Poker God or Cheating Scum?

Pretty fun debate is afoot. This does not involve poker superstars. However, it does involve midstakes games and substantial amounts of money for most people. e.g $5,000-10,000 pots.

Mike Postle is a veteran pro and he often plays on live streams. The streams are delayed by 20 mins, but people who understand the subject say it would be fairly easy to hack them.

After appearing in these games for years, people have started to ask if it is possible for Postle to really be this good.

A couple points. They say he is far and away the winningest player in the game. If a losing player, or wreckless player made these plays it would not be unheard of or even that odd. But some of these plays are, in a vacuum, absolutely terrible and unjustifiable. So why haven't they eaten up his win rate?

Good player raises JJ. Mike 3bets with 72 off. 72 game is NOT in effect. Flop AAQ. Check, call. Turn is a rag. Check call. River is a T. Check, and a big all in bet takes it down.

These days, every half decent player knows you want to have some equity when running even very ambitious bluffs. In other words, even if you are bluffing, you want a hand that can get lucky and wind up the best hand. Nobody on earth is making money bluffing their stack with 72off. In the long run, this play is a big loser.

When we look at the run out, this bluff pretty much works ONLY against JJ specifically. TT, QQ and AQ are boats. KJ is a straight. Any ace calls. An advanced player (I think his opponent is one) could certainly call with KQ, knowing they block AK, AQ and QQ. And might call even KK, but he would probably have 4bet that. This guy considers calling with JJ.

There are always arguments to be made for his play. A big one is that he knows he is on "TV" and doing something like going crazy with 72 can give him an advantage, or encourage people to invite him to good home games.

Anyway, here are some hands that are either amazing poker or cheating.





Here is a 2+2 thread discussing it. Chicago Joey is a very successful online player and podcaster who has taken the case.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/mike-postle-cheating-allegations-1753388/index2.html

I don't know enough about Poker to understand what's going on, but who exactly is he supposedly cheating "with?" The house/casino/dealers? Colluding with other players?

Quote: TigerWu

I don't know enough about Poker to understand what's going on, but who exactly is he supposedly cheating "with?" The house/casino/dealers? Colluding with other players?

I don't know enough about tech to understand. It involves something like RFF cards. Basically, he would have someone who is watching the stream in real time and relaying information to him. It could be someone working on the show, or someone who knows how to do the hacking.

He could have some kind of buzzer on his body to tell him what to do.

Nobody has raised the possibility that he is marking cards. Why not go old school? If you were doing the thing with the UV contacts and invisible ink, you could mark them more elaborately and have a pretty good idea of what opponents have.

After spending times watching some of the hands, it is obvious to me that Postle knows the hole cards. I play competitive poker* and no one makes the kinds of calls, folds and raises that Postle makes over and over again.

He often checks his phone before he makes these miracle decisions.

Either:

1. the streaming broadcast of the game which is on a 20 minute delay, is being intercepted by a confederate, who is watching and phoning in to Postle whant his opponents have, OR
2. The RF ID chips in the cards are somehow being scanned such that Postle knows the cards.
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*I have 5 cashes in 13 WSOP events.

Quote: gordonm888

He often checks his phone before he makes these miracle decisions.

Either:

1. the streaming broadcast of the game which is on a 20 minute delay, is being intercepted by a confederate, who is watching and phoning in to Postle whant his opponents have, OR
2. The RF ID chips in the cards are somehow being scanned such that Postle knows the cards.

none of the videos show him using his phone are there any more of this guy?

my two cents are that the seeds within the RNG have come full circle and he recognizes specific deals that are happening.

this website is a home for the "big deal" which is used in the game of bridge

but the first sentence states

Introduction

"

During the Olympiad 2000 in Maastricht a newly developed program, called Big Deal generated all deals. There were good reasons why existing programs were not considered adequate anymore, and in this abstract these reasons are summarised.

There have been too many incidents in the past where whole series of deals were recognised from previous occasions. There are also good reasons to assume the security of existing software is inadequate, although no successful security breaches are known. It is better to keep it that way.

"
https://sater.home.xs4all.nl/doc.html

Quote: heatmap

none of the videos show him using his phone are there any more of this guy?

try these videos: videos showing him consulting his phone as he decides how he should act

Quote: heatmap

my two cents are that the seeds within the RNG have come full circle and he recognizes specific deals that are happening.

Um. . . .. shown in the videos are live poker games in which the dealer manually shuffles a deck of cards. There were absolutely no RNG involved. Did you even look at any of the materials that were posted? I mean, c'mon !!!!

After watching quite a few of the videos and reading the chat I would have to say if you made me bet one way or the other I would say he IS cheating. Some of the hands he plays make absolutely no sense. He raises in spots in multi way pots that should have him bleeding money in the long run and that QJ fold looks like he knows the hole cards. You couldn’t pay me to play with this guy.

Also nobody can come up with video of any spots where he bluffs off into huge hands? Any player with a 50% VPIP and the insane bluffing style that he has will find spots where they blast off basically dead. He somehow manages to never do that.

Let’s go for a triple post.

Nobody can play perfect like this. I have a friend Patrick Serda (feel free to look up his Hendon) that is very aggro and guess what? He’s great at what he does but he’s wrong sometimes bluffs off in the wrong spots. You can’t be correct 100% of the time.

I am referring to his cash game play as well where he plays very high stakes. Bigger than what Postle is playing on stream.

Yeah, I read some of the chat and watched quite a few videos -and the videos made my skin crawl. The actions Postle takes in the videos are unnatural and irrational - and seemingly 100% successful. The only possible explanation is that he knows the hole cards of his opponents.

What is worrisome is that whatever he is doing to cheat can presumably be replicated by others. Someone needs to get to the bottom of this.