Huge collusion ring in High Stakes MTTs at PartyPoker
I understand that this topic and this issue is very hard to believe. And trust me, I wish that this would all be a bad dream and I would wake up more than anyone else. Also please forgive my bad English, I'm not a native English speaker and I am writing this ready after playing a long session of poker and tired.
First a few word about. Most people probably don't know me, but I am rather frequent and long-standing (would like to think credible) poster in MTT threads here in 2+2 and have been mostly playing in PartyPoker, grinding their highstakes leaderboards for last 1,5 years under alias ”DukeOfSuffolk”). I have probably been playing about half of their 109+ tournaments during last 18 months. I have been also playing leaderboard this week. I think I have decent touch of finding collusion if there's any, but very rarely have seen clear collusion / soft play incidents and before this only in satellites during 13 years I have played online poker.
Cliffs (all got proof later in form of hand histories and player histories)
1st part (18th of October) I end up playing in a final table at Wednesday Turbo Highroller
- In 48 hands with somewhat short stacks none of my final 6 opponents gets all-in and called (I busted 3 opponents)
- There's some specifically interesting hand: 6 bb 3-bet from tight button with 21bb stack and cold 4-bet shove from 17bb big blind when I opened
- After I get busted tournament takes less than 3 minutes to finish (I didn't see the hands)
- Six opponents in top7 have all started to play this year, mostly during May and mostly 109+$ tournaments, and in August they played exactly these tournaments:
Sorcian 10 Clubber IIs (and 3 other tournaments)
domingo661 15 Clubber IIs
SciorXxx 11 Clubber IIs
dimitriax 12 Clubber IIs
GASSGUSS 7 Clubber IIs (first 7 tournaments he ever played)
PowerCarl 11 Clubber IIs
Lots of co-incidences to be left ignored so I inform Party_Rep (who is wonderful doing her job as middle woman between forum and PartyPoker staff). She informs me in Friday that security department is doing full investigation.
2nd part (20th of October)
- I notice that in early highroller there's 4 players from aforementioned final table playing. Before end of late registration all 6 players join. 4 of these didn't play any tournaments in between, while 2 played high rollers on Thursday.
- Instead of playing I decide to record all tables from early highroller and later turbo highroller where collusion players are participating. I try to follow these tables along if there's luck and we'll see some clear collusion by accident. No luck (might well have missed).
- Out from watching two small high rollers in Friday (mainly) F2T 8 other players who have similar tournament history as 6 players in first part appears:
pesnokviv
ven.pax.soy
fausfalser (started July 2017)
diabolicox900 (19 tournaments pre-May 2017 in January and February 2017)
coccopaga090
cheflol (16 tournaments pre-May 2017 in January and February 2017)
A10cooming (started playing July 2017)
PR3PEzzz (started playing July 2017)
Unless otherwise mentioned all eight have accounts that have been playing tournaments since May 2017 and in August they have been playing mainly or only multiple Clubber IIs.
- For Turbo Highroller, top4 places got again manned by people who seem to be part of this collusion.
Video from tournaments at the 2nd part (youtube): https://youtu.be/I0jm3P1lqzs
Timeline: Short version
Between 1st and 2nd part I did inform Party_Rep about my suspicions, and she did deliver my messages to the security team and replied in Friday that they're doing full investigation concerning first turbo highroller. I did also inform a small number of leaderboard regs who I knew had accounts here at 2+2 about the situation and asked that if they had encountered any clearly suspicious collusion to inform Party_Rep.
After 2nd part I did deliver names of 8 new suspects to Party_Rep and informed her that I am about to post this to 2+2 around ~12 hours later to give them a moment to prepare.
Today I have also been informed that all accounts listed have been now suspended until investigation has been concluded.
Proof
All saved web pages from official poker rankings showing tournaments these accounts have played: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/b00bbkkwfmvam...
All hand histories from first tournament (except those last few after I busted)as a txt file (dropbox) : https://www.dropbox.com/s/01us3cff2462xl...
Tournament lobby from first tournament (showing time when tournament ended): [url=http://aijaa.com/n2xaXP]
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If you want to help, here's few suggestions what you can do:
1) If you have played with these opponents, check your hand history for possible collusion.
2) If you have some friends who may have played these tournaments, inform them about the issue.
3) It is sure that there's more accounts tied to this collusion ring. Keep on eye if there's more people who have similar tournament history (especially if they have opened their account this year and have been playing mostly 109$+ events, specifically 109$ Clubber 2s during August!)
4) Check the video and see if you can find some hands or longer action sequence that would seem like probable collusion / soft play.
All information relating this incident could be helpful and I would suggest on sending it either on this topic, or if you think it's better kept confidential right to Party_Rep.
It's extremely hard to uncover collusion in MTTs, since hole cards are hidden and usually only very limited amount of hands are played against each opponent in single MTT which has under 100 players after late registration closes.
I would have so much more to tell but I wish to keep this first post as short and focused on pure facts as possible. I will post more of my thoughts later and try to answer any meaningful questions with the best of my ability.
If you have any questions or I have done some mistake please just reply or let me know via PM. I also ask you to stay on topic at hand instead of usual derailing.
