New UB Scandal

Shortly after merging with Absolute Poker and becoming part of CEREUS Network, Ultimate Bet is once again involved in a poker scandal. To make it worse, this time it also involves their posterboy Phil Hellmuth. The poker brat was playing a Limit Hold'em heads-up against Doubleballer at Ultimate Bet, when this hand happened. Doubleballer won the hand with Three of a Kind - Kings, but the pot went to Phil Hellmuth, who was declared the winner by UB's software.

This happening rapidly spread over the poker sites and communities, and a lot of discussion about are going on. It is obviously not the first case of error/glitch/bug to happen in a poker room. However, Ultimate Bet has a history with poker scandals, and the fact that it happened to their posterboy just makes the gravity of the situation much bigger.

Following the discussions on the internet we can notice players are, in general, looking at the whole thing in two different ways. One of them is that what happened is a glitch or bug of the software. That would be explanable due to the changes that have been made on UB's software by the time they became a part of CEREUS Network. Some programmers defend that this could indeed have happened and give a more detailed explanation. Looking by this angle, the fact that it happened to Phil Hellmuth was just a coincidence.

The second way is the obvious. UB would be favoring, once again, one of their users in a situation similar to the Super User Scandal that happened last year. Players comment that the fact it happened to Phil Hellmuth, their player of highest profile, that seldomly plays on the internet, can not be mere coincidence.

One thing we can not deny, this is very bad for poker credibility. For online poker to work, there has to be security all over the place. Players need to feel safe and secure about their money. Situations like this have a very negative effect on the way governmental authorities of around the world look at online poker and the companies that runs it. It is the second time such a negative problem happens on Ultimate Bet. If the first time wasn't enough, this one should be a decisive factor for players not to put their money into CEREUS Network.

Our users are discussing this in our "UB Scandal Part 2" thread. Share your thoughts with us as well!

sick bad
his chat after what happened was hilarious 'u wanna play or what?' rofl ya nothing happened phil

I really dont get this, it looks sooooo stupid to give him a pot he didnt win, nobody is that retarded, right?

It's really too much of a "coincidence" that this happens to Hellmuth at their highest stakes, instead of it happening to one of the thousands of other players on microstakes or whatever, if this is supposed to be a software bug.

Now I understand Hellmuth's quote: "If luck weren't involved, I guess I'd win every one [tournament]"

how does phil make money, he sucks so bad in cash games

this is awful

wtf is that... nice T2

but... he thought his opponent won't notice? lol noone is that stupid ;o

dodging bullets, obviously

this is a BUG on a cheat duh u guys are dumb

Like someone said at 2+2: So much for subtle cheating.

I guess they decided there is no reason to hide it anymore

lmao joy, awesome picture selection :D

u're too awesome haha

I totally agree with that his chat is the one single fact that really blows of all the "but its just a bug" arguments, its so unbelievable shady...

hMm....well maybe it has been happening to random people across the stakes. The fact that it happened to the poker brat made it extremely high profile and noteworthy. Regardless I personally wouldn't touch that network with your chips but if anything this seems more like a glitch (too blatantly obvious) than a outright scam (super user).

is it standard to call with bottom pair like that?

The hero in the hand admittedly disconnected - so like on any site without dc protection it mucked his hand. It just must have happened right at showdown so his hand actually got revealed at the same time the disconnect muck logic hit - or so I speculate loosely. That said, Hellmuth's chat is just so typical of his lack of class. And UB's slow resolution to this issue, especially after the scandal, and in a case that involved their superstar front man is just lol.

On December 22 2008 14:06 geometryb wrote: is it standard to call with bottom pair like that?

Why u think he's down so much online

Phil Hellmuth Cheating Peoples at his own site.........seems a bit obnoxious...;P

Now suddenly more bugs are showing up, one guy won a hand without any cards, he was sitting out. If none of these bugs happened before the PH hand it looks like they are deliberately making bugs now to grasp the only straw they have left "It all happened when we merged it is just a bug in the software".

But games are still running...

Fuck these guys they are hurting online poker more than anyone, even more than the UIEGA and we cant do anything to stop them.

the conclusion is obvious(again) - FUCK UB&friends HIHI

its just all bad... no one can ever trust this site again