Thanks to all those who contributed comments on yesterdays blog.  It was encouraging to see people are passionate and wanting to share their perspective.  I think where the discussion runs into difficulty is when people are making blanket statements rather than providing specific situations.  While I'm not advocating JackDogWelch's slippery slope of relativistic morals, I do feel that discussing specific situations is necessary to define what is acceptible or not online.

Before I get into a couple questions/comments regarding specific situations, I wanted to share part of a previous blog related to this subject.

According to Webster's Dictionary, greed is a noun defined as excessive desire.  One person commented to me that the motivation of all cheaters was pure and simply, greed.  Is greed the source for most cheating?  Is it an excessive desire to reach a goal that we go to any means to achieve it? 

This is a tricky subject, because society values those who aspire and desire to better.  Where do we draw the line of what is reasonable desire and what is excessive desire that we over step the boundaries of the acceptable.  Society puts up restrictions, guidelines, and rules for most activities.  Looking at professional sports, we see individuals and teams constantly overstepping, side stepping or blatantly disregarding the rules to gain an edge.  If they aren't caught, and succeed, they are lauded as winners and we admire their abilities.  If they are caught, shame is often the result, unless their talents or popularity overcomes the shame.  Those that abide by the rules accepting a reasonable desire have a harder time competing against those that don't.  They must rely on an inner acceptance that they did it the right way, even if they suffer in comparison.

I've often heard from die hard sports fans in debates about corked bats, spitballs, and performance enhancing drugs, that if your not cheating your not trying.  Is greed the currency of our nation?  Just don't get caught? Is excessive desire to succeed the acceptable norm?  Is it just bad judgement when we are caught?

This discussion can be reformulated into the classic question of do the ends justify the means?  To me greed is just another form of laziness  It is a lack of belief in yourself doing it the 'right' way that you have to take short cuts.  The key word in this discussion is "excessive".  It is a subjective term, because everyone will define it differently.  Gordon Gecko from Wall Street exhorted that "Greed is good!", but look where it brings most who become obsessed with it, in the long run.  Society must continue to provide boundaries and rules of what is deemed acceptable and reasonable desire, but the ultimate responsibility falls on the individual to recognize and deal with the excessive desire within.

Returning back to the previous question of what is considered cheating in online poker, I feel it is the responsibility of the online sites to establish the standards.  They host and conduct all online play.  They are responsible for enforcement.  While I respect MinCashFTW's perspective that the regular online community can influence and lobby that effort, smaller groups of individuals deciding on their own what they want to do doesn't make it right.

I'll use the example of mariuana in the United States.  It is clearly illegal, except in special states with medical marijuana laws have been established.  And yet there is a pretty pervasive culture that finds nothing wrong with it.  There is quite a bit of use within the youth and alternative culture in the US.  They can lobby to have it de-criminalized, but they don't ultimately decide its legality.  Even if they don't accept the laws, they have little standing to debates the penalties of being caught.

Full Tilt's stance on prohibited programs is....

In order to maintain the highest standard of integrity in game play, all actions taken in Full Tilt Poker’s games must be executed personally by the individual player at all times, without advice or support from external software programs or algorithms. Further, the use of external player assistance programs designed to provide users with an unfair advantage is prohibited.

It is the sole responsibility of the individual player to adhere to Full Tilt Poker’s rules and standards for acceptable conduct at all times. (They break down the programs and offenses fairly clearly)

Full Tilt Site Terms are HERE

PokerStarshas their Question and Answers HERE

I'm running out of steam on today's entry, but I look forward to hearing specific instance of potential or clear cheating brought up from this ongoing discussion.