I wrote about Bodog’s new poker software in a post a couple days ago and gave it mostly a good review. Well, the new software ended up not being much of a hit at all. Players have been railing against the software over the past couple days for a few reasons. What sounded like a good idea in theory has turned out to be a disaster in practice.
The biggest deal-breaker for players is that the anonymous tables were quickly hacked and player identities were revealed. Bodog has since fixed the error, but this got me to thinking about whether or not anonymous poker tables are as good as they sound.
Potential Problems with Anonymous Poker Tables
Anonymous poker tables are subject to hacking attempts just like any other piece of software on the internet. But, both Bodog Poker and Party Poker have both had their anonymous tables hacked so that players could see the identities of their opponents. This isn’t as bad as seeing an opponent’s hole cards, but it does provide a significant advantage to those who know who their opponents are.
On top of that, hacking the anonymous poker tables isn’t as obvious as hacking someone’s hole cards. If it would have been a malicious hacker who discovered this exploit, we might not have ever known. Luckily, this exploit was revealed publicly by HH Smithy.
A part of the problem with anonymous poker tables is that it reduces transparency in the online poker world, which already has enough problems with transparency. Some players have already speculated that poker rooms use anonymous poker tables to rig the games and employ “superuser” accounts. I personally don’t think poker rooms have any incentive to rig the games, but the lack of trust among casual players results in fewer players and a weaker poker economy.
I do like the idea of not being able to use poker tracking software at the tables, but think about this: if Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker would have had anonymous poker tables, it is unlikely the major superuser scandal at those sites would have been uncovered. The cheaters at those poker sites were uncovered thanks to poker players noticing obscene win rates in a few certain poker players. Those win rates were so high that an investigation was launched and it was learned that rogue employees had been using superuser accounts to steal millions of dollars from players.
Transparency is important in the online poker industry because there is no worldwide governing body. The vast majority of online poker sites operate trustworthy operations, but there have been rogue poker sites in the past. The more transparent the industry is, the easier it is for us to keep track of which poker sites are safe and which ones should be avoided.
So in short, I’m not yet totally sold on anonymous poker tables. This latest incident at Bodog Poker is just the final nail in the coffin as far as I’m concerned. It would be nice to be able to have anonymous poker tables with nothing to worry about, but I don’t think now is the right time for the idea.
