Party Poker Sunday Winner Caught Entering Tourney Twice
Playing under multiple account names is relatively easy. Players ask friends to register at a poker site then play themselves under that person's account. They can also create additional accounts from different computers and have numerous account names at any one site. Why? The +EV (expected value) is a huge advantage, especially in MTT's (multi-table tournaments).
The case that brought much of this to light occurred during the PartyPoker $500K Sunday Tournament on February 12th of this year. As the tournament decreased to three tables, a post flew up on the forums that a respected online player, JJProdigy, was in the hunt for the $140K first prize. When the railbirds flocked to cheer they found that JJProdigy had been knocked out hours before. The forums lit up with speculation. The eventual winner of the tournament was identified as ABlackCar, and later discovered to be an account also played under by JJProdigy. The holder of the accounts had entered the tournament twice under two separate online IDs.
JJProdigy's real name is Josh Field. In the past twelve months Field has been tearing up the MTT's across every site. This past August he won the PokerStars TLB and a challenge in a highly publicized battle against online phenom Gigabet. Field is undeniably a very talented player seeking any edge he can find. One such edge turned out to be eventually playing under multiple accounts in the same tournament.
"The account 'ABlackCar' was not made for multi-accounting," Field posted online. " It was intentionally made for my grandma for her birthday present. However, it was never given to her. So, I had an extra account. Yes, I multi-tabled. Yes, it is incredibly easy. Yes, many people do it. A lot of my friends did it, and I always gave them a hard time for it. But, I had a conversation with a player where we decided it would be a lot of +EV to not be known when you are playing MTT's. So, basically, I had a spare account with tons of +EV in it. So many people did it with no repercussions. I know someone who had over 10 accounts in a recent million guaranteed. Party has no idea."
Field turned out to be incorrect. PartyPoker did have an idea and a clue and froze the $140,000 first prize pending an investigation.
"On February 13th our internal systems generated an alert on suspicious activity between two accounts that had played in the $500K Tournament," said PartyPoker Poker Room Manager Michael O'Malley. "These alerts cause the accounts to be locked pending an investigation. In this case we also received several emails from players concerning the winner of the tournament and the possibility of multiple accounts. Players had suggested that there might be something suspicious based on postings made on some of the Internet poker forums. An investigation was completed and it was determined that the accounts had both played in the tournament while logged in from the same IP/system, meaning one person was playing both accounts in the same tournament from the same house and computer. Both accounts were closed, the players banned and all funds confiscated. The winner was disqualified from the $500K tournament and each player was moved up one spot in the tournament payouts" |
