Pokerstars situation has nothing to do with this and nobody is accusing the likes of TeamOnline sponsored by PokerStars of knowing anything about how the company is run. Also, several of the highest profile Stars pros did walk away, Kanu, Ike.

Now back to "self promotion". Nothing wrong with that. Again that isn't the core of the accusation.

Gripsed can say dishonest stuff is against the ethos, Ted Cruz says that extra material affairs are against the ethos of the Christian teachings*...

Its very simple, why doesn't he explain his side of the story. It isn't hard. I have asked some very simple questions, which I am sure a lot of people want to know the answer to.

* If you don't get the reference, check twitter.

everyone please stop with the negativity, you are upsetting Evan and it is cyber bullying............

I have watched the youtube video. Now I has cancerz.

What upsets me the most, as a potential streamer who has put in some hours creating overlays and trying to set up a stream, is that Evan is taking from the smaller streams. There are countless smaller streams that I like to support, simply by watching on multitwitch so I can watch 4-5 streams at a time. It's not easy to subscribe to any of them being a college student who wants to improve their poker game. Paying the $5 per month is a lot, but I still like to show my support by being active in their chats and giving them my views. It must be a great feeling to have a following of people, whether this people 5, 10, 100 or thousands like the biggest poker streamers on twitch (tonka/jaime/jcarver) So when Evan takes the short route by viewbotting to grow his channel, it upsets me and in my opinion it makes our community look bad.

I also want to quickly address the video Evan put out. I find it extremely narcissistic in the sense that he focuses solely on the brand in which HE created, rather than apologizing to the community. He goes into a number of things that he has done and how his 'team gripsed' is striving, but does not talk about how he has hurt the community or how he will go about fixing it. He also looks for sympathy by calling this entire situation 'cyber bulling', and to me it seems like he is trying to use this accusation by Jaime as a way to gain even more viewers/following by making people feel bad for him.

I'd really like to see Evan apologize to the community. We're a community that all makes mistakes, and as poker players it's something that we are consistently making, but all trying to improve. It would clear up your name at some rate, and maybe get some viewers back that you lost through this entire process, but it would also make you feel better about everything (atleast it would for me).

Finally, I know that you provide great content on YouTube and Twitch, and I have watched a lot of your videos and your stream, but so do hundreds of other streamers. They work hard and put in the hours to only get the attention taken away from someone who is flawing the system!? Doesn't seem fair to me, and I don't think I can ever support someone who has done something like you did.

Good post. I would have more respect if he had just addressed the allegations directly and (IF) he viewbot just say sorry I made a mistake, I shouldn't have done it and won't do it anymore. That he felt sorry for disadvantaging other streamers and will do everything in his power to help those to grow.

Hello 2+2,

This is Gripsed, the real account of Gripsed, I would like to address everything in this thread
and the reddit thread, and tell everyone the honest truth about what I know

Prior to this thread I knew very little about viewbots, and have never looked into using them.
With regards to viewbotting and the evidence presented, it looks as thought my channel has or had viewbots on it.

If there are any viewbots, I am not responsible for them. I did not put viewbots on my twitch channel. I was unaware of any viewbots being directed at my stream because my viewer numbers didn't seem out of the ordinary to me. I have had some very good runs in the last 9 months on twitch poker, and I figured this led to my influx in viewers. However, it appears that I may have been mistaken.

Earlier this week a thread did appeared on Reddit calling me a Fraud. Here is the link --> https://www.reddit.com/r/poker/comme...aud_on_twitch/

I don't spend much time on reddit or two plus two, which is why I didn't pay too much attention to it all week. I wanted to take the higher road and just focus on content creation. But I realize now that that my credibility is being attacked, and that I have to clear the air and tell my side of the story.

I really didn't want to point fingers, that's not my style. But after digging into things a lot deeper, the same name kept coming up. And that name is FTHustla420. I know that nobody on Twitch Poker or 2+2 actually knows who FTHustla420 is. I feel he's getting 100% credibility for starting all this, but I'd like you to be the judge or whether or not he's trustworthy. This person is someone I know in real life, but I'm not going to say their real name on here, as I don't want to negatively effect him. But I feel i must bring to light, just exactly who FTHustla420 is so you can know the source of all this. He is the one who started the allegations, he was been the driving force behind all the negative comments in the threads on twoplustwo and reddit.

I met FTHustla in the fall of 2013 through a mutual friend. At first he came off as a pretty nice guy, and I was happy to hang out with him. I was nice enough to bring him into my life and introduce him to some players who I thought my help him with his game, and get him on his feet. It's pretty clear that he has no appreciation for this, or that I gave him a place to stay for a few weeks. Here is a picture of FTHustla from my apartment with a couple of my friends...

http://imgur.com/WkGsX5e

After getting to know him a little better, I realized he wasn't the type of person I wanted to be associated with. I later discovered he had some substance issues, legal issues, and issues with mental stability. We had a falling out and ever since then it seems as though he's been out to get me. I've simply ignored him for the most part, but this time it's gone too far.

