A banned player from the GGNetwork, who temporarily had his money also confiscated for unknown reasons, brought light to an interesting and somewhat disturbing policy of the GGNetwork.

In short, if you sit at a table only when you see 1 or more fish there, you're violating their terms.





After receiving this warning, this player claimed he cashed out his $150k bankroll from PokerOK, hadn't received it yet, and redeposited $120k to the flagship site GGPoker.

Before playing a single hand, he claims he got this message:



Then they confiscated both his 120k deposit and his 150k cashout. He was able to get the 120k deposit back quickly, but the 150k was still stuck. However, there were holes in his story, and I'm guessing he wasn't 100% honest about his situation. He also later claimed he got it resolved.

Source: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...olved-1764963/

Anyway, this guy's particular situation isn't all that important.

What is important is the fact that GGNetwork is indeed banning these supposed "bumhunters", though it's a soft ban (meaning you get your money, but can't continue playing on the network.)

You might ask what's wrong with banning these predatory players?

Well, there's several things wrong with it.

First off, it's ludicrous to require players not to game select. Game selection is a part of poker. As the old adage goes, if you're the 9th best poker player in the world, and you sit with the best 8, you're the fish in the game. Therefore, it's completely reasonable not to play if you open a table and everyone there is better than you.

Second, sitting only when certain fish sit (which is apparently what this guy was doing) is also fine, as it's again a form of game selection. Additionally, people could be accidentaly bumhunting in certain games, only being willing to play when the table is near full, which may only happen when a fish is present.

If they're really that worried about certain fish attracting sharks sitting just for them, they can go to an anonymous model like on Bovada or Run It Once.

The entire premise is flawed because a person being a "fish" is relative. A winning low-stakes player might be the fish at a high-stakes game. How do they define who a fish is? What if you're not bumhunting, but rather are choosing to play people whose styles you can best handle?

This seems more like a war against winning players. Basically if you are going to win on that site, you need to be willing to churn rake against other regulars when there are no fish around, or you're a gonner.

This is the network Negreanu represents now, by the way.