As Poker becomes a more and more popular game option for the online player there are the inevitable questions?: Why do the other guys win so often? Am I being cheated? Are the other players ganging up on me?

To answer these and other questions about the online Poker scene I went directly to the source: the poker room manager. Let's call him Jake and his place Poker-X. These aren't the real names but they'll suffice for our needs.

Max: We've all heard the variety of player beefs in the Poker rooms. What's the most common way in which an honest player gets taken?

Jake: Most cases are fraud related with the most common being where a player with bad credit card loses to player with good funds. It's a basic cheat. But most of the cheat or collusion complaints end up being unjustified.

Max: So what about the dreaded cries of "collusion!" (two or more players working together to take the others)? How often do you hear that?

Jake: Averages about one a month, sometimes zero, sometimes 3.

Max: Ok, so when it happens what's their MO?

Jake: How it happens is like this: 2 or more players will bet and raise pots together --they're trying to get the pot up-- and the player with the bad hand will fold and let the player with the good hand continue playing to the end.

Max: But it's still not a sure thing for them, right?

Jake: I'm just saying that this is how players will cheat to win the pot. The purpose is to increase the size of the pot when they have a good hand. The game is still poker and the other players --the straight players-- will still have 1 in X chance of having the best hand.

Max: How do the cheating players do their thing, how do they stay in touch with each other?

Jake: The usual ways: phone, ICQ, MSN, etc.

Max: So how do you know when it's happening?

Jake: First is tip-offs from the other players. There's also accounting records, the withdrawals, we look to see if they're random.

Max: "Random"? How so? Are we talking about noticable cashout patterns?

Jake: Let's just say that to cheat is to try and win money .... thus withdrawals are a good area to verify a player's activities.

Max: Fair enough, what else?

Jake: 24/7 monitoring, database records of players including win/loss dollars and percentages and number of games played. There's also the game logs ....

Max: "Game logs"? Looking for ....? I'm not asking you to give away the farm here, just some indication of what the game logs would tell you that the player database wouldn't, for example.

Jake: We look at the hand-level details where we see the cards that players are holding and playing with. You can look at the cards and determine whether a person is betting because they want to bluff or build the pot. Also, repetition will verify a pattern. And looking at the rake can be very helpful too.

Max: The rake? How so? What are you looking for.

Jake: I don't want to say too much here but we know what the normal rake patterns are so we keep an eye out for irregularities.

Max: Like?

Jake: I don't really want to go into that.

Max: Anything else?

Jake: Sure! Players that play together often, win/loss of group of players. Also, collusion happens in higher limit games. It is not worth cheating on a 1/2 table ... it usually starts at 3/6 and higher.

Max: Seems to me that it would be easy for cheating players to do their thing by just signing on under different identities. Is this true.

Jake: Ya, they do that but you can trace the players by a number of different methods: IPs, address, locations, etc ... It's not as easy for them as you might think.

Max: Are there any known ways for players to protect themselves against being set up, other than noticing teaming between players?

Jake: Leave the table and notify support. It is usually pretty obvious when players are colluding. There are lots of things can tell us when the play isn't what it should be.

So, there it is! The low down on Poker room cheats. Let's be careful out there.