This past weekend, UB.com’s Joe Sebok provided the poker community an update on where things stand with disseminating hand histories to those players affected by the cheaters that “won” money from players on UltimateBet in 2006 and 2007. Unfortunately, this seems to have done little to appease those who are still livid about not just the cheating, but also the way things have been handled by UB.
To backtrack, Sebok posted about the hand histories on his PokerRoad blog back in October 2009. At that time, he instructed players who wanted information about the times they played with superusers to e-mail UB security with their request. The players would then be sent two spreadsheets, one with the total hands and winnings or losses against each superuser account and another that goes into further hand detail without the hole cards.
Players who wished to have the entire hand histories, complete with superuser hole cards, could then request them after receiving the first two spreadsheets. The PokerRoad founder and “Poker2Nite“ host said that UB decided to do it this way because it would save a lot of unnecessary work, as many players would likely not request anything past the first two spreadsheets. Only those who specifically wanted the complete hand histories would get them.
Fast forward to January 10th. Sebok posted on his blog that there have been 131 requests for the first round of spreadsheets and 48 players followed up with requests for their complete hand histories. All but one, which was being pulled together as Sebok posted his message, had been e-mailed.
Sebok then went on to say that he knows many people are still frustrated with UB for not releasing the real names of all the cheaters. In his words:
“I still have hopes that more of the story will come out and we’ll be able to piece it all together with names sometime soon, but it’s a complicated process. I know everyone would like it to be simple and clean, but it’s just not that kind of situation. I know those out there are frustrated by that statement, but there is no company in the world that is just going to let everyone in on the inner workings of their business. It just doesn’t exist and I understand that from UB.”
Sebok continued, expressing his disappointment that people would question his integrity, honesty, and motives for taking the job with UB back in September 2009. When he announced he was joining UB, the prevailing opinion on internet poker forums such as TwoPlusTwo was that UB wanted him for image purposes and Sebok was just in it for the money. Even though he said that his goals were to make sure that the superuser screen names were made public, relevant hand histories were made available to players, and real names of the cheaters were released, people generally did not believe him, or at the very least they did not believe that UB would actually work with him on these issues. Whether it was deserved or not, Sebok faced an uphill battle with the online poker community.
Four months later, poker players are still critical of UB’s handling of the hand history distribution, which is why Sebok made his latest blog post. The real names of the cheaters, aside from Russ Hamilton, have not been released either. Addressing the ill will towards him, Sebok said on his blog:
“It’s offensive to hear people say that I made everything up about wanting to correct things at UB and make sure it is a company we can all trust moving forward, and really just wanted the money. The fact is that it’s a job that I have accepted and I am doing that job. Of course UB pays me, and I work with them to make it a reputable and honesty [sic] company. If I had no intention of doing any of that work that I said I was going to, I would have just signed, taken the money, and not said a word about it.”
“Everyone who has offered support”, he concluded, “I am indebted to you…”
