O-Poker

I am sure most of you reading this have probably heard about the controversy surronding the use of multiple accounts in big field tourneys. For those that haven't heard, it was brought into focus big time this past weekend. A well known tourney player, JJProdigy, that is ranked #5 in Pocketfives.com list of top online tourney players won the Party Poker Guarantee tourney this weekend for $140,000. The only problem is that the player "JJProdigy" on Party Poker didn't win the tourney, a player named "ablackcar" or something very similar won the tourney. The player "JJProdigy" was entered in the tourney but did not finish high. Below was JJProdigy's explanation of what happened:

"To understand my scenario, you must first understand my day. I picked up my brand new expensive computer from a computer store today (I tried to build it, without knowing anything abotu CPUs, I suck!). I got home about an hour before the MTTs start, and it was very hectic, and I was stressing out a ton. My Grandparents come to the house every weekend. My Grandma is an absolute poker fanatic, and I try to teach her how to play just due to her sheer enthusiasm. I stake her occasionaly, as much -EV as it is. I'll be honest, I do not conserve money the best. I staked her to play the 500k at Party. A few hours later, I bust out of Party, and am only playing 1 MTT. Finally, I am relaxed. I see that she has amassed a decent stack. I start coaching her every hand. Once she got to aobut 10k in chips, I took over, still talking to her. When I got to 100k (tripled from 33k), I asked her to leave the room, and she could watch me on the laptop. I do get nervous and emotional when I get deep, and I figured I had a real shot at it. Of course, my grandma being the kind soul that she is obliged. Before I know it, I won the thing. I am thinking of buying her a new car, but I haven't put much thought to it.

I didn't really realize people would make that big of a deal of it until 10 people started IMing me telling me to prepare for shit. Curse at me, hate me, flame me. I can't say that I do expect less.

But, I just won 140k! Not even all this flaming can take away the amazing feeling I have right now."


He was pretty much saying that he took over for his grandmother after he busted out of the tourney. This brought to light the whole idea of playing multiple accounts. There was heated discussion in a lot of the forums, especially pocketfives.com since he is a regular. People chimed in on both sides of the issue, but I think the overwhelming theme was it was cheating.

The grandmother story is hard to believe, but even if it is true it was cheating.

Why should anyone be able to play in the same tourney with multiple accounts? Even if there is only a slim chance of the multiple accounts being placed at the same table, there are still other big issues.

I think it was Gank, aka Brett Jungblut, that said the it would hurt online poker in general because it creates a very unfair advantage for the top online tourney players. It is comparable to letting Tiger Woods enter the same Golf Tourney several times or having him take over for a player that shot a low score after the first two days if Tiger missed the cut. Or maybe, letting Johny Chan, Phil Ivey, etc. take over for big stack at a live event once they bust out.

The bottom line is Playing/Having Multiple online poker accounts on the same site is cheating. I don't know how it can be justified. The poker sites need to police it a lot harder or things will start to spiral out of control very quickly. Anyone saying that it is OK doesn't have a full understanding of it's ramifications.

Where should the line be drawn if not here?

cmitch