- Joined
- Nov 21, 2009
- Posts
- 4,717
- Reaction score
- 9,078
- Location
- Melbourne
- AFL Club
- Essendon
- Other Teams
- Melbourne Victory and Arsenal
For those of you who don't follow the poker world there's currently a huge scandal going on at the moment that's well worth an hour or two going down the rabbit hole.
Mike Postle is a player who had done alright playing poker online and had seemingly found his niche playing at a Sacramento poker club called 'Stones', which live streamed games on Twitch to an audience of between 100-300 a night. Over the course of a couple years Mike went from being an above average player to being exceptional, to the point where he was making all kinds of winning decisions that defied all conventional poker logic. He became revered as some sort of poker savant among the Stones players and commentators until it all came crashing down.
The straw that broke the came's back was this hand where commentator Veronica Brill was left speechless at one too many exceptional plays. She went public with her accusation calling Mike a cheat, which is on par with calling someone a kiddy fiddler in poker circles. To say it blew up is an understatement as it is suspected that Postle was using an insider who relayed people's hands to an electronic device during the hand, allowing him to know exactly what other players had and adapt accordingly. Theories range from Postle receiving info via mobile phone to a bone frequency device to a relay device attached to his leg.
Poker player Joey Ingram went through 40 hours of vision and came to the conclusion that the cheating was systematic and had been ongoing for some time. Poker forum TwoPlusTwo now have a thread dedicated to the story that is 229 pages long at the time of writing for a story that's only a week old. Poker player and YouTube minor celebrity Doug Polk has posted several hands here, here, here and here however there are dozens more hands and hand reviews completed by other players. The whole poker world is piling on with their own thoughts, analysis and condemnation.
Since the story broker Postle has given one interview, to respected yet controversial poker identity Mike 'The Mouth' Matusow here in which he comes across as being overly guilty despite protesting that he is '10,000% innocent'. As someone has noted the figure is quite relevant as he is performing about 10,000% better than your typical professional poker player would be expected to perform over that amount of time. The interview was also a minor controversy in itself as Mike Matusow was stoned during the interview.
Shamelessly stolen details off TwoPlusTwo:
Q: Who is Mike Postle? A: Mike Postle is a long time poker pro. He is suspected of having cheated at the video-streamed pokertable at Stones Gambling Hall in Sacramento
Q: How much money has Postle won from other players in these games? A: Approximation is $250k (source https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=1066 )
Q: How statistically deviant is his play? A: Very. Some calculations put it as more unlikely than 1 to the number of atoms in the universe. See bb/100 vs VPIP graph: https://i.gyazo.com/9640d7665da6f5fb...c935334fbb.png (Source unknown)
Q: How do people think he cheated? A: Likely via getting the exact holecards of his opponents relayed to his phone which he keeps very discretely between his legs while playing, and/or to bone conductive headphones hidden under his hat. This would likely require access to the actual live feed from the RFID/tech-room
Q: Who is Justin Kuraitis? A: An employee and TD of Stones Gambling hall. He's responsible for the tech team that runs the livestream. He's for a multitude of reasons suspected to be Mike's possible inside man in the possible cheating scheme
Q: But Postle doesn't always win when he plays A: True. He has had losing sessions on stream where he plays quite normally. They seem to coincide with Justin Kuraitis being out of town.
Q: Is the stream commentated on in real time when the play takes place, or on delay? A: It's commented on delay, as all streams of this kind are. Only the RFID tech room has (read: should have) access to the actual live footage and hands. They then set up the graphics etc, and transmit that footage delayed to the commentary booth and viewers.
Q: Who is Taylor Smith? A: Another tech team employee of Stones Live Casino. Some consider him suspect due to his involvement in correcting holecards for a crazy hand Mike played, among other things. It's still unclear what Mike's actual holecards were in that infamous hand (68o, or 89ss). T.S may be entirely innocent and should be treated as such, just as Postle and Kuraitis should be until found guilty in a court of law
Q: Why is this blowing wide open just now this week? A: A former employee and commentator of the stream, @Angry_Polak, took to twitter. @joeingram1 took her allegations seriously, as opposed to many others she had previously raised her suspicions to, and then the ball started rolling
Further reading:
Longer cliff-notes/Summary: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=1045
Pokernews links: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2019/...ames-35562.htmhttps://www.pokernews.com/news/2019/...tion-35584.htm
Local Fox40 news: https://fox40.com/2019/10/03/poker-w...g-allegations/
ESPN segment: Joeingram (chicagojoey) youtube page with deep-going investigating of Mike's play: https://www.youtube.com/user/joeingram1/videos Doug Polk video:
Mike Postle is a player who had done alright playing poker online and had seemingly found his niche playing at a Sacramento poker club called 'Stones', which live streamed games on Twitch to an audience of between 100-300 a night. Over the course of a couple years Mike went from being an above average player to being exceptional, to the point where he was making all kinds of winning decisions that defied all conventional poker logic. He became revered as some sort of poker savant among the Stones players and commentators until it all came crashing down.
