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February 15, 2006

Multi-Accounting

I find it mildly amusing to note that the Sunday $215 on Party sparked such controversy in the poker forum world. Apparently the person who won was a well-known internet MTT player who claims to have taken over for his grandmother. This seems to have generated a slew of people excoriating him for it on message boards. I'm not surprised, because, as Henry Adams once said "There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence."

While I doubt that there was ever a granny involved I really couldn't care less if this fellow was playing on multiple accounts. It would be hypocritical of me because what I do with a number of friends, where two or more of us gather in the same place, help each other with decisions (when not at the same table of course), and split the results is effectively the same thing. It differs, I suppose, in that it doesn't break any of the poker sites' rules, but morally speaking it's the same.

I know there was a similar controversy about another group of people doing the group thing long ago and almost everyone with more sense than God gave a watermelon agreed that it was OK as long as they weren't colluding, which they supposedly weren't. But of course a bunch of donkeys felt it was unethical and therefore should be banned. And even more amusing is the fact that a number of people who don't feel that to be unethical do feel multi-accounting is, despite the fact that it is essentially the same thing. If anything it's less of an advantage as two heads really are better than one.

Let's be honest here too, it cannot be stopped. Too many players have friends and family who also play poker for sites to prevent people from being able to access other legitimate accounts. Poker sites would lose far too much money by stopping two people from playing in the same tournament just because their accounts were known to be linked in some way. And since there is no real way to tell who is actually playing on an account there is no way to enforce any rule against it. And while being unpreventable doesn't make something ethical, it does make rules against it stupid, since rules that cannot be enforced don't in any way harm those who break them but do hinder those who feel compelled to follow them.

Some poker sites have rules against multi-accounting, but actually I don't think Party Poker does. I took a look at their terms and I'm pretty sure you technically could play on your grandmother's account and not be violating any of their rules, as long as grandma didn't give you the account name and password (in which case grandma, not you, would have violated a rule). Stars does have such a rule I'm told, which I feel is a mistake. From an accounting standpoint I suppose the rules make sense, as it may make some people who don't know any better feel more secure (just like their anti-bot rules) though in all reality they have no effect. But from a logical standpoint the rule only harms those who follow it out of a sense of honesty.

Also please don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not in favor of collusion. Sitting at the same table and sharing cards is definitely wrong because it dishonestly provides some players more information than others. And fortunately rules against collusion can be enforced. Unlike multi-accounting there are a lot of ways collusion can be detected and investigated. Not only is it immoral (and I think nearly everyone agrees on that) but it's also punishable.

I feel, though, that multi-accounting is neither unethical nor preventable. It doesn't really give anyone an unfair advantage, as they still have to pay the buy-in twice. A lot of people say it's unethical because it could lead to collusion, but that's like saying drinking is unethical because it can lead to someone drinking and driving. It's possible to drink in a responsible manner, and the same is true of multi-accounting. You could simply sit out of one seat in the unlikely event that the two accounts are ever at the same table. You might have to put some tape on the screen to block out cards, but honestly I doubt that would ever come up in a tournament with 3500 entrants.

So what poker sites and players should do is accept the fact that people will play multiple accounts and try to minimize the effects of collusion, which, by the way, are very small to begin with and should be reduced as possible regardless of whether players play multiple accounts or not. The easiest way to do that is to apply their normal account linking systems to tournaments whenever possible. Party Poker, for instance, links accounts if they have the same last name, transfer money to each other, play from the same IP address at some point, or whatever other criteria of that nature. Those accounts can never sit at the same cash game table and in tournaments will be seated at different tables whenever possible. They told me that and my experience has proven it to be true. John and I have been down to the top few tables of tournaments many, many times (for a while we played a lot of tournaments on Empire that only had 4-5 tables to begin with and were never at the same table) and have never been seated at the same table before the final one.

True, in tournaments that can make the seating non-random, but it's not very significant, especially in tournaments with big fields. Seating in most major events is nowhere near random anyway, even with this sort of linking it would still be far closer to it online. Not to mention it's just one more thing they can write on their website to ease the minds of players who fear collusion.

Weak players are always worrying about how they are being cheated. Most people would be much better off worrying about improving their poker game than they are worrying about who plays in a tournament twice. Of course that's the nature of our society, we worry about what everyone but us is doing. And that's just plain bad for your poker game. Your EV in a tournament, even if 50 good players are all playing two accounts, is probably not decreased by more than a couple dollars. Spend the time you waste posting your outrage on pocketfives instead by working with PokerStove, playing with an ICM calculator, talking to people you know about hands, or reading a book. You'll be much better off for it in the end.

Posted by themaroon at February 15, 2006 3:08 PM

Comments

Posted by: SomeGuy at February 15, 2006 4:10 PM

Posted by: sticky at February 15, 2006 4:16 PM

Posted by: john at February 15, 2006 4:45 PM

Posted by: Matt at February 15, 2006 6:52 PM

Posted by: dan at February 16, 2006 12:45 AM

Posted by: Matt at February 16, 2006 1:10 AM

Posted by: Chris at February 16, 2006 3:36 PM

Posted by: Paul at February 16, 2006 5:25 PM

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