FTHustla420 used to have a live stream on Twitch. A stream which was banned multiple times for violating twitch TOS, and didn't end up being that succesful. Who would be more likely to look into viewbots than a streamer who was having trouble getting viewers?

Here is a link to a youtube video from his stream --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKXbh0SOREU
And a link to a pic in case he decides to take that video down --> http://imgur.com/aYdQgSj

Here is a link to his twitch page --> http://twitch.tv/FTHustla420
And a link to a pic in case he decides to take those pics down as well --> http://imgur.com/djJZuVt

If you look at the panels, you'll see a familiar pic, with one person missing. He purposely cut me out of the picture, what does that say about his feelings towards me?

I wasn't aware of this before the thread surfaced, but apparently it is common for trolls to put viewbots on people's channels, then 'expose' them for viewbotting. Given that FTHustla420 has some vendetta against me, probably because I've been successful in something he wasn't, I could see why he may have done this to me.

FThustla420 is the same person who started the reddit thread 'KHoleJoe' (K-Hole Joe) and is known as 'PostFlopRepop' on two plus two. If you actually read any of his posts, it's not hard to tell that he's nothing more than a troll. Here are some examples

Reddit Thread
http://imgur.com/d42uPIl

Here is another Response of him saying he likes to **** up peoples careers just cause he feels like it
http://imgur.com/VXk1XGu

I have a feeling that this is the guy who is putting viewbots on my channel. He is the one who came to Jaime with the info regarding viewbotting, and he may have looked into viewbotting before due to his unsucessful twitch channel. in fact, Jaime's posts thank him specifically for coming forward with the information. So if the graphs are indeed indications that there have been viewbots on my channel, I hope this backstory serves to let you decide what their most likely source was.

http://imgur.com/kJfkK1w

I'm sorry I let this blow up the way it did. I probably should've addressed it earlier. But I didn't realize how big things had blown up while I wasn't streamiong and I wanted to make sure I had my facts straight and looked into everything fully. I also honestly didn't think anything was wrong because I knew what kind of character FTHustla420 is, and therefore i didn't give his thread much credit.

But the graph's Jaime posted seem quite convincing that there was foul play happening on my twitch stream. I just want to let everyone know, that I was not behind this. And that I will do everything in power, to ensure that no viewbots are placed on my channel.

I apologize to anyone who was affected negatively by this, and hope that in the future situations like this that people will look into their sources or verify their sources before going publicly with the information.

Opinion: Twitch hosting is not a "manipulation" of viewer totals at all. It is a way for streamers who want to grow their category to promote other content providers. For the record, I always appreciated that Jaime went out of his way to help smaller streamers with hosts, even when he had very little to gain by doing so.

Facts: To the best of my knowledge, hosts have nothing to do with any of these viewbotting allegations. While hosts might cause spikes or other abnormal viewer total changes, it does not seem like any hosting of this channel was at play when viewer totals were changing at drastically different rates.

Please note however that when hosted viewers remain in their original channel, they cannot chat with the streamer. While it doesn't seem to apply in this case, that is one case where a streamer can have real viewers yet have a low chat volume in their own stream.

Taken the other way, Gripsed is someone who is bound to have staked/been staked/swapped/bought pieces/had pieces bought and I don't think there has been any allegation whatsoever that he has defaulted on his side in any transaction.

If there was we probably would have heard about it.

While I do believe he has view botted I don't see how this links into anything that is actually newsworthy other than in a couple of forums. He's likely made very little from what was most likely a vanity project. There has to be quicker get rich schemes.

Good post.

Despite what I wrote only a few minutes ago I would have trouble not believing that there have been ulterior motives at play

Problem is there can be no absolute proof one way or the other.

Gripsed - Would you like to address the issues of the chat promo bots? Were you not at all suspicious that the same poorly spelled questions with poor grammar were being asked repeatedly? What about the fact you got big bursts of followers then nothing? Or that the chat was rather dead, and the chat was there was often calling the ! commands, this given the large viewership?

Have you reported this to twitch and if so what did they say?

If it wasn't you, how do you intend to try to ensure there aren't any viewbots / chatbots on your stream in the future?

And in relation to the "bad form" donating that other streamers have called you out on. What is your take on this?

Gripsed, you're a disgrace. Pathetic attempt at trying to clear your name I suppose? Are you suggesting I have been paying for viewbots for everyone of your streams? So the graphs that jaime showed are all coming out of my pocket. You ****ing liar, bruh, im serious, not a threat sir, but you better ****ing hope I dont see you around. I know you're in the Annex area.

Are you suggesting that I am behind the chat bots as well? Did you happen to look at what has happened with your mods leaving and others leaving your gripsed pyramid scheme and decided today would be the best day to come forward and blame me. For your sake, pray to god we dont cross paths.

A wholehearted "**** you." This won't stop, I despise you now, right.

2+2 isn't ******ed like your gripsters, no one is gonna believe you. Just wait til 4pm sir.

Go **** yourself.

So FTHustla put the bots onto your channel and then programmed them to use chat commands that were relevant to the content on the channel. Seems like a pretty elaborate scheme.

I appreciate you directly spelling out that you did not put the viewbots in your stream. For a while I was the only person even claiming that was a real possibility. I am going to take you at your word here, but I am definitely not the normal person here on 2+2.

