Hello Rafael,
Thank you for contacting us. Your email was escalated to me as a member of the PokerStars Game Security team.
Please rest assured that we do not tolerate automated players (bots) on PokerStars. We have an extensive arsenal of detection tools in order to ensure that each player is a human being.
While I cannot detail each of the tools we use to make this determination (we don't want our methods to fall into the hands of bot programmers who will then use that information to avoid detection), I can assure you that this player does not show any indication of being a bot, based upon all of the tests we have devised.
In particular the players from Hua Zhou are part of a Poker School run by a
PokerStars affiliate. The establishment is a retail outlet (similar to a
strip mall) with several computers set up to allow customers to come in, get set up, and play on PokerStars even though they may not have their own computer, or a credit card to fund their account. The school also offers lessons in poker play, and in how to play multiple tables at once. This may result in the similarity in their play.
Our affiliates team watches this group closely to ensure that they cannot play at the same tables as one another, and that they are not sharing
information. There are many more than 30 customers of this retail outlet,
which is a unique concept to China due to the difficulty in getting funds onto the site from that region of the world. Each player provides photo ID, and we check their play via our bot detection tools. They do not seem to be running bots, and all players from there appear to be human by every test we have designed.
Again we thank you for your report, as we would always rather check such players out and know for sure. I wish you the best of luck in your future games, and thank you for playing on PokerStars.
Regards,
Jackson
PokerStars Game Security Team