I don’t know why you think he expected to be caught, I’d argue him being so reckless means he didn’t think he would be since players were mostly awful, if he was a little careful he would of likely never been caught unless his inside man turned on him.

Assuming what he said in the Matusow interview is true, he has to remain in California as part of his custody agreement or something like that.

Of course, there are plenty of poker rooms in Northern California. It always struck me that we never heard from any players who came out in his defense with something like, "No, he's legit... he crushes the games at TV and Cap, too." Anyone as good as he claims would seem to be a legend away from the Stones Live table.

While I do not believe for a second he “expected to be caught”, it is entirely possible that he believed that whatever conditions and circumstances that allowed for him to cheat like he did would be fixed eventually, not because he would be caught, but for any one of many possibilities - if it was simply the presence of an inside man with access and no oversight, maybe said man gets transferred to another position, or he’s removed from that position, or a new hire ends up, either accidentally or intentionally, removing the lack of oversight.

Maybe the room adds another camera that significantly hinders the ability to check phones during hands discreetly. If it’s a software problem, maybe a casino wide update removes whatever problematic part of the software enabled Postle.

They did remove cell phones at one point, and postle then came up with the bone conductor in his hat. He might not have known during his crotch theory optimal phase that the bone conductor thing would work, so he was operating under the assumption the room could easily decide to not allow cell phones and he’d be out of luck.

There’s also the possibility the inside man had such a significant role in the operation (and/or such a bad understanding of poker) that postle felt he needed to squeeze as much money as possible out of each game or the inside man was pushing or encouraging him to be as aggressive as possible in winning every possible dollar they could each session. Given what we know of JK’s lack of poker and his willingness to absolutely deny postle was cheating and deny that it was even possible to cheat, if JK was the inside man, that certainly is possible.

Now, I’m not saying that was his thought process for sure. I still think the most likely thing is that he’s a very short sighted moron who stumbled onto a situation (possibly not even being the one who came up with the idea) and never really gave a thought to not playing as aggressively and exploiting the situation as much as possible. There have many an absurd number of similar situations to this where a person stumbles onto a situation where he can essentially steal/cheat undetected for years, and the only reason he or she gets caught is that he steals too much or makes it too obvious. Getting caught due to shortsighted greed isn’t unique to postle. For Christ’s sake, “you can sheer a sheep many times but only skin him once” comes from the same basic concept.

It is true that when he first started out, he was very cautious and careful in regards to his phone. We know the session he began crotch theory optimal. He doesn’t start the session in CTO, but at some point, he begins fidgeting with his cell phone, placing it between his legs and looking around to see if others can see his phone. He did this for a decent amount of time. So at the very least, he understood he needed to take multiple steps to ensure the cell phone was obscured and he also tinkered with what seat to be in (I forget which one he settled on, but I do remember he eventually settled on one seat in particular).

Maybe someday we’ll find out.

What do you have to say about that Mike Postle?

I don’t think he made extra money playing every hand possible rather then just playing better cards and just stacking guys with real hands, his reckless play lead to getting found out and have some protocols changed.

He absolutely made more money in the short-term (the period where he was cheating) with his reckless play instead of making a few bad/losing plays here or there, or just playing far fewer hands.

But yes, long term, his inability to make any sort of attempt to ensure no one would ever suspect him cost him a truly staggering amount of money.

Doug Polk
@DougPolkVids
In a recent lawsuit update, it said Mike Postle is creating a documentary (to prove his innocence??)

Id love to sit down with Postle and do a pod. If you know Mike, contact him. The story behind potentially the greatest poker cheating of all time should be discussed.

Given Postle's reputation in the community, it would be nearly impossible for him or any poker player facing that rap to make a steady living playing cards.

Of course, there have been people who have had success -- despite not being well thought of -- from time to time.

Not sure which part of this is sarcasm and which isn't but obviously it would be very easy for any poker pro facing that rap to make a living playing poker and there are obviously scumbag poker pros in poker rooms all over the country from the East Coast to the West Coast. There is no mass banishment of scumbags from poker. One could be banned by the biggest poker room operator in the country and still play in the vast majority of the poker rooms across the US.

You're mostly correct here, but the other guy is also kind of accidentally right.