Understand that your own actions have made this claim even harder to believe now.

That video may have been an honest statement of how you were feeling, but it did not directly start out by addressing the viewbots. The fact that it takes you almost 20 minutes to claim innocence is not good PR. Even then your claims were not direct.

I have never worked for you in any way; I have never even met you. But if I was on your team, I would never have allowed you to put that video out there. In fact I recommend for your own sake you make a new video and take that one down. It takes one second to say "I am innocent of all these charges." Bill Clinton knew that, even when he was guilty as sin.


I am also in the same boat with you. I had to have friends point me here and to reddit. But if this is your business, this is not a good approach. My understanding is that some of your associates are on your payroll in some way. If you don't have time or interest in forums, certainly you can assign one of them the task of replying on your behalf.

I am still willing to admit there is a small possibility that somebody targeted you with these bots. However, I want to say a few things about FTHustla, because he is not the likely candidate you are portraying him as.

First of all this is a person who openly accused me of being paid by you. Even after I directly refuted that, he didn't apologize. So he attacked me personally.

But psychology matters, in poker and in life. Despite the fact that he is an imperfect person, I will be the first to say I do not believe in any way that he is the person responsible for these viewbots. FTHustla definitely admitted he dislikes you, but he is not the kind of person to go out of his way to do this kind of technical sabotage IMHO.

Accusing him of this is like getting into a bar fight and saying "I think that guy hacked my internet." Just because he doesn't like you does not make him capable of this kind of time-consuming revenge.

Also, I am confident that had he done this he would have just admitted it up front. He may be a troll as you say but I have known him to be pretty direct, even when he was wrong.

His main gripe had nothing to do with viewer totals. He even said he was annoyed by all your automated tools in chat.

That is the central question of this whole situation. Some have added data regarding the chat bots repetitively asking you questions. Even your own mods, who still stand by you, admit they saw that in chat. If you truly didn't do this, explain that. What did those bots ask you? Who could have programmed them? These are the kinds of questions that will really answer who is behind this. I sincerely doubt that FTHustla is behind this. I cannot see him programming those bots to say "Hey Gripsed where you been" when he could have made them say "I hate you" or something more in line with his feelings.

This last part does seem believable to me. If I was attacked by some guy who didn't like me, I would have probably ignored it too. If I had a huge youtube following, I probably wouldn't be surprised by spikes in viewership.

But I would still wonder, "why are these guys in chat asking me the same questions over and over?"

I stood up for you in this case not just for your benefit. I said what I said because I know exactly how easy it is for technical sabotage to be directed at somebody. Now that this has happened, other poker streamers are more likely to be targeted by bots. If we are going to assume they are all guilty until proven innocent that is going to be very damaging to our game.

We need a process to gather facts before we accuse people or assume guilt based on limited evidence. I still feel that way.

However, I believe that the way you responded was less than ideal. In this situation it was always going to be impossible for some people to ever believe you were not responsible. Being more direct in your video would have been better. But if you truly want to get past this, please prepare to answer those additional questions, and many more, regarding this matter.

Good post ghost_of_m. I would like more answers to certain questions.

And yes, I agree, given all the information that has come forward, these are absolutely valid questions that need to be addressed.

Jaime (Pokerstaples) just talked about the response in his stream. You start off with claiming you never knew what viewbots were but Jaime remembers that you and him discussed it about a year ago. I have big trust in Jaime, he just wouldn't lie about this. Starting off with a lie and then claiming something unlikely doesn't look good for you.

Would explain the erratic spellings etc. that were supposed to have been used.

EDIT: Watching Jaime's stream, he seems to think he is a civil rights leader, cringeworthy.

For the love of all that is good, would some Gripsed subscriber please replay the stream from Sunday March 13th and provide screenshot examples of what these supposed chat bots were saying?

We have talked about those points over and over, but we really need to see what those messages look like.

he's claiming i dropped thousands of my own dollars to to tarnish his name, and i waited til now to do so.

As opposed to accusing after a few streams of paying for said bots. Instead I wanted to make a more believable story and wait a year.

Your stupidity should be criminal.

Oh dear, that's not a good start. Gripsed any response to this?

Perhaps Gripsed can give somebody like yourself access to the VODs to audit them?

I would just like all of you saying you dont believe FTHustla420 could do this to see this quote from this thread, for the second time....

If he gave me the VODs to audit them that would be a very confident move. Because you better believe they would get a very thorough audit, and I would definitely follow the data wherever it led me.

Twitch server data could also be relevant. Because it's common for people to use proxies for these kind of viewbots, but if the proxies can be traced back to a single address or locus it becomes easier to determine who launched or is controlling those bots.

Shramo, I have nothing but love and respect for you. But just because FTHustla hates Gripsed does not make him automatically guilty of this either. We can't have it both ways. If Gripsed is innocent till proven guilty, then so is FTHustla. We have zero evidence he was involved in this.

And as I said above, though it might be buried in my post, he is really not the kind of guy to do something like that. He would just come out directly and say **** you instead. That's just my humble opinion.