Over the last few weeks, users on the TwoPlusTwo forums have been buzzing about allegations against the small flash-based poker room Pitbull Poker. Users from TwoPlusTwo accuse Pitbull Poker of “stack shaving,” superusers, and security holes. The online poker room’s manager, Dave Brenes, has been under fire in the forums for not providing hand histories against specific players believed to be superusers. Check out a recap of the alleged Pitbull Poker cheating.
On Thursday night, Poker News Daily received a response to an interview request with Brenes in the form of a statement issued by “Management” from Pitbull Poker. The statement read:
We were accused by 1 player with the screen name FluffyChester on the 2+2 forums that he suspected we had a super user account, even though FluffyChester never disputed 1 hand he felt cheated on.
He requested a downloadable format of his hand history, although he could view his previous hand histories by hand number or date range through the website. Our poker system was developed in flash and we did not have a download feature for hand histories.
On Monday August 3rd, 2009, we provided FluffyChester with the last 1,000 hands that he played on Pitbull Poker in text format and are awaiting his analysis.
We have since developed a feature that will allow for hand histories to be downloaded in text format and it will be available next week to every player.
Superuser Accounts have never existed and we are awaiting FluffyChesters’ analysis to clear the rumors.
The player in question, FluffyChester, goes by chesterboy on the TwoPlusTwo forums and started one of the threads about the current controversy. Poker News Daily asked chesterboy for comment to confirm the receipt of the 1,000 hands and his findings: His reply is as follows:
Yes, they sent me 1,000 hands, but they are the last 1,000 I played. I had already realized that I was facing cheaters at this point and was avoiding them while I waited for them to process my cashout. I told Dave those hands were useless, but he told me they already started working on them and it is too late to change. A good chunk of them are in Pot Limit Omaha, which I don’t believe to have ever had any cheaters in.
I posted them in the superuser thread and some people are working on a converter so that they can be plugged in to PokerTracker or Hold’em Manager even though I don’t think they will be of any use.
On the forums, Pitbull Poker is receiving scrutiny for not providing the hands that were originally requested during a specific timeframe. The hands in question would have been played during a period that chesterboy and others in the thread felt that they were facing superusers.
With the upcoming upgrade of the Pitbull Poker software that will allow hand histories to be downloaded, the industry will be able to analyze hands for any irregularities moving forward. The past, however, might remain a mystery if the present situation leads to no irregularities. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest on Pitbull Poker.