A Hero Starts an Unlikely Poker Quest
In July this year, the 2+2 forum got to watch something rare. By the time you read this, the author has already gone radio-silent, saying he "even wanted to close" the thread.
This is a tale of an NL500/NL1k reg who saw a lucrative opportunity and went for it. His real name is unknown, and will probably remain that way, but his 2+2 screen name is jb`.
Here's his mission statement:
07-02-2024
My Plan: Grind NL500 and NL1k on Ignition for the next month and try to shot 2k in September.
"Bots, Colluders and RTA users...times are tough in the online streets. I come here to the PGC thread to give hope to the honest grinders out there, putting in their honest volume trying to make an honest living in hopes that this game won't die and that others won't go down the cheating path. Ignition is riddled with RTA users and bots and, prior to now, the games were so incredibly good.
You're probably thinking well, if the site has gotten so many cheats and bots how could it possibly be so beatable? Well, 90% of my EV came from the bots, they had some very clear exploits that were free EV (look at the HH's below), and given that they were infact bot accounts you could hammer away at these exploits with impunity. Now though as of July, the bots have greatly improved and the exploits vs' them are more subtle so I thought **** it, I'll document this journey against this bot/cheat infested landscape because I'm sure there would be many curious about my journey. I'll be posting some HH's and am open to strat discussion but won't give too much away vs bots.
HH's vs the old bots...good times."
jb` let the forum know that he'd continue to update the thread with highlights and graphs, at least twice a week. Onlookers had some questions about his noble conquest.
– "Could you please explain how you found out and what exactly are the exploits? Nice thread! GLGL"
jb` – "On Ignition, all hole cards are viewable 24 hrs after a hand is played so you can see how everyone plays. With the above HH's [hand histories] vs the bots they were 3-bet +folding too much BvB where you could profitably RFI any2 cards from the SB to 4-bet them vs 3-bet. Finding these exploits is quite simple when you see hole cards after, you see them 3-bet J2o BvB every opportunity (and then 3-bet fold a hand like K9s) and deduce that their overall frequency is probably 70% 3-bet BvB + they overfold even their stronger linear combos so 4-betting became ridiculously profitable (over this sample my positional win rate from the SB in 6-max was 3evbb due to this simple exploit)."
– "Nice catch, I’m guessing they’re going to fix this soon though"
jb` - "It has indeed been fixed."
– "OP best of luck with the thread. Did you have much luck breaking down their donking strategy out of the blinds in SRP? (won't ask you to share, just interested if you had much joy)"
jb` - "A lot more blended together, lots of merges, lots of nuts with some bluffs sprinkled in. Exploits there are more nuanced and come vs their checking ranges on identical spots/future streets."
– "Do you think anonymous poker is still a good idea nowadays given the site wasn't completely incompetent/negligent?"
jb' – "Definitely not a good idea in the current cheating/botting landscape. I play on Iggy because my PVI on GG became beyond abysmal (something like 10% rb at the highest tier that they offer) but also I find that the hole card information that we get 1 day later is extremely enlightening and has vastly helped my game. Will probably look to grind some 1k/2k at acr at some point but for now I think my EV at Ignition is good enough."
– "What's the time frame for your recent sample and how many bots is it on average right now per table? Have you received any refunds this year at all?"
jb` – "This is since I've been grinding on Iggy which is I believe is the last 2 weeks or so of April and most of June (didn't play at all during May)
Usually 1 bot per table sometimes 2 but it gets hard to tell at times because you get some crafty fake-bot regs.
0 refunds, no emails however I don't report the bots or colluders."
– "It's hard to know if they're fake bots or not. My first impression was the same as yours but I'm starting to wonder if they're part of the same group."
jb` – "Definitely hard to distinguish bots/fake bots. I am certain though that there is a class of fakebotreg/bots that end up getting partially operated by humans due to timings and differing range constructions that happen sporadically, it is funny though when I run into a fake bot that tricks me and makes me spew."
Here's the full thread on 2+2 if you're interested:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/174/poker-blogs-goals/humanities-last-hope-against-machine-cheats-500nl-grizzy-1839192/
We've compiled the entire story in the next section.
Two days later, jb` was back with some more hands.
