Nobody can actually be as dumb as you appear to be, can they?

Just wanted to quote this to emphasize what we are dealing with nowadays from people under 35.
Good luck future generations!

Have to admit that when Polk’s video first mentioned the “white thing” I thought it was a coke vial since he didn’t say earbud yet. First I’d heard of it and thought it was pretty funny.

I was just thinking about something that never occured before. Tamayo and Joe have been friends for a long time. Tamayo even was on Joe's rail when he won. The odds of two best friends both winning the main is so astronimicly high. Is there some sort of cheating going on? like higher level than solvers.

Tbh it looked like he wanted to keep hugging Tamayo and wanted to give it to whoever was close….the guys look is pretty funny but maybe he was overserved/ stoned…

so people gonna be breaking down the earbud like they did Jose Altuve crossing the plate when he hit that walkoff huh?

also good to see didnt take long to bring up race

Sure doesn't look innocence to me. This is the look of someone who know they just been handed something illegal and must hide it before the cop find out.

https://youtu.be/vKRg2rzWMHE?si=mg6UGFFyN56A7vRv&t=381

If you drop your earbud your first instinct would be to put it in your pocket not immediately find someone to hand it to.

People are digging up older WSOP and tournament footage and finding people on the sidelines with phones and laptops clearly watching the stream of the tournament. Then speaking to the players at the tables when they walk over to the rail. So far the earliest examples are from 2015 meaning that this kind of player advantage has been going on for close to a decade and likely longer without being a big topic. This is all coming to light because it happened in such a massive spot, the finals of the biggest tournament.

Even if people all think that someone at this year's WSOP was using solvers during hands or wearing an earpiece, nothing will likely happen. Though next year the WSOP will likely be far more strict about what people on the rails are doing during the tournament. And they'll probably check people for earbuds more thoroughly. Certainly makes some of these tournament organizers look wildly unprofessional and amateurish.

I mean we had Cada winning and coming in 5th, Newhouse coming in 9th twice.
While it's extremely unlikely for 2 friends to win the main it's not that impossible. And Joe M seems like a legit tourney wizard.

Obviously a ton also had to go right for both of them at the final table to actually win.


Just listened to the Polk interview and Griff comes off as a really good guy.

Did it get clearly rules out as being cocaine or molly ? To my eye, it looks like a little bag of drugs much more than an earpiece and that would also be something someone would pass around and someone would look nervous about. They would probably deny its drugs because doing drugs on a WSOP camera might get them banned even more than a solver would. Makes little sense to hand someone your airpod.

My opinion, subject to change if new evidence is presented:

1) Electronic devices of all forms should be banned at the table but also on the rail for game integrity

2) Team Tamayo was pushing a grey area. But assuming there was no RTA via earpiece during a hand, the rules were not clearly defined enough until now that it would not be fair to say they were cheating. But it should be considered cheating once the rules are more established

3) Whether we should allow coaching is a legitimate debate but its clear the majority of the community does not like it and feels poker should be an individual game so coaching should also not take place during the final table. Obviously this can't be enforced during various breaks but we can ask final tablists not to converse with their rail outside of breaks.

4) Team Tamayo has handled it terrible and looked like *******s.

I edited this post a few times.

But now I see if you watch the full video, it's very clear it was the Airpod that McKeehan was wearing on his right ear, that he took off, and handed to his friend.

I gotta say...wearing an earpiece in one ear...taking it off, and handing it to your friend and then he looks AS IF you just handed him a bag of cocaine...it does add some intrigue to this. Sketchy as hell.

2015 main event. Joe McKeehan with Jonathan Tamayo and Dominik Nitsche and a convenient laptop on the rail.

In the past, it was thought the rail was looking at other players cards from hands on pokergo etc on time delay.

Interesting same team was there in previous win.

Makes td look bad. Could damage brand and or get sued.

I'm kind of speechless... At the bare minimum both of their banners need to come down. I would go as far as banning them from all future wsop events.

I don't think they have the evidence yet to take down the banners, but it looks bad.

Who gives a **** about banners lmao

Not much they can do about 2015., except maybe banner.

They are going to really need to tighten up the rules about earpieces, computers on rail, contact with rail, etc. Possible several st final table can sue tamayo, team, and casino.

Seems like if yamayo was using earpiece for whatever, that is clle a r cheating under current rules.

They can ban any of these guys permanently if they want.
Put up 10 banners of them who cares.

Everyone will probably have to take off their shoes to play next year

Maybe strip searched.

The rail probably won't be allowed cell phones if there is a rail.

Not when you want to keep celebrating, which pocketing the earbud would require not leaning on the pile.

Insert [look at banner Michael] gif “Tamayo Win Event”

As a purely recreational player who doesn’t have the time or inclination to study GTO/solvers I’ve cut back my online play for ‘fear’ of being up against bots/people using RTA/people who have studied and have their charts printed or displayed as they play.
Live should be 100% OPTAH and consulting your rail during play shouldn’t be a thing.

Chess players don’t get to wander off to talk to their seconds during a match.
Tennis players don’t get to be coached during a game.

Have a line between the players and the rail that keeps them 3 or 4 metres apart during play. Close enough for encouragement, not close enough for whispered conversations about strategy.

How are so many of you getting outraged about the ear piece? Did you even watch the coverage?

Tamayo wasn't wearing an ear piece. There were plenty of times where he had his hood down and an ear piece would have been obvious. The photo of the 'earpiece' is not clear and looks light lighting reflecting off his ear lobe.

Why was McKeehan wearing one? The simplest and most obvious answer is that he was listening to the stream of the action. They'd have been stupid to not be watching the stream.

As for the laptop on the rail. Running sims, solves, or even generating optimal range charts should absolutely not be allowed and the WSOP need to clarify this and clamp down on it next year. It is not at all a good look for live poker.

However, like the ear piece, a lot of outrage seems to be coming from people who haven't even watched the FT and have drawn some wild conclusions. People acting like he was there every hand and looking at the charts for the next hand. He went to the rail maybe 4 or 5 times, including the final hand and only when there was an all in and a call situation.

Now, I'm not saying it's right. But let's at least be realistic about what happened. In my opinion, creating ranges on a laptop is cheating and shouldn't be allowed, especially given the announcements that were made before each WSOP event regarding RTA, solvers etc. I was there for a week and heard this announcement for myself at the start of each tournament I played, although I wasn't there for the main, so can't verify that it was announced at the start of the main but it would have been crazy if they did it for each event but not the main. Logic suggests that the announcement was made at the start of each day one.

If Tamayo was looking at laptop info every hand, he should be disqualified. It's not fully clear from the coverage but even when he went to the rail, it seemed he wasn't even looking at the laptop every time. Obviously we have the pictures of him doing it that one time, maybe it was twice. So he's looking at the laptop info maybe once or twice during the heads up battle. At most he could have looked 4 or 5 times as that is the amount of times he approached the rail during heads up. Obviously he can also look at the info during the two breaks they had, but that seems fair game.

My personal opinion is that the rail guys should have been ejected for the 'simplified sims' they were running and Tamayo should have been given a warning. Should he be stripped of his title? No. Does the title come with a taint? A little bit. Do the WSOP need to take action to address this going forwards? Absolutely. But did the WSOP staff even know what was happening with the laptop? Probably not.