Absolute Poker has been the most talked about poker room in the online poker world for a couple of weeks now due to what started out as a rumor on the 2+2 online poker forums.
An online poker player, playing under the user-name of ‘Marco’ at Absolute played a high stakes poker tournament and was shocked by the final call made by his opponent. ‘Marco’ didn’t believe his opponent was able to make the call. As a result he contacted Absolute and asked for a hand history, wanting to review the play of his opponent.
The hand history this player has been said to have received shocked the online poker world, hopefully for the better, and for the overall integrity of the game.
Reports by Pocket Fives and TwoPlusTwo.com revealed that poker players most private information was shared in that hand history. Hole cards of opponents, IP addresses, email addresses, account numbers, every detail about several tables of poker players in the Absolute Poker multi-table tournament were emailed to ‘Marco’, without those account holders permission.
That was just the beginning of the story however, there was more. As the disgruntled player began reading the hand histories, and sharing them with out people that began really taking a close look at his opponent, hands didn’t add up. In places where the man should have folded, he bet, seemingly knowing his ‘bad cards’ were good.
In places he should have raised, he folded, seemingly knowing he was beat. An observer logged on to the table this player was playing at, during the second hand of the game it’s assumed he was there to watch the soon to be winner of the match, to coach him, feed hole cards to him.
The soon to be winners username was ‘POTRIPPER’ , that observer stayed with POTRIPPER through the end, changing tables when POTRIPPER was moved, and watching all along, as close friends often do when railbirding each other, however, the accustomed cheers in chat were missing.
The observer also had a very odd AP account number, one of the first ever issued in fact, he was account number 329. To have been assigned an account number that low, he’d pretty much had to have been around in the very early days, perhaps one of the very first users of the AP software. Maybe he even worked for the company?
During this same time period, the discovery period so to speak, rumors were running rampant, yet for the most part being ignored. Comments were made in a very public industry discussion forum, and then quickly deleted. There has always been a group of people that believe all online gambling is rigged, and those that swear it’s rigged only when they lose, sour grapes so to speak, for the most part in the online poker world, those comments are just ignored and passed over.
This story just wouldn’t die though, risking their own reputations and credibility, poker promoters, forum owners, forum members , and poker bloggers, such as Dave at Poker-King.com kept the story alive, in fact they made it burn.
They got the attention of people within the industry, people that could de-scramble scrambled documents such as the hand histories mentioned above, and people involved with the story, piece by piece solving the puzzles themselves, we don’t know for certain if they are correct about what exactly happened at Absolute Poker amongst the high stakes players at the poker tables, we may never, however, thanks to those at 2+2, and Pocket Fives, and the ‘Poker King’ tomorrow Absolute Poker is set to make a statement, according to Pocket Fives, this will be their first actual admission of guilt, whereas before, we have only seen denial.
The poker industry itself became the investigators, policing their environment, taking the playground back from the bullies so to speak.
Dave at Poker-King.com says the reason he risked his own reputation in the industry was because in his words, “The worst thing that could have happened is if the story just died and Absolute wasn’t made accountable.” He also attributes the breaking point for Absolute Poker to both Pocket Fives and Twoplustwo, “There was tremendous detective work being done on Pocketfives.com and Twoplustwo” he comments.
The story will not die however, as PocketFives.com has reported that absolute poker intends to make their first statement confirming that their security was breached this morning.
We may not get the truth, or the full story, however, with some luck, perhaps we will at least be saved from another corporate worded empty statement of denial, Absolute Poker will step up and take some responsibility and Online Poker will become an even more safe and secure place to enjoy a hand of one of the worlds oldest games, with piece of mind.
100% up to $3,000 Bonus
Bovada is our most recommended ONLINE CASINO and POKER ROOM for US players with excellent deposit options. Get your 100% signup bonus today.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.