses if they decided to ban multiple connections? Look at it this way. There’s a super every night. There are multiple $109 tourneys every day. There are three $215 tourneys every week and sometimes they have a $640 or a $378. If my ROI is 100% in MTTs (reasonable for a good player), I’m gaining THOUSANDS of dollars per internet connection per month. Therefore, top players won’t be fazed by the idea of a rule like that. If the player is careful about only linking each Party account to a certain IP (ie, only logging in to that account on that IP), then there’s no way for a site to know that the player is using more than one account.
Finally, people say that top players should be embarassed, etc. That they shouldn’t “need” more than one account to beat online poker.
My response: Wow, you couldn’t have missed the point more. This isn’t about needing more accounts to beat online poker. After all, two shots cost twice as much. Eight shots costs a staggering $1720 in the Party or Stars Big Sunday. Does that mean the players will play differently because “they have more shots” or whatever? NO. It means they get to “apply their edge” more often. Here’s the simple math:
In a given $215 tournament, a “good” player might have a 100% long-term ROI (maybe more for some). That mean they expect to profit by about $200 for each time they play that tournament, give or take a few due to the rake factor. If they play it once, that’s $200. If they play it eight times, that’s $1600. If a player has a dual monitor setup and plans on being there all afternoon, then they might as well fill up the 8 spots with tables. It has nothing to do with having a different mindset or cheating in terms of actual play at the table. It’s a simple matter of multiplication. Therefore, this doesn’t help them beat online poker, it just helps players to reduce variance in relation to time. Only being able to play 52 sunday specials per year will result in a much greater ROI/time variance than being able to play over 400 sunday specials per year. In addition to the reduction in variance in relation to time, it should also increase expectation (which translates to profit in the long run) by 8 times or so, reduced by the skill that is taken away by the lack of paying close attention to each table.
Okay, so now you know why people do it and why it can’t be stopped. Is it okay? I don’t think it’s particularly fair. Isn’t it greedy? Yes, it is, but it’s hard to turn down that much money when it’s that easy to go and get it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars year isn’t easy to turn away from, even if it’s against the rules. In addition, people who do this don’t see it as cheating because they are just saying they want more shots at a final table with a bunch of lucky fish. They aren’t changing their gameplay in any way. Therefore, they say, it’s not quite as bad as people make it out to be. Do I really care? Not really. Why? Simply, I don’t concern myself with things that I can’t stop. This isn’t something that can be stopped even if the sites get really vigorous, although that may stop it from happening casually.
If the sites DO ever start taking this seriously, then people will just take it even more underground. It’s just how online poker will be and you should probably stop playing if you don’t want it to happen in your games. Pretty much the only “100% safe” area from any sort of cheating is HU games (STTs or cash games)… and that’s assuming that you trust the site.
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