One reason why I have stopped playing sng's ...... collusion in the news

I am losing quite badly on STT's but blame the structure of the games and me not able to adjust. Collusion has never bothered me, I doubt it happens that much in the stakes I play and it also takes 2 decent players to collude.

I've moved to Entraction network and have turned my losses into profit. My only problem is I don't have much money there and its a slow process of building a bankroll again.

That may well be my problem oval, but, not being able to tell where players come from is a major negative at Ongame. Noticing collusion is a lot easier when you can tell where players come from.

....... There are also a lot of Russian players on Ongame and from the BBC article it does seem as though collusion is endemic with Russian players.

There are obviously many Russian players that don't cheat, some who I have had some good chats with on the tables.

I seen a bot in action and TBH if you can't beat a bot you shouldn't be playing. Not saying collusion doesn't happen but I think it would be far more likely at $50 than $5. In saying that, $5 is probably a weeks wages to a Russian

I'd say collusion at lower levels is more rife than high levels oval. Colluders have to learn how to do it profitably so why jump in at the deep end. Secondly there is a lot more traffic at low levels so less chance you would be noticed as you would not be playing the same players as often.

I started out at BF2 losing heavily in STT, having been successful on the old betfair.

What I do now is only play the 5 handed ones where I seem to haver a positive ROI or at least break even.

Overall bf2 has taken a lot of adjusting to. I went a couple of hundred bucks down at the start. Thanks to some MTT wins I am now a few hundred up. Overall you are probably right...STT's are maybe not worth bothering with, especially if there is collusion going on.

BBC 5 live have a prog on right now about online cheating

Missed it, but it will be on iplayer soon, I will post the link when its up

Radio 5 program on collusion

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tpvfr/5_live_Investigates_12_09_2010/

its an occupational  hazard. it was rife in the 6 seater d2ns on the old bf which was an ideal game for cheating. cant say ive seen any on bf2, but have only really played 10 seaters which would be very tough to collude in, and pointless at the stakes i play.

i played a 50$ stt on  stars the other night which looked a bit iffy, but i cashed so didnt bother scoping the individuals involved.

what i will say is that the overall standard of play on bf2 is abysmal. i dont play on the site too much anymore, but ive seen enough in the 331 games i've played to suggest anyone remotely decent will win long term playing stts on the site.

Thanks, Creidhne, for the link.

It does make you think though.  I, like Creidhne and Ovalman, have been losing at sngs on betfair 2 far more than betfair 1, but put it down to the 1500 starting stacks - now, perhaps it was something else? 

I am currently playing 5/6 max ring games, are these games more or less likely to have colluders?  It is only for small stakes, but pots can get high and as someone pointed out £5 could be a lot of money in these countries.

Thanks for the link, just listening to it now.

the only collusion you should get at low stakes, is bad collusion, which is pretty easy to spot.

obviously the smaller the table the easier it is to rig games. especially d2ns, which seem to have been created purely for the purposes of cheating.

Started out on massive downswing but now have got the hang of it.
The 10 players mean a little tighter on starting hands. The shortstack even more so. Early on tight unless get to see a cheap flop with hand likely to bust big pairs.
Aggressive once got stack.
Thats it for Sit N Goes.

As for MTTs used to crush the rebuys on Betfair 1. No longer though. Losing badly. Losing on MTTs. Not getting deep enough. Maybe too many runners. Maybe just variance.

At least I'm slightly up in Sept. August was my worst month ever.

Still - not knowing where from is bad. And if you see the same names you start to wonder. It may be that they see me as a fish.

Enough for now.

I don't agree chip, why should only bad collusion be present at low stakes?
That assumes that all players at low levels are poor - or thick!!!
I would say that it would be quite easy for good players who collude at low levels to make a tidy profit and a good living off poker.
The risk of being caught is much reduced.

because if you were any good at colluding you wouldnt be wasting your time playing 5$ stts or 0.10/0.20 cash.

collusion increases your  roi by what ? 7 % ? maybe 10 ? at best 15 %.

why would a pair of good colluders, who would need to be decent poker players anyway, play low stakes ?

its like saying to a bank robber you can rob any bank in britain, at any time, take all the money contained therin, and get away with it, which one would you like, and them saying " the little sub branch one in the outer hebrides that nobody uses. "

oh and i cant believe you typed " the risk of being caught is much reduced. "

perhaps your massive downswing is down to you not really understanding the basics ?

