The one fear that, at first glance, you might think is justified is the ability of some one or some group of individuals to cheat while playing poker in an Internet casino. The first way that comes to mind is a couple of people playing together to bilk the unwary. Playing partners is what we used to call it in the brick and mortar card rooms of California.

It sounds like a recipe for disaster for the honest Holdem players out on the net. But it isn't.

In the first place it just is not worth it in terms if time and energy to play partners in any game that does not have big money in it. Trying to make more than you could working flipping burgers in a $5 and $10 game is just not going to happen. It won't happen for a couple of reasons that have to do with the cheaters themselves. One of the main reasons to cheat is that you can't play good enough to beat the game honestly. They just can't play cards worth a crap and are too stupid to admit it. So you end up with bad poker players who are also stupid.

They have never taken the time to think about how much information that they are giving away when they log onto a casino site. They have to have registered a name and address to get a check. Their IP number is logged. Anybody playing at the same table with the same zip code has already given up their name and address.

Poker Room Tracking Software

The cheater sits in front of a magnificent machine that allows him to connect in a blink to sites all over the world 24/7. It does not strike him full in the face that the same kind of machine on the other end can track every bet he makes, what kind of cards he held when he made the bet. Who responded to the bet with a raise, and the kind of cards he held when he raised his partner. How many times the two people have played together and who won and who lost.

All Internet poker rooms track the history of every hand played. They track every bet,every raise, and every reraise as well as the cards everybody held at the time. You can get the hand histories emailed to almost instantly if you like. There is always a link right on the page that you are playing to request the hand history if you suspect collusion. If you do suspect a couple of people have partnered up report it to the moderator of the poker room. They have software that will zip through all the histories of the suspects. They can track how often two or more players have sat at the same table and their betting history.

Since cheating at a low stakes game is not a good way to make lots of money the cheaters put themselves in a very narrow pool of players by playing high stakes real money games.

You might run into a situation where two cheaters are playing in a low stakes Texas Holdem game just for the practice before stepping up to the high stakes game. Lucky you. It is not the only game in town. You can flip right over to another game. You can even flip right on over to a totally different poker room. But wait. Remember that these two guys are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. If they were good enough poker players to make it on their own, they would, wouldn't they? After all, who wants to split with a partner?

If you see what is going on you can jam the partnership right up their butts. It is odds on that these guys are not very good poker players. You on the other hand have the choice of tightening up your play. Play better starting hands and drop everything else like a hot rock. When you do have a hand, the partners will bet it up for you. Imagine their suprise.