The straw that broke the came's back was this hand where commentator Veronica Brill was left speechless at one too many exceptional plays. She went public with her accusation calling Mike a cheat, which is on par with calling someone a kiddy fiddler in poker circles. To say it blew up is an understatement as it is suspected that Postle was using an insider who relayed people's hands to an electronic device during the hand, allowing him to know exactly what other players had and adapt accordingly. Theories range from Postle receiving info via mobile phone to a bone frequency device to a relay device attached to his leg.
Poker player Joey Ingram went through 40 hours of vision and came to the conclusion that the cheating was systematic and had been ongoing for some time. Poker forum TwoPlusTwo now have a thread dedicated to the story that is 229 pages long at the time of writing for a story that's only a week old. Poker player and YouTube minor celebrity Doug Polk has posted several hands here, here, here and here however there are dozens more hands and hand reviews completed by other players. The whole poker world is piling on with their own thoughts, analysis and condemnation.
Since the story broker Postle has given one interview, to respected yet controversial poker identity Mike 'The Mouth' Matusow here in which he comes across as being overly guilty despite protesting that he is '10,000% innocent'. As someone has noted the figure is quite relevant as he is performing about 10,000% better than your typical professional poker player would be expected to perform over that amount of time. The interview was also a minor controversy in itself as Mike Matusow was stoned during the interview.
Shamelessly stolen details off TwoPlusTwo:
Q: Who is Mike Postle? A: Mike Postle is a long time poker pro. He is suspected of having cheated at the video-streamed pokertable at Stones Gambling Hall in Sacramento
Q: How much money has Postle won from other players in these games? A: Approximation is $250k (source https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=1066 )
Q: How statistically deviant is his play? A: Very. Some calculations put it as more unlikely than 1 to the number of atoms in the universe. See bb/100 vs VPIP graph: https://i.gyazo.com/9640d7665da6f5fb...c935334fbb.png (Source unknown)
Q: How do people think he cheated? A: Likely via getting the exact holecards of his opponents relayed to his phone which he keeps very discretely between his legs while playing, and/or to bone conductive headphones hidden under his hat. This would likely require access to the actual live feed from the RFID/tech-room
Q: Who is Justin Kuraitis? A: An employee and TD of Stones Gambling hall. He's responsible for the tech team that runs the livestream. He's for a multitude of reasons suspected to be Mike's possible inside man in the possible cheating scheme
Q: But Postle doesn't always win when he plays A: True. He has had losing sessions on stream where he plays quite normally. They seem to coincide with Justin Kuraitis being out of town.
Q: Is the stream commentated on in real time when the play takes place, or on delay? A: It's commented on delay, as all streams of this kind are. Only the RFID tech room has (read: should have) access to the actual live footage and hands. They then set up the graphics etc, and transmit that footage delayed to the commentary booth and viewers.
Q: Who is Taylor Smith? A: Another tech team employee of Stones Live Casino. Some consider him suspect due to his involvement in correcting holecards for a crazy hand Mike played, among other things. It's still unclear what Mike's actual holecards were in that infamous hand (68o, or 89ss). T.S may be entirely innocent and should be treated as such, just as Postle and Kuraitis should be until found guilty in a court of law
Q: Why is this blowing wide open just now this week? A: A former employee and commentator of the stream, @Angry_Polak, took to twitter. @joeingram1 took her allegations seriously, as opposed to many others she had previously raised her suspicions to, and then the ball started rolling
Further reading:
Longer cliff-notes/Summary: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=1045
Pokernews links: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2019/...ames-35562.htmhttps://www.pokernews.com/news/2019/...tion-35584.htm
Local Fox40 news: https://fox40.com/2019/10/03/poker-w...g-allegations/
ESPN segment: Joeingram (chicagojoey) youtube page with deep-going investigating of Mike's play: https://www.youtube.com/user/joeingram1/videos Doug Polk video:
Last edited:
Or calling all-in pre-flop with 5-4 against two blokes with A-K. You can only do that knowing they have the same card and cancelling out each others equity.