As chillrob alluded to, how can you possibly know for sure that he wasn't receiving information about live tells of opponents that his poker friends had spotted for him, or that they weren't giving him other profiling info on opponents, or doing previous hand analysis for him, or giving him live coaching about certain spots, or that he wasn't looking at push fold charts on his phone.

Nobody knows that. Also nobody knows if one of the other players received information through something in his rear side (see: chess scandal) or morse code. Or "old school" to their watch.

If the tournament directors are strict enough about the phone to take everyone else's phones away, they probably also check for other electronic devices.

You have follow rules. In this case EEE got disavantage for “cheating” but its against the rules, he should get some penalty.

Like recreacional drugs. If nba player use weed he deserve get some light penalty, even if that was bad for him and his team, simple because its against the rules.

Imo problem here is the rules.. sure its pathetic having this rule but thsts it.

Ps: im not judge, no idea what type penalty EEE should get but imo very small like “cant register a tournamtn next x days”. Confiscate money/acc would be bizarre.

BRAZILLLL NEVER GIVES UP

Mate, it's a poker tournament. If he wanted to, he could get up from his seat, walk over to his friend at the rail, and do all of these things. You don't need a phone for that.

Have you ever watched the WSOP Main Event final table? This is exactly what happens between hands when players run to their rail.

(Funnily enough, Eelis is probably one of the few players on TV tables who don't do these things, since I don't think he cares enough about a non-PLO 25k to bother a friend and ask him to sweat the livestream.)

I for one would be pretty surprised if the tournament directors did anal scans for electronic devices, but it's Rozvadov so you never know I guess.

The main reason for banning phones on the feature table is obviously so that friends can't tell you how an opponent/opponents played a specific hand 45 minutes ago or whatever the delay might be, or give you a general update of the last 45 minutes, e.g. "seat 2 Freds Lubkevs is raising very light from LP". And this is all very possible of course because of "cards up" coverage on the live stream.

Obviously this info can be given by friends in breaks, or even looked up yourself in a break, but that is up to ~1 1/4 hrs later, so of far less value.

The consensus among poker friends and acquaintances of EEE is that none of the above was what he was receiving, but say someone without him requesting it decided to message him info on other players' ranges or if they were bluffing or not in a previous hand, would he ignore the information?

There's also the temptation factor, that one might not set out to request/receive such info, but are tempted to get it after initially only sneaking the phone in to play the online comp.

Okay, you will send them all broke any day now. Oh wait you must run your business, whatever bs that may be.

Poker is BS, parasitical profession with no end product.

But when I return, yes, if I can stack or even bust a few Finns, I will take great pleasure in it, especially if it's you.

Mate,

It's a live poker tournament. They are not being held there at gunpoint. They are free to get up from the table any time they want.

Again, If EEE or anyone wanted to, he could set up a friend to watch the stream 10 feet from the table, and walk over between every single hand (or during the hand after he's folded), and do all of the things you mentioned. This is also pretty common, and allowed (see: EPT, WSOP Main, etc).

Again, funnily enough I doubt EEE did even bothered to do any of these things, whereas I'm sure many others did.

It's pretty clear you have no idea how any of this works, yet you are firing pretty serious accusations ITT. I don't think it would be the worst idea for you to take a break from this thread.

Maybe you should start a campaign to have phones allowed at all live streamed tables given that you don't see it as an issue. Also, if someone/anyone playing a live stream table did start getting up regularly, or even occasionally, and talking to a friend on the rail, it would raise an obvious suspicion that they were doing so to get previous hand information from them.

You have a good point that at some events players do go and high five their rail after winning a big pot, and that is a loophole that you have uncovered, that hand info could be given to them during the high fiving.

The accusation that I am firing is completely proven within this thread itself, that a number of Finnish players have openly said that it was "reasonable" for him to sneak his phone in to play the online comp, or have by inference said this, Vesku and you being two people.

If you/they think it is reasonable, then what other rules do you/they think are reasonable to break, or is it just this one thing?

Maybe there should be two sets of poker rules, one set of rules for Finnish high stakes players and one for everyone else.

For the last time, THIS IS ALLOWED. The thing you think is not allowed, is perfectly normal and allowed. Not worth it to even address any of the other nonsense.

It may be allowed but it would 100% be called out as against the spirit of the rules if