Mike Postle probably can't make a living at poker... but it's because he's dogshit at the game when he can't see the cards. As you suggest, it's certainly not because he cheated in a very specific way that wouldn't be replicable in any other random casino. He can still get all the action he wants. I'd personally be thrilled to see Mike Postle in my 2/5 game

Most poker players who go to big california casinos arent internet nerds on message board talking about a 3 year old scandal like us and wouldnt even know who he is

I hope that self-produced documentary tidbit is real. I would love to see it, in an ironic way of course.

There's probably some partial truth there, but I still believe a significant amount of players would recognize ultimate scumbag Mike Postle. And it only takes one for word to spread

Say we're assuming 2/5+ stakes. Your "internet nerds" thing feels a little off to me when the internet is more than half the world now. It's not some huge investment to take a moment to look at your smartphone. If you're playing poker for a living and have any interest, decent chance you saw at least one thing about the Postle scandal

This isn't 2010. The guys still playing are somewhat enveloped in the community, mostly. I just think you'd be surprised how many poker players at stakes as low as 2/5 would recognize Mike Postle instantly

Nah, I get what he meant by the term. Plenty of people drive automobiles everyday but if someone dropped the term "car guy," they would refer to a small sliver of that overall population. Similarly, many use the internet throughout the day, everyday. But not all of them are "internet nerds" in the way Outoftime used it. He seems to be describing the types of people who follow the game by going to places like 2+2 or online poker news outlets. (Hence the "like us" qualifier, by the way.)

Negreanu mentioned something a while back about asking a live room of poker players of their familiarity with Mike Postle's name. It might be from his vlog, can't remember where I saw/heard this. As I recall, it was both a low percentage but also surprisingly high, given how little most low-stakes recs follow anything surrounding poker.

It's not about recognizing him. It's about shame being the only real barrier to him going and playing somewhere else. Scammers don't disappear, and everyone online says vague things about beating ppl up but in person nobody actually does it because we live in a wildly litigious society and it isn't really worth it to link your life to a scumbag just to get some sort of perceived justice. He and many others shouldn't be able to go anywhere and gamble but if we made a list of all the shady ppl who've screwed ppl over or cheated or stolen you'd be able to find nearly 95% of them walking into a gambling establishment this week. Honestly, a centralized list of everyone's past indiscretions would be ideal for people to refer to, but it would result in a ton of libel and defamation lawsuits so nobody really wants to host one.

Postle crossed over into general news culture for some reason. I had two non-poker-playing friends ask me about the scandal.

Hey man, if you could keep that above the rim run going under these conditions, you're a far better man than I've ever wanted to be.

So Doug is going to be Oprah and Mike will play Lance Armstrong......

Would be epic if he went on and said......yeh.. I ****ing did it!

D.

Even in Florida, I'd bet there's at least one player on average at the tables who's familiar with the Postle saga. Most grinders want to fly under the radar at the table and mention 2+2 and the online poker education world in general as little as possible. A lot of rec players aren't aware of 2+2 and the grinders want to keep it that way. It's not hard to figure out why there's no table chatter about it.

That was only because he accidentally picked up his BP bat.

This is true. I mean, I am even very hesitant to watch poker vlogs at the poker table knowing the inevitable conversation that will come with people around me.

Like politics and religion, there is nothing to say. No one talks about the other poker personalities either much, I think it's considered uncool or something.

Yeah, I had quite a bit of that, too... albeit for two reasons:

1. I'm the only avid poker player/fan among my close circle of friends, and one of just 2-3 at my workplace. So anything poker-related will inevitably come up in conversation with me. The AP/UB scandal piece on 60 Minutes was perhaps the best example. (I can't tell you how many people asked me what I thought of Runner, Runner in the year after that came out.)

2. Many people knew that Stones had become my "home" card room. When the story started hitting the news, they recognized it as the place where I played. Of course, I've probably spent as many hours shooting photos at Stones as I have playing poker there, but my colleagues didn't know that.

Still, it WAS pretty funny when that happened. Someone who you know has zero interest or knowledge in poker, and suddenly they stop you in the office hallway. "Soooo... what do you make of this whole Mike Postle thing, huh?"

Random question: does anyone have a link to the hand where postle reluctantly had to call with a losing full house (he knew the guy had the better FH). I think he had 8s or 9s full?

He had 8s full vs 10s full and check called on river, should be in the early pages of this thread