Hi, I’m new to the 2p2 forums but less new to poker. I’m an American profession who splits his time between live and online cash games, I play 6max and I play a lot of HU, especially on crypto sites like blockchain.poker and CoinPoker. My usernames are GoinHardInThaPaint and variations thereof, and MasterOf0ne on PAStars. I play anywhere from 200nl up to 5knl regularly. I recently lost $16,000 while I was streaming in a private discord group to a stream sniper while playing high stakes on CoinPoker. The stream sniper’s username on CoinPoker was m1xtape, which matched the GGPoker username of one of the three users in the discord call with me, kalevipoeg#4179, who has an additional discord account, ned#9511. These accounts have been confirmed by multiple people in the discord to belong to Cole Halling, a 22-year-old college student from Ontario, who currently attends York University. It’s a small discord server and everyone knows everyone to some extent, and there have been people in the discord who have even met up with Cole in real life, and they confirmed with me that this username on CoinPoker matched exactly with a username he previously had on GGPoker, “m1xtape”. Through private correspondence Cole also admitted that the names matched, but denied that he was operating the account at the time of this incident. Despite carrying on a conversation with me during the match, he made no mention of the fact the username was identical to one he has previously operated.
How it happened: On December 9, 2021, I was playing 2KNL on CoinPoker in a 6max table. One of the players, m1xtape, typed in chat that “game is slow, anyone for HU?” I’ve streamed HU for the guys before, and because of this player’s very unorthodox playstyle I knew this was a spot I wanted to take. I would later understand the reasoning for these seemingly nonsensical plays.
We started playing 2KHUNL and he quickly ran up a 3 buy in lead on me. I didn’t think anything of it, I’ve played HU long enough to go on far worse runs (anyone who’s played for a day knows worse runs) so, still under the impression he was just a whale who was running hot, I offer to play him at 5kNL. He immediately agrees, which was somewhat unexpected, but I was happy for the chance to play such a whale at high stakes. I’m carrying on a conversation with Kalevipoeg (Cole’s discord username) in the voice call at this point. Defining characteristics of his play was a 0% fold to 3bet frequency (even showing down T4o in a spot where he called a 3bet), 3betting sometimes but other times showing down hands that are pure 3bets in preflop call lines, even showing down AA as the OOP caller in one hand. Another very suspicious thing I noticed was the fact that m1xtape open mucked on the river in spots where he could’ve instead chosen to check. I was losing a lot of money and I started suspecting something might be up, but I didn’t mention it during the call. I was winning some pots, but I was just bleeding money. After losing close to $20,000 to this player I decided to leave the voice call without saying anything and continue playing off stream for a little while. As soon as I leave the stream, I pick up QQ in the BB and 3bet a BTN open. My opponent folded for the first time all match. We played three or four more hands and m1xtape left. That’s when alarm bells really started going off.
At this point I suspected someone on the call might have been feeding my hole cards to the operator of m1xtape’s account. I post the reasons for why I suspected I might’ve been stream sniped; see the first picture in the linked google doc "Discord messages".
Given there were only three other users watching my stream the list of suspects was short. People from the discord initially defended the credibility of Cole; some even had met up with him in person. We knew who he was. At this point I’m thinking, “yeah, ok, I’m probably just paranoid, plus I just sound like a below average 50nl player who’s salty that downswings exist.” I decide to start up a voice call and stream with other members of the discord to go over some hands and look for suspicious play. That’s when one of the members joins and immediately says, “Oh no. That’s Kale. That’s the same username Kalevipoeg uses on GGPoker.” So it wasn’t even that deep. He was on his main account on coinpoker, using a username he uses in other places. We confirmed that this was, in fact, his username on other sites. I first attempted to be refunded from CoinPoker, but I didn’t have high hopes, so when that failed, I went straight to Cole. When confronted with the evidence, we talked for a bit; Cole denied it then blocked me. I gave him my crypto addresses to pay me back, nothing has been received. Some of the private messages are disclosed in the "Discord Messages" google doc.
Important to note, he never once mentioned during the call that he had the exact same username as my HU opponent during the call, despite otherwise carrying on with conversation. If I tuned into someone else’s stream and saw my username at the table I’d be like, “Yo who the **** is that?”
After talking with others it turns out that Cole has done questionable and unethical things in the past, such as Bonus Abuse on Bodog, after creating the account under a family member’s name, see "Discord Messages" google doc.
It was also mentioned that Cole had scammed others before for far less than this, but the point stands. Any advice is much appreciated, but I’m not sure what legal action I could possibly take. I understand there’s not much chance I ever get my money back at this point; that’s not the reason I’m posting this. I’m posting this so that no one gets scammed by this dickweed ever again. Apparently his plan is to play poker for a living. I highly suggest you avoid staking him, buying/selling action with him, loaning to him, making deals with him, or otherwise engaging in any trust-based arrangement. Do not trust this guy. He will **** you over if you give him the chance.
Discord messages:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing
Suspect Hands:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...QwEq3uGB0/edit
