Online Home Poker (2 Viewers)

[madforpancakes]

You should have access to full hand histories in the same app data directory that all the tourney results are in. This has everyone's hole cards for every hand and you should be able to see some suspicious behavior in hands where these two players played against each other. This hand history file is only generated once everyone leaves the table, so it's not a potential cheating vector, but definitely can be used for a post mortem/audit.

 

[naked_eskimo]

Can you see all the hole cards in the hand history? I didn't think that was the case if the hand is won without a showdown.

 

[madforpancakes]

I'm not talking about personal hand history, this is the server log hand history. Yes, it has all the cards.

 

[naked_eskimo]

Oh, you're right. I didn't know that. Ok, well now I have something to data mine.

Thanks

 

[BGinGA]

Just be aware that soft-playing each other isn't necessary (or even advised, for that matter) for two people who are colluding by sharing hole card info.

They will be splitting all money won evenly, so losing to each other has no downside -- and is infinitely better than being suspected of softplaying each other.

Look for hands where questionable plays are made vs other opponents unless extra card knowledge was known.

 

[naked_eskimo]

I did go through one long hand history file on the server and nothing in that log looked suspicious. Every hand that was one by one of the suspects was one with a very good hand and with no actions that looked strange by anyone else.

 

[AceFour]

I did go through one long hand history file on the server and nothing in that log looked suspicious. Every hand that was one by one of the suspects was one with a very good hand and with no actions that looked strange by anyone else.

Good to know about poker mavens. Collusion is a forever stigma of playing online and why I won't play for money with people I don't know. Cannot wait to go back to in-person games.

 

[Jeevansluck]

Cannot wait to go back to in-person games.

 

[naked_eskimo]

For those of you running Poker Mavens and may be looking for some type of reporting/auditing of player win/loss rates, there is a python script that was developed by someone on the poker mavens forums. It is very helpful. I ran it against a month worth of hand history files and it will output a report of each players up/down total for the month. That was extremely eye opening. I thought I had a decent, but rough, mental tally of where everyone stood. I was way off. Some players are losing way more than I thought and a couple are up way more than I thought. I'm still in the positive after a couple of months (like $1300), but there are a couple of players that are way up too. One is over $4500. A couple of others are down way more than I thought too. Not something I would want to share with my players, for sure, but this script is a great tool to get that kind of information.

https://www.briggsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=3080&p=13183#p13183

 

[BGinGA]

Not sure how ethical it is for you to have access to that info --as a player -- and withhold it from other players (who cannot access it as a non-operator).

Since you've already seen it, I think you are obligated to share it with all of the players. That, or stop playing yourself.

It's like insider trading.

 

[LotsOfChips]

Also, if a player gets up above the max buyin and disconnects and has to reconnect, then that player would be forced to "go south" by the software.

Not if you set "Rathole Time" to a non-zero value. Then the player will either bring back the entire stack, or be forced to sit out (until the timer expires)

 

[naked_eskimo]

Not sure how ethical it is for you to have access to that info --as a player -- and withhold it from other players (who cannot access it as a non-operator).

Since you've already seen it, I think you are obligated to share it with all of the players. That, or stop playing yourself.

It's like insider trading.

I see your point. It's not information that anyone could not get by paying attention and tracking things at the table. But it's much easier to me to mine it on the server, agreed. Not sure I see how it could give me an edge, though.

But the last thing I want to do is be unfair or unethical in my operation of the server. I will offer the information and any player that wants it, I will send it.

EDIT: I sent an email offering a summary report for anyone who wants one. We'll see how many bite.

 

[Marc Hedrick]

I see your point. It's not information that anyone could not get by paying attention and tracking things at the table. But it's much easier to me to mine it on the server, agreed. Not sure I see how it could give me an edge, though.

But the last thing I want to do is be unfair or unethical in my operation of the server. I will offer the information and any player that wants it, I will send it.

EDIT: I sent an email offering a summary report for anyone who wants one. We'll see how many bite.

I don't think you're being unethical, but I do think it should be shared. It's really not possible to get the information just by paying attention. You would have to be at every hour of every game, always tracking people's buy-ins, which can be difficult with auto-reload and many other things.

 

[naked_eskimo]

I made the offer in an email a couple of hours ago. So far, no one seems interested in the information.

 

[naked_eskimo]

Not if you set "Rathole Time" to a non-zero value. Then the player will either bring back the entire stack, or be forced to sit out (until the timer expires)

Good suggestion. I am going to set a value for that now too.

