I Kan't Spell

 
Online Poker and Cheating

I was just thinking about how easy it would be to cheat in online poker. I mean if you have a table of 10 guys playing 5 and 10, and you know 4 guys at the table then you four guys can run the entire game. Let's see if I can give an example:

Player 1 1st position (small blind)- K of D and 9 of C
Player 2 2nd position (big blind) - A of H and J of H
Player 3 5th position - 9 of S and 10 of S
Player 4 10th position - 2 od D and 8 of C

Players 1,2,3,4 all know what each other has and player 4 because he is last to act is designated the bitch i.e. the sacrificial lamb (he is last to act - unless he carries a very strong hand) and Player 2 (because he has a strong hand) is the caller i.e. he tells the others what to do.

Now the unknown player in the 3rd position starts off the wager with a call of the big blind - 5$.
Player in 4th position folds.
Player 3 in 5th position (with a flush, straight hand, a good 5/10 call hand) is told to call by the caller. (The only money they steal at this point is the guy who put in a dollar. So they don't push around the table just yet.
Player in 6th position calls as does the players in position 8 and 9. While the player in position 7 folds.

This may seem like a lot of callers, but in a 5/10 game you often see 6-8 callers to the flop.

So that brings us to the bump. The caller, and the other 3, know that player 2 (the caller) has the best starting hand out of all of them and on top of that a very good starting hand regardless. So the key is to play the odds. What they want now, at the very least is to steal the 4 calls on the table from players in positions 4, 6, 8, and 9. That's 20$. So here's the plan -

Player in position 10 bumps the bet to 10$ even though he has a weak hand. Player in position 1 already has 3$ committed to the pot (the small blind), but the play here is to steal the 20$ not sucker anyone in. So he bumps the pot to 15$, and the man in second position ( the caller ) then bumps it to 20$ and now he has capped the pot at 20$. (capping means that he can't bet anymore). The obvious point of this is to make everyone fold and steal their bets. This is what good poker plays do by themselves : but 4 combined - ugly. So here's what we look like:


The first go around the table
Position - Money Invested
Position 1 - K of D and 9 of C 15$
Position 2 - A of H and J of H 20$
Position 3 - XXX Fold
Position 4 - XXX 5$
Position 5 - 9 of S and 10 of S 5$
Position 6 - XXX 5$
Position 7 - XXX Fold
Position 8 - XXX 5$
Position 9 - XXX 5$
Position 10 2 of D and 8 of C 10$

money invested - 55$
money able to win - 20$ 4players * 5$.
Odds 1:1

Now - 5/10 is usually a callers game, meaning that it is not that much of an investment to continue your play. But, when the bet you made of 5$ is now 20$ to call or let's say 100$ into 400$ you tend to pucker your asshole a little; unless - you have a monster hand. So, out of the remaining players, all we want is the 20$ of the guys we don't know. And whoever doesn't fold out of those guys, we know they have a decent hand. So let's continue:

The play is now on Position 4 and he folds. We all split the money anyway, and since position 5/player 3 has a decent hand we make the call. Position 6 and 9 call while position 8 folds.

So we lost 2 players.

This brings us to player 4 in the 10th position who had the initial raise. First off, 4 players combined, no matter how shitty your hand, is always better than 3. Secondly, if he folds eye brows may raise because he was the first better. So he is in for 20$. And of course position 1 / player 1 calls as well.

Close of opening bets:

Position - Money Invested
Position 1 - K of D and 9 of C 20$
Position 2 - A of H and J of H 20$
Position 5 - 9 of S and 10 of S 20$
Position 6 - XXX 20$
Position 9 - XXX 20$
Position 10 2 of D and 8 of C 20$

Money invested - 80$
Money able to win - 50$ position 6 + position 9 + two folded position at 5$ each.
Odds: 2:1

Now the cards come out - - whew !

A of S --- J of S --- 8 of H

Now what we know is that 2 players stayed in. So we assume that to have quadrupled their bets without seeing a card that they have 1 of 3 things. Either they have a pair in hand such as 8,8 or 2,2 or that they have two face cards such as K,J or A,Q or they could have the worst (for us) scenario which is A,A or K,K, or Q,Q.

