Internet Poker | The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Let’s start with the bad; I was watching Poker After Dark on NBC last night and I saw a commercial for Duplicate Poker. I went to check this out a few months ago after a friend told me about it. Here is how the site works…each table is dealt identical cards; the cards that each player receives and the cards on the board are the same for each table. It looks like money is paid out according to how you perform relative to the other players in your seat. The tag line is that this is supposed to take the luck out of poker.
I really didn’t take the time to read much deeper than that. Right away it’s obvious that this type of poker is prone to collusion. If you have a friend anywhere in the tournament, they will be able to tell you what at least 1 other player at the table has. I can think of numerous ways to collude in a format like this. Although it’s an interesting idea, I’m gonna suggest that nobody wastes their time with this one.
Now it’s time to discuss the Ugly. This is sort of a no-brainer in the poker industry. The ownership at Ultimate Bet is becoming notorious for internal scandals that are still being uncovered. It is alleged with sufficient evidence that members of Ultimate Bet’s upper level management have participated in efforts to cheat against their players. This is problem that is unique to UB and Absolute Poker, which is under the same ownership. All of the other major internet poker rooms go through great efforts to ensure things like this cannot happen.
Now on a positive note, I’ve seen some great steps taken in the recent year or so with regards to software and security. The two largest poker rooms on the internet; Pokerstars and Fulltilt poker have emerged as the leading Mac software clients for online poker. Poker stars’ Mac client is nearing the end of it’s Beta phase, but it is running well and helping to bring in fresh money for the players.
Fulltilt has had their Mac client running for a few years now. Their lobby interface is a little bit easier to read than the one at Pokerstars. There is also a forum that the software developers appear to actually read where you can make suggestions about the software and tournament structures. A lot of the unique software ideas at Fulltilt have come from this forum.
As an American player, I’m not able to play on the ongame network or any of the other sites that I learned to play on several years ago. I play exclusively on these two poker rooms and I suggest that anyone who hasn’t set up an account there go and check out these sites.
Edit 10/5/08; Duplicate poker has closed, click here to read about it; Duplicate Poker Closed
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- Polaris the A.I. Poker Bot
- Hurry Up and Check Your Hole Cards
- New Full Tilt Poker Tournament Format
- Win Your Share of the WSOP Final Table Action
- More about Online Poker Bots and Cheating
Categories: General Poker Articles