 

[BEN_NEVIS]

on a pokerstars private cash game, does the host have the ability to authorize buyins/rebuys/top ups?

 

[T_Chan]

Question about rebuys on Poker Mavens. What if players do not want to prepay for rebuys? And you don't want to let their balance go negative? Any way around the short time window for the player to rebuy? Kinda hard for someone to send payment, and add the balance to their account within the time limit.

 

[deltahedge]

Question about rebuys on Poker Mavens. What if players do not want to prepay for rebuys? And you don't want to let their balance go negative? Any way around the short time window for the player to rebuy? Kinda hard for someone to send payment, and add the balance to their account within the time limit.

My players know that their account has to be funded before the tournament for any rebuys and add-ons they might possibly use. The decision on how much funds they want in their account is all on them, but they know the rules on my site. I don't let accounts go negative, and I don't process funds during a tournament. I think if you just manage everyone's expectations before the tournament begins, people pre-fund their rebuys and add-ons.

 

[T_Chan]

I guess I should provide more context. I want to use it to run a fundraiser, where I do not know most of the players. Being a fundraiser, there's unlimited rebuys for the first several levels. So people go a bit crazy, 4, 5, 10 rebuys... It's a hard ask for people to preload 10 buy ins for a tournament. I would not be playing in the game, so I can be actively adding balances to players' accounts.

 

[Irish]

I guess I should provide more context. I want to use it to run a fundraiser, where I do not know most of the players. Being a fundraiser, there's unlimited rebuys for the first several levels. So people go a bit crazy, 4, 5, 10 rebuys... It's a hard ask for people to preload 10 buy ins for a tournament. I would not be playing in the game, so I can be actively adding balances to players' accounts.

Yeah I just don't think the software is well set up for that particular type of scenario. If a player has nothing left in their account and bust out of a tourney, the software will automatically knock them out of the tournament (or within 30 seconds). What you could do is make anyone who would look to rebuy always have a buy-in +1 in their account, and send you additional funds during the tournament as it progresses - ie say it's a $20 entry fee, have everyone send you $40 up front and then as people bust and rebuy, then send you another $20 each time so they always have enough to rebuy if they want. This way they're not sending $200 up front.

You could also potentially extend the registration period, and if someone busts maybe then just re-register (so it's more of a re-entry vs re-buy), but I would test that first, not sure if you can "re-register" for the same tourney.

 

[deltahedge]

Yeah I just don't think the software is well set up for that particular type of scenario. If a player has nothing left in their account and bust out of a tourney, the software will automatically knock them out of the tournament (or within 30 seconds). What you could do is make anyone who would look to rebuy always have a buy-in +1 in their account, and send you additional funds during the tournament as it progresses - ie say it's a $20 entry fee, have everyone send you $40 up front and then as people bust and rebuy, then send you another $20 each time so they always have enough to rebuy if they want.

You could also potentially extend the registration period, and if someone busts maybe then just re-register (so it's more of a re-entry vs re-buy), but I would test that first, not sure if you can "re-register" for the same tourney.

I dont think you can re-register (late) from an account that has already busted out of the tournament. I think they would need to create a new account to do this. Maybe you could pause the tournament everytime someone busts out, and allow them to rebuy, but I think it would pause the tournament for everyone. (can you pause a tournament once it has begun, I know you can on a ring game, but ive never tired on a tournament.)

 

[Irish]

I dont think you can re-register (late) from an account that has already busted out of the tournament. I think they would need to create a new account to do this. Maybe you could pause the tournament everytime someone busts out, and allow them to rebuy, but I think it would pause the tournament for everyone. (can you pause a tournament once it has begun, I know you can on a ring game, but ive never tired on a tournament.)

Yes, the admin can pause a tournament at any time (either immediately or after a hand). It pauses the tourney for all players.

 

[LotsOfChips]

Question about rebuys on Poker Mavens. What if players do not want to prepay for rebuys? And you don't want to let their balance go negative? Any way around the short time window for the player to rebuy? Kinda hard for someone to send payment, and add the balance to their account within the time limit.

I guess I should provide more context. I want to use it to run a fundraiser, where I do not know most of the players. Being a fundraiser, there's unlimited rebuys for the first several levels. So people go a bit crazy, 4, 5, 10 rebuys... It's a hard ask for people to preload 10 buy ins for a tournament. I would not be playing in the game, so I can be actively adding balances to players' accounts.

You can allow a player's balance to go negative and ask for payment after the fact, but that is a huge risk if they decide later not to pay up.