07-04-2024
"Couldnt play today, only played NL1k hands yesterday due to packing/travelling. Some interesting HH's"
One forum member asked how Jb` had made the call with on the and runout.
jb` – "This call really comes down to preflop 3-bet frequency SB vs BTN (going to vary greatly from reg to reg in ignition). Some 3-bet 13-15, others closer to 20. This + flop split and turn split all lead to the station (how does he play his Ax OTF, how polar is his turn range for the size). Add it all up and you get a broken fold button with 77."
07-04-2024
"Some more interesting HHs, graph coming tomorrow"
"I'll get ya, ya cheating dogs"
– "Pics of the setup plz."
jb`:
– "Nice try. That's obviously Girafganger7's grind station."
07-06-2024
"Some shameful collusion spotted.
Action is rfi MP2.5bb, cc CO, cc BU, SB sqz 14.5bb, MP c, CO c, BU f.
MP was playing a 44vpip 32PFR 113-bet over170 hands and CO was playing a 25/15/10 over 255 hands (and decides to put in 14.5bb pre with 95s lol). This is the same duo with the 77 fold I showed earlier (post#26, SB had KK, BB ATo).
Be careful when squeezing and calling squeezes on Iggy lads, these guys are spineless and will use 4 cards vs your 2"
Here's the fold jb` is talking about here:
– "That has to still technically be -EV for them no? Sure, they have 4 cards, but invest twice as much in the pot. The 2 of them combined have to win the pot a little under 2/3 of the time to break even I assume?"
jb` – "Yeah and it is also hard to visualise their gametree pre because these spots in particular are inconsistent, COs stats showed no indication of this preflop construction nor did he choose to make this play frequently even though MP was rfi'ing like a maniac."
07-08-2024
"More graphs and stake breakdown.
If anyone is proficient at H2N and is willing to help please pm me, will happily pay/offer something in return."
Problems in Paradise
At the very end of July, jb` posted some of the final hands and graphs. One day, his bot competition disappeared and returned in an upgraded state.
07-31-2024
"Didn't want to update the blog (even wanted to close it) cause I was absolutely destroying the bots and didn't want to give away any secrets to potential bot owners or even to fellow regs. Alas, all good things come to an end and these bots that I was printing vs vanished one day and were immediately replaced by a more proficient (I say this adjective loosely) bot. I have since moved volume to GG/ACR."
Onlookers paid their condolences as jb` gave examples of the signs of the endtimes.
Jb` – "Line was CO rfi (Raise First In) 2.5bb, I def bb.
Flop check/check
Turn I probe 250%, bot floats
River I check and give up on a brick, he stabs psb I fold. (Seat 1 was a bot, who had folded a 5).
Bot owners got cranky I guess so changed their basic game tree (still highly exploitable fwiw) but added this card-sharing ability. It could have been good distribution on my end but I never faced this absurd of a play prior to the bot switch-up."
– "I'm somewhat surprised this is so out of line for you. I feel like I witnessed this plenty and so have people in the Bodog thread. I remember there being a discussion months ago wondering if the bots had card-sharing abilities, which I am convinced they had back then too.
Agree with the conclusion. Left the site ages ago."
Jb` – "Yeah, I had it a bunch at NL1k (hence why I stopped playing there) with some other fishy faceup collusion tactics but nothing this blatant at NL500 happened until very recently. As I said it could have been good distribution on my end to not have something so ridiculous happen like this in the sample I played this month."
Anti-Fraudster Gives His Take on Ignition
We aren't sure if jb` will update us on his future progress, but we'll follow along. As he finished his final posts in the thread, the founder of the Mobius Poker training project and anti-fraudster Patrick Howard recorded a podcast about the dominance of bots in Ignition.
Patrick Howard – "Over the past year, I've been hearing more and more troubling reports from players in my network about bots and collusion. This is not to say that bots in online poker have not been an issue for a while; they've been around for years. However, this is really the first time on Ignition where I have dozens of people telling me that the site just appears to be overrun with bots. One to two bots per table at pretty much all stakes is about as bad as it can get, because if they were to take up more seats at the table, they would just essentially be competing against themselves and then they would lose to the rake.
The situation appears to be pretty bad, and I've been tracking all of these reports very closely. I've been compiling all of the evidence shared with me and I've already discussed this at length on my X account."
Ignition reaches out:
– "After I started posting about these issues for the first time, Ignition support actually reached out to me personally, and I spent over an hour, more like an hour and a half, discussing the situation with one of their analysts. That was a really eye-opening conversation for me, and I felt pretty mixed after leaving the conversation.
