Should I stay in DoNs?

The biggest news in the DoN world is the collusion scandals which have rocked PokerStars in the last few days. A few days ago on 2+2 a new account posted about being banned by Stars' security, and it exploded into a huge exposé on a ring of over 40 accounts from China, connected with the OP in that thread, who were all banned a couple of months ago. They were shifting equity about on the bubble, working as a team to keep their team-mates in the game, and thus bust a non-colluding player. Most of the collusion was at the highest stakes Stars offers for these, the $52 and $104 turbo games, and estimates of how much they manage to cheat regs out of total over half a million dollars directly from the games, plus the rakeback they accrued while doing so. And that's not including incidental losses of the cheated players, such as moving down to recover bankroll, attempts to make SNE being aborted etc.

A number of other threads about other collusion teams, apparently unconnected to the big Chinese ring, have also sprung up in the last few days. Stars have been silent on the matter and there is a lot of concern about the integrity of DoNs as a whole, and about Stars' competency to police the games they are spreading. There is a suspicion that the cheats may have simply opened new acounts and carried on cheating as before.

I'm left wondering if it's pretty much screwed me over the last few days. I'm on an 18BI downswing over just 102 games, so I've decided to call it a day for May. I don't know if it's just ridiculous variance over a tiny sample, if I'm being cheated, or if I'm simply spending far too much time being concerned who's in my games and not enough time concentrating on hands and situations. But I do know that I'd have been over $180 better off if I hadn't bothered with the last two days, and given that the middle two weeks of the month were basically breakeven, I'd probably have been better off quitting after about the 11th and doing something useful.

Last night I was running so bad I found myself taking a somewhat reckless shot at the 20s to chase losses: I lost about $70 in the first block, but didn't learn from that experience, so regged for another dozen games up there. Fortunately I recovered with a profit of about $110 in the second block. Considering I'm hopelessly under-rolled for them, and was on a bit of a tilt at the time, I should probably think myself lucky that it didn't end up costing me money. I need to remember that episode the next time the tilt-monster invades my thoughts.

After everything that has occurred, I'm considering trying a different format altogether right now, either cash or MTTs. Don't think I'm going to go into regular STTs though.

Here's how May panned out

25 games at 20s - $40 profit
1,315 games at 10s - $304 profit
385 games at 5s - $188 profit
SCOOPs - $42 loss
Gold VIP freeroll - cashed for $27
Collusion credit - $5.20
Session of MTTs - $81.60 profit
FPP earned - $86.50
Reload bonus cleared - $222.50
Stellar reward cleared - $50

Total profit $962.80


So if I hadn't played the last 102 games I would have comfortably cleared $1k for the month. But hey, overall happy with it, and although I gave up on Platinum after running bad around mid-month and being sensibly advised by Alex to drop tables, I did make Gold quite comfortably and am reaping the small reward of accumulating FPP at a much better rate now.


But the question I now have to ask myself is do I want to continue playing DoNs in the current climate? First is the collusion problem — am I being cheated? Second is the issue of whether DoNs survive this scandal — will PokerStars concede defeat to the cheats and discontinue the format as one of their offerings?

I don't know the answer to either of these questions, but having given up on DoNs for the month earlier today I decided to have a bit of fun and register for a block of a dozen SNG MTTs, the turbo 2/180s. The play in them was absolutely terrible, and although I didn't cash in 11 of them, I did ship the other one, a score of $108. Weeeeeeeee, my first MTT win, not including satties and 45mans. I certainly felt a lot more comfortable than at any time in DoNs over the last couple of days, and it was a hell of a lot more fun too.

Maybe I'll give them a go instead, the other alternative being switching to cash and becoming competent at that. As it is the deepest stacked I expect it to be the most complex, therefore where a good player can have the best edge. Also I expect it to be the one version which will survive the longest without either serious scandal or becoming "solved".

I haven't yet decided what to do, and will think about it in the next couple of days.