Who's Cheating?

There has been a ton of talk on the message boards about some high profile online players who were caught using multiple accounts in the same tournaments. Their names on the boards were JJ Prodigy and ZeeJustin. I had not really heard of JJ but I was a reader of Justin's blog and was usually impressed with his writing and his knowledge of the game. I am disappointed because his response to the allegations is just silly. Here are a few of his quotes:

"I have been at the same table as myself. For what it’s worth, my standard protocol has been to increase my number of tables when this happens. As most of you know, I will very rarely be playing fewer than six tables at a time. If I had 6 tables open and two of my accounts were brought to the same table, I would simply open up 4-6 more SNGs. I felt that this would negate my unethical advantage. With 10 tables open, I just play tight and solid. I can’t even remember the hole cards one account folded after the flop, and I’m certainly unable to pay special attention to that table. "

This was just totally stupid. Lets open up more tables to distract myself and therefore negate my advantage. I seriously doubt that's what happened. Especially as he made it towards the last 25% of the field. Doubling up is a huge advantage at these stages and would have been very easy to do.

"All of the money that was seized from me was from sit’n’go play where nothing unethical was done. I never entered multiple accounts into the same sit’n’go, never colluded with anyone, never soft played anyone and never chip dumped with anyone.The other accounts I used never had any big MTT scores. Combined, I am pretty sure they were all long-term losers in the few MTT’s they played. Despite this, almost $100,000 was seized from my accounts."

Just because you were smart enough to cash out the Multi Table Tournament Winnings doesn't mean you are justified in keeping it. I think he's lucky that Party Poker doesn't go after more of his money.

"I have one account. That account is named ZeeJustin. My brother also has an account named Bernard61 (formerly jwilson55), and I have used that account quite often. No where in Party’s rules does it say you cannot use someone else’s account. I’m sure many of you have used friends’ accounts before, and there is nothing wrong with this. People will often take over MTT’s for friends that have unforeseen obligations.

I do think what I’ve done is unethical, and I certainly regret doing it, however, I need to point out that no where in Party’s rules is it stated that you cannot enter multiple accounts into the same tournament. Not only do they not forbid it, but to open multiple clients on the same PC, all you have to do is click the icon a bit more rapidly than normal. Great work PartyPoker."

His reading comprehension must be at a 3rd grade level. It says in the agreement that the name on your account must match your true and legal name. You are prohibited from holding more than one account.

Just because it doesn't say you are not allowed to enter multiple accounts in a tournament does not make it legal. The line of not allowing multiple accounts to begin with, makes using them for any purpose illegal.

I am extremely happy that Party Poker is cracking down on the cheaters and making them pay. I would hope they are able to return money to some of the other players who were hurt by the cheating, but that is probably too much to ask.

I am amazed that these players were able to open multiple accounts at the same time from the same IP address. I have tried to log into the same table from different skins before and been blocked, so I figured it was impossible. Apparently not, but hopefully they have fixed it now.

If I lucky, the tournaments will now be softer and I can make a big score.