On the one hand, this analyst was very eager to speak to me and seemed very interested in what I had to say. But on the other hand, he knew, let's just say, a lot less than what I would have expected someone in his position to know about poker. For example, I recall having to explain to him what VPIP was, which is really one of the most basic stats in online poker. It's just the percentage of hands that you play.
I felt glad that I was able to have the conversation, but I also felt a bit pessimistic about their ability to do anything about this issue."
Patrick assesses Ignition's support:
– "Unfortunately, after that, it was just radio silence. I received no follow-up, there were no visible changes in the games according to the players that I've spoken with who continue to play there, and Ignition has not responded to any of my subsequent social media posts or, for that matter, anybody's posts from what I can tell.
But here's where it gets really interesting: some players in my network, a handful, have reported receiving significant refunds from Ignition, seemingly at random. A couple of players that I know claimed to have received refunds of up to $10,000, and one player that I know received a refund for tournaments they claim they didn't even play. It's as if Ignition is just throwing money at the problem, refunding some players randomly to sort of appease the player group as a whole, at least that's how some people are interpreting it.
Potential firsthand story from a banned player:
I recently heard from a player who claims he was banned from Ignition despite believing that he had done nothing wrong, and I was really interested to get more information from this player because he told me that he had been actively working on countering what he perceived to be the bots and had reportedly made tens of thousands of dollars doing so.
If his story is accurate, and I have no reason to doubt it, it raises a chilling possibility: could the alleged bots on Ignition be run by the site itself?
Here's what the player, whose name is Peter, told me":
"From February 23rd to April 30th, I won $97,000 playing on Ignition. The vast majority of it was at NL1k or 5/10, hard exploiting the bots. On the 7th of May, my account was suspended for a security check, and 2 months later I found out my poker access had been restricted by Ignition.
I cannot play poker on their site anymore. They will not give me a reason as to why this has occurred. I have never cheated nor done anything nefarious. I easily have over half a dozen character witnesses who would vouch that I'm not the type of person who would. My account on Ignition was legitimate with my real name, date of birth, and address. I even offer to send Ignition footage of myself playing. I have hours of it over the years, some of which has my webcam on.
I believe the reason I have been backed off has to relate to the fact that I absolutely smoked the bots for serious cash. I have no idea what else it could be.
To me, it's super suspicious. Part of me feels like it means Ignition has to be complicit in the botting, but that is conjecture. I'm not sure if you know of any other stories like this, but it seems to me that if you're a reg on Ignition, you either lose to the bots and the cheaters or you get banned for beating them."
Initially, people in the forum speculated that Peter was actually jb`, but the rumor didn't travel far. He quickly replied that it "was someone at NL1k" and that he'd done well at NL500 in July.
Patrick Howard played devil's advocate, with a grain of salt:
– "Now, I want to be clear, we don't have any proof of this. It's possible that this player was just caught in a routine ban wave. Perhaps he was mistaken for a VPN user. But the timing and the circumstances, as it's been reported to me, are certainly suspicious. I have not personally heard of a single instance of a player being banned from Ignition without breaking any rules. Peter passed his security check after providing the requested documentation to Ignition support, but his poker access was still restricted.
Fortunately, Peter was able to cash out his entire balance and he can still log into his account, but he's no longer able to play poker.
When he requested more details, Ignition gave the following response:"
"Thanks for contacting Ignition Casino customer service. We hope this email finds you well and in good spirits. We are very sorry about the inconvenience of not being able to reach us via live chat.
In regards to your poker access, your poker access was disabled as per the decision of the respective team while your account was under review. We cannot share the details as to why precisely the decision was made. However, we can 100% assure you that the decision was not made lightly and without any thought, as well as the fact that the decision is definitive and final. We are very sorry. However, our poker services will no longer be available to you.
We apologize for the inconvenience. We're available to help 24/7 if you need anything else.
Thanks, Ignition Casino customer service."
– "So this player sent me this entire email exchange. I do believe his story that he didn't do anything wrong. I'm not entirely sure what exactly happened here. It could, again, have just been incompetence on the side of Ignition security, banning somebody who didn't do anything wrong.
On the other hand, it could be a much more nefarious situation than that. And again, I'm not sure what the situation really is, but to me, it looks a lot worse after seeing this new information come to light."
You can watch the 23-minute long video on The State of Ignition Poker to hear more about identifying bots and to hear some of Patrick Howard's advice.
