Published on November 1st, 2007 3:23 pm EST
Absolute Poker is a major online card room that generates by some estimates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues per year. I am sure that this company would be valued at easily over a billion dollars.
Recently, the company admitted that there had been a security breach and that some of their customers had been cheated. This breach involved some pretty high-level people.
Now, there has been some suspicion about a session that was played by Mark Seif in February of 2006. Mark Seif is either a part owner of Absolute Poker or a spokeperson or just a figurehead or all three or none of the above (who really knows.) People had been wondering about this session, and in the interest of leaving nothing to speculation, Seif was apparently going to request the hand histories for the session.
Keep in mind that this session occurred just over a year and a half ago. Not that long.
Well, first the poker public was told that the hand history had been "deleted." And now, Seif today posted on his blog that he was told that the hand history might be on a tape backup at Absolute Poker headquarters.
Now to me, on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being slightly ridiculous, and 10 being very ridiculous, this is a 15.
The fact that Absolute Poker can't IMMEDIATELY produce this hand history is either completely ridiculous or completely shady.
Can you imagine Pokerstars not being able to produce a hand history within about 5 seconds? I would bet every last dollar that I have that not only does Pokerstars keep track of every real money hand history that is played on their site, but they could produce it within a minute if they had to. I would think that any major poker room would treat their real money hand histories in this fashion.
Hand histories don't take up a lot of space on a hard drive, especially if they are compressed. If I were running a billion dollar poker room, I think that I would have at least three copies of my real money hand histories stored in various places. If I were raking millions of dollars per day, I'd probably buy a couple of hard drives to back up these hand histories.
The funny thing is that Absolute Poker is being audited right now, and they have this much trouble producing hand histories?
I'll leave you with this direct quote from Mark Seif's blog. Again, this is a major online poker room? It's "likely" that they have these hand histories? It's not like the session took place in 1798. Anyways, here is the quote:
"One last thing, my hand histories from the Feb 16, 2006 session. I have been told that it is likely that Absolute Poker does have those hand histories along with all other real money hands ever played on the site. They apparently are on tape and will be retrievable. I hope this is true. I really really hope so. I think the person who told me they don’t have them may have been mistaken. I really don’t know at this point. I’m just telling you what I have been told by two different sources, obviously in direct conflict with one another."
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Filed Under: Poker Scandals
Absolute Poker is a major online card room that generates by some estimates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues per year. I am sure that this company would be valued at easily over a billion dollars. Recently, the company admitted that there had been a security breach and that some of their customers had been cheated. This breach involved some pretty high-level people.
Now, there has been some suspicion about a session that was played by Mark Seif in February of 2006. Mark Seif is either a part owner of Absolute Poker or a spokeperson or just a figurehead or all three or none of the above (who really knows.) People had been wondering about this session, and in the interest of leaving nothing to speculation, Seif was apparently going to request the hand histories for the session.
Keep in mind that this session occurred just over a year and a half ago. Not that long.
Well, first the poker public was told that the hand history had been "deleted." And now, Seif today posted on his blog that he was told that the hand history might be on a tape backup at Absolute Poker headquarters.
Now to me, on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being slightly ridiculous, and 10 being very ridiculous, this is a 15.
The fact that Absolute Poker can't IMMEDIATELY produce this hand history is either completely ridiculous or completely shady.
Can you imagine Pokerstars not being able to produce a hand history within about 5 seconds? I would bet every last dollar that I have that not only does Pokerstars keep track of every real money hand history that is played on their site, but they could produce it within a minute if they had to. I would think that any major poker room would treat their real money hand histories in this fashion.
Hand histories don't take up a lot of space on a hard drive, especially if they are compressed. If I were running a billion dollar poker room, I think that I would have at least three copies of my real money hand histories stored in various places. If I were raking millions of dollars per day, I'd probably buy a couple of hard drives to back up these hand histories.
The funny thing is that Absolute Poker is being audited right now, and they have this much trouble producing hand histories?
I'll leave you with this direct quote from Mark Seif's blog. Again, this is a major online poker room? It's "likely" that they have these hand histories? It's not like the session took place in 1798. Anyways, here is the quote:
"One last thing, my hand histories from the Feb 16, 2006 session. I have been told that it is likely that Absolute Poker does have those hand histories along with all other real money hands ever played on the site. They apparently are on tape and will be retrievable. I hope this is true. I really really hope so. I think the person who told me they don’t have them may have been mistaken. I really don’t know at this point. I’m just telling you what I have been told by two different sources, obviously in direct conflict with one another."
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Filed Under: Poker Scandals