Might be where you want to try it out tho chip and hone your 'collusion'skills before moving up.

online poker should be banned end of.

read the initial article.  most online collusuion (on proper sites ) is discovered/proven eventually by tracking software recognising users and ip addresses repeatedly playing in the same games and in a certain manner.

whatever levels you play the software should eventually catch up with you.

obviously the best colluders are already solid winning players wanting to increase their rois by 5 or 6 per cent and are virtually undetectable until the software picks them up simply on volume.

these teams wouldnt waste their time on low stakes games.

You might be right about my downswing chip

You are missing a big point in the BBC radio cast though, Russian players are advertising on the web for colluders, therefore they don't need to be playing with the same colluders game after game. It's ratcheting it up a level and much harder to spot.

Secondly how do you know who isn't being caught !!!! so how do you know that most colluders are caught.

what ive said is that good teams of colluders are virtually undetectable to the casual observer not least because they are solid players  anyway.

however as ive also said " on proper sites " i.e stars, they will eventually be caught as that site in particular has both the will and the mechanisms in place to catch people eventually. other sites dont.

stars will not just look at ip addresses and players playing against each other repeatedly, they will also have highly sophisticated software that will pick up repeated irregular betting i.e chip dumping.

doing it once can  be excused as misclicking. doing it repeatedly triggers alarms. but like i've said this will only be evident over hundreds, and possibly thousands of hands.

the fact that site HAS caught sophisticated, organised, gangs is testament to that.

bad collusion is easy to spot by watching play and using scope. ive personally reported  2 teams of colluders ( one swedish and one german ) on the old bf and had the players banned.

Not sure about the collusion but when stuff like this happens it does make you laugh

***** History for hand T5-82955284-2 (TOURNAMENT: "NL Hold'em Turbo", S-2133-74089, buy-in: $5.50) *****
Start hand: Thu Sep 16 20:12:41 GMT+0100 2010
Table: Table #1 [82955284] (NO_LIMIT TEXAS_HOLDEM 10/20, TC)
User: DaVinci I
Button: seat 5
Players in round: 9
Seat 6: Tchunorys (1480)
Seat 7: rooby79 (1480)
Seat 8: maj263211 (1500)
Seat 9: ATth2 (3050)
Seat 1: machon7 (1500)
Seat 2: Flop 4 me (1500)
Seat 3: DaVinci I (1500)
Seat 4: krulewicz (1500)
Seat 5: xxx (1490)
Tchunorys posts small blind (10)
rooby79 posts big blind (20)
---
Dealing pocket cards
Dealing to DaVinci I: [Qd, Qh]
maj263211 folds
ATth2 calls 20
machon7 calls 20
Flop 4 me folds
DaVinci I raises 100 to 100
krulewicz folds
xxx calls 100
Tchunorys raises 390 to 400
rooby79 folds
ATth2 folds
machon7 folds
DaVinci I raises 1400 to 1500 [all in]
xxx calls 1390 [all in]
Tchunorys calls 1080 [all in]
---
--- Dealing flop [2h, Th, 5c]
--- Dealing turn [Kh]
--- Dealing river [7c]
---
Summary:
Main pot: 4500 won by J45k4 (4500)
Side pot 1: 20 won by J45k4 (20)
Rake taken: $0
Seat 6: Tchunorys (0), net: -1480, [As, Ah] (PAIR ACE)
Seat 7: rooby79 (1460), net: -20
Seat 8: maj263211 (1500)
Seat 9: ATth2 (3030), net: -20
Seat 1: machon7 (1480), net: -20
Seat 2: Flop 4 me (1500)
Seat 3: DaVinci I (10), net: -1490, [Qd, Qh] (PAIR QUEEN)
Seat 4: krulewicz (1500)
Seat 5: xxx (4520), net: +3030, [7h, 6h] (FLUSH KING)
***** End of hand T5-82955284-2 *****

How do you call with 67 here? I know they were suited

I felt sorry for Aces man

Would be good if xxx came on and explained his thinking (if any).
Plentu like him and they continually get lucky.

I come across idiots all the time who think that suited connectors are worth going all in with preflop.
Such hands can be great in a multi hand situation where you can see the flop cheaply, but in this situation it was a terrible call.

You were pretty unlucky also that you had AA behind your KK, although this seems to crop up a lot too. According to the laws of probability shoving with KK should win at least 80% of the time, including the times you are not called. Since the advent of bf2 I have shoved preflop 36 times and won 61% of the time. Generally now I just get a sinking feeling when I get any pocket pair in early position. Flat calling seems a waste but so often when you raise or shove that is your tourney over.