Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Online mystery

I'm back in Vegas after a delightful week with Cardgrrl.

While I was visiting in her apartment one evening, we tried playing a sit-and-go tournament on PokerStars. I had my laptop with me and tapped into the wireless network that she has set up so that she can use both her desktop and laptop from the same DSL line. But as soon as one of us was registered for a tournament (single-table or multi-table), the other couldn't register for it. Instead, the second one to register would get a message saying that security wouldn't allow it while the first person was in the tournament.

OK, I can understand that--a little extra protection against two people sitting next to each other and sharing information in order to collude.

However, I've heard stories before of many, many people who live in the same residence and share a common internet connection and who are yet able to play simultaneously in tournaments while using different computers--husbands and wives, roommates, brothers, etc.

How is it that some people can do it and others not? Cardgrrl thought it had to do with the router settings, specifically whether the local network assigns the computers the same IP address or different ones. Is that it? If not, what makes this work? Inquiring minds want to know.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can't have multiple people from the same IP in any one tournament. If the router is setup to do NAT (which most are) then to the outside world you have one IP regardless of the number of machines on the local network. Some people connect multiple machines directly to the router and then they each have their own outside IP

There are some who call me... Tim said...

Next time you'll need to "borrow" a neighbor's wifi signal.

gadzooks64 said...

One Sunday night during a Palooza there were five of us playing in a PokerSlut Tour event (Full Tilt)on hotel wireless.

I'm not sure why Full Tilt didn't take issue with it but we didn't mind at all.

My understanding was that two players can play on PokerStars from one IP but perhaps that has been changed.

It might also have had something to do with the type of event you were trying to play. You might have been able to play cash or an MTT but not a one table SNG.

Did you ask PokerStars support?

ROB said...

Im pretty sure you can have multiple computers playing on one wireless connection if you are playing MTTs and not SNGs. My friend is a FTP pro and he has like 3-5 people over at his house every sunday playing online, and they are always playing the same tourneys.

Kunt said...

Pretty sure that ROB nailed it.

Anonymous is wrong. MTTs allow for many users on the same IP.

Anonymous said...

There is more potential for collusion when 2 people enter a 9 person tournament VS 10 people entering a 7000 person tournament.

RSOAndrew said...

On PokerStars you can play even if you are behind a NAT. I've done it several times when playing Multi-Table Tournaments (MTT) with my father at his house. The issue is that you can not play STT or SNGs. I don't recall if there was a minimum number of players.

Anonymous said...

On PS folks on the same router cannot play together in games of 90or less.

Philly said...

Okay, I read all of these responses, and I am still clueless. What exactly is the answer?