So after the flop our "caller" is sitting really nice with two pair and we also have a spade draw in position 5.

Position 1 opens the betting as a check. - He has a loser hand and if at all possible we don't want him to invest anything.
Position 2 "caller" also checks. - We don't want him to scare anyone right now.
Position 5 betting 5$. - We do however want the two players who we don't know to have to fork over some money to stay around so we bet. No matter how good your hand is (unless you flop a straight or a flush or trips) you don't want anyone to see extra cards. A bird in the hand...
Position 6 calls - you see, even if he doesn't have anything most players will call because they have so much money invested in the pot. So since he doesn't raise and drive an already large pot higher we assume that this is just him seeing his investment through.
Position 9 also calls
Position 10, our lamb will call as well. He hit the board with an 8 of hearts and we always want to keep anyone who hit the board playing because it improves our chances.
The betting is back to position 1 and he folds. Even though he has a King, we know he would need runner kings to win and beat the aces. We only want hands in the game at this point that can compete with each other. Position 1 can no longer compete so it's a waste of money. And it also puts more money in the pot for our competition to want to call. So position 1 is gone.
Position 2 calls the original 5 dollar bet. Even though he is in the lead, he can only raise to 10$ here and in back of him position 2 can only raise to 15$ and those raises won't scare anyone away at this point.

Close of betting after the flop:
Position - Money Invested
Position 2 - A of H and J of H 25$
Position 5 - 9 of S and 10 of S 25$
Position 6 - XXX 25$
Position 9 - XXX 25$
Position 10 2 of D and 8 of C 25$

Money invested - 95$
Money able to win - 60$
Straight up blind Odds: 3:2

So it's time to take stock - we have a pair of 8's in one hand. We have two pair, Aces and Jacks (top two pair at that) in another hand. We have a spade draw in yet another hand.

What we can assume thus far from our opponents.
None of them have monster hands. Not raising after that much initial betting is a sign on weakness on both their parts. You don't necessarily raise when you have a monster but with a flush draw on the board and a high straight draw if they would have had trips (the worst case scenario for us) they would have bet.
I personally put them, at best on an inside straight draw or maybe trips if they are real shrewd. Trips being the worst case scenario. But 4th street is the tale of the tape.

Here is comes:
A of S --- J of S --- 8 of H --- 2 of C

The 2 of clubs comes out on 4th street and here is how the betting goes as the limits have been raised to 10$.

Player 2 checks - never lead into others unless you are bluffing or have the nuts.
Player 3 checks - we want to see our opponents play now.
Position 6 - when a 2 of nothing comes out players who get to act after others will sometimes show strength to make the checkers think they didn't need that card. Position 6 bets 10$. This scares position 9.
Position 9 folds. At this point you have forgotten about your big anti's and your small pair or straight draw, with one card remaining, and now a 10$ a bet in front of you your hand doesn't look all the appeasing. So you see most of your folds on 4th.
Position 10 - Player 4 plays a very import role as the raiser. He was the original raiser and up to this point has been the only strength player at the table. He will raise and continue. More importantly he allows the rest to raise 2 more times before it gets back to our position 6.
Player 4 raises to 20$
Player 2 now shows some teeth and raises to 30$.
Player 5 raises to 40$.

It is now 40 $ to position 6 with his original 10$ bet. Position 6, unless he has a monster hand and we sort of know he doesn't will fold.
Position 6 folds.

Our winnings are 70$. It doesn't matter who wins the hand because we are all that is left.

Do you see how that could work? I mean i could sit here on IM and talk to people about their bets and what I have and we could make tons of money. Just the odds alone. I mean this is only 1 scenario but you see how you can lean on people even if you dont have anything and more impotantly you are really playing 4 hands against 1 or at worst 4 against 2. You have to like your odds there.

The key to it all is to never let 5th street happen. If a player calls that 40$ bet we made last with player 3 down to 5th street then you take your shot with your best hand. Actually both player 2 and player 3 would have saw the last card. But you don't invest anymore money with player 4. But, the odds of that are slim. The odds of having just about everyone play 4 cards per game against your 4 hands and skyrocket raising is too oppressing for poker. This could work.

Anyway - that was fun to write.


Link posted by JVMM : 4:38 PM