Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll have heard about the cheating scandals involving super user players over on Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Since this is my first time commenting on any of this I’ll say one thing:

Disgraceful!

And then I’ll point you in the direction of the Hard Boiled Poker by Short Stacked Shamus who’s coverage and research of the scandal has been nothing short of excellent.

Once I heard about the problems over at Absolute I immediately logged in to see if I had any funds there, it turns out I had $20 left in my account run up from a free bonus $10 they had given me earlier in the year. Nothing too exciting but $20 is $20 and I wanted to make a point of cashing out  – as I hope all of you have – to show them this kind of thing is not tolerated by the poker community. So, into the cashier I go, select payouts and…

Your Available Balance of $ 20.15 USD is insufficient to carry out a payout request. Our minimum payout amount is $ 50 USD. Thank you for your cooperation.

#$@! that’s a bit cheeky. Fair enough though, so now I have two options:

1. Play on a site that has cheated it’s players and try to turn $20 into $50.
2. Deposit $30 and withdraw the $50.

There ain’t no way I’m depositing any of my actual money so option #1 it was. Off to the SNG’s where I proceeded to break even after about 5 in a row.

A new strategy was required and then it dawned on me: Blackjack! Heck it was their money I was playing with anyway…

Did I mention I’d been drinking?

After the first 10 or so hands betting between $1 and $5 per hand I was up to around $40 and looking good. Then the beer and the gambling gods worked against me and about 20 hands later I was pushing my last $2 onto the table. I thought they’d got me but what happened next was the luckiest streak of -EV gambling I can ever remember having. I turned that last $2 bet into exactly $51. It was a thing of beauty I tell you, doubling and winning, splitting and winning, blackjack after blackjack after blackjack. I tell you, I felt like a member of the MIT blackjack team (except there was no skill involved).

Needless to say I quit as soon as I got to $51 and promptly withdrew my funds. No problems with the processing and a couple of days later the $51 was sitting where it belongs, in my PokerStars bankroll.

So long Absolute, I won’t be back.