The amount of time allowed to decide for a rebuy is fixed at the "turn" time (amount of time each player has to act before they are checked or folded). So not really practical to process the funds during the game in that short a time frame.

The only work-around I can see might be to allow player balances to go negative, but if they do not pay within a fairly brief time period (5-10 minutes), then you can remove them from the game and they forfeit all monies already paid and cannot re-enter the tournament. Might be worth testing this out to see if it works as planned. Edit - you cannot remove a player from a tournament once it has started (unless they are a no-show)

Or as mentioned above, ask for players to always keep one extra rebuy in the bank during the game.

 

[T_Chan]

Yeah I didn't see any option to boot someone out of the tournament once they've started, and that would be pretty horrible to do anyways. It would be a real bummer thing to have to boot someone out of a running tournament because they didn't pay up. I also don't want to pause the tournament for each rebuy, last time we had almost 100 players and probably more than 100 rebuys.

I was thinking that the best option might be to get players to prepay for a couple of rebuys and the add on, and if any go unused then they would get refunded after the game. And if they didn't buy enough, to let them go negative and ask them to pay asap and trust them. It is a fundraiser after all to help sick children and their families. I'm sure I'll figure something out.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

 

[BearMetal]

Pausing a running tournament is a heart-stopping moment b/c the Pause/Resume buttons are literally right next to the "End Tournament Right Now" option which does NOT have an "Are you sure?" confirmation. On the rare occasions that I need to pause a tournament, I have to hold my breath while I do it.

I think the Prepay+1 is the best option. As long as people know that they should always be 1 ahead in their buy-ins, I think that's fair. And, of course, you'll refund them any unused buy-ins.

 

[Irish]

FYI, new Mavens release, looks he added Bounties to tournaments!!

http://www.briggsoft.com/patches.htm

Changes:

Added "Bounty" field to tournaments. Select a portion of the buy-in to be set aside for each knockout bounty. This amount is deducted from the main prize pool and is awarded directly to a player each time they eliminate another player from the tournament. Bounty must be 0 in a rebuy tournament. If a ticket can be used to enter the tournament, the ticket must be required or funded (or both) to have a bounty. When a player is eliminated, the winner of the main pot gets the bounty. If the main pot is split among multiple players, the player who played that hand from the earliest position wins the bounty. In a Hi-Lo game, the winner of the main Hi pot wins the bounty. Bounties are credited immediately to the player's account balance.

Eliminated ties for Knockout Callback bounty. Previously if the main pot was split, the Bounty field would contain a comma separated list of player names. Now it just awards the bounty to the person that played from the earliest position, making it consistent with the new Bounty feature described above. Of course this callback will now be obsolete for most sites anyway with the new bounty feature now implemented.

Added "Next Break" time to table stats page. This also appears on the Total box mouseover (and long-tap) at the top of the tournament table.

Fixed Net chip calculation bug in RingGameLeave callback event. Previously if the player left the table before the hand completed, this field did not update correctly.

Fixed mobile gui bug that only rendered right half of table chat. This bug was introduced in 6.16 with the table resizing fix.

Adjusted console window constraints to prevent statusbar panel overlap. Previously you could size the Windows console so small that the last two panels overwrote each other.

 

[BearMetal]

Oh Yeah! It's in there! Bounties are taken out of the main prize pool. So I guess you'd need to set it to $25 buy-in with $5 bounty to do a $20+$5b tourney. Would have been nice if we didn't need to do the math, but it's still awesome!

 

[madforpancakes]

Awesome! I had a player asking me about bounty tournaments last week and was telling him I wouldn't do it by hand haha

 

[BearMetal]

Kent's screwed himself by listening to his consumers and adding things that we've asked for. Now it's never gonna stop.
Can we have double board bomb pots?
No
Can we have double board bomb pots?
No
Can we have double board bomb pots?
No
Can we have double board bomb pots?
No
Can we have double board bomb pots?
OMFG FINE!!!!

 

[DuffCal]

Kent's screwed himself by listening to his consumers and adding things that we've asked for. Now it's never gonna stop.
Can we have double board bomb pots?
No
Can we have double board bomb pots?
No
Can we have double board bomb pots?
No
Can we have double board bomb pots?
No
Can we have double board bomb pots?
OMFG FINE!!!!

Sooooo..... we are getting bomb pots or not? HAHA!

I'm just so excited about the Bounty tournament! I already scheduled one for the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. I will sit and wait patiently for 'bomb pots' I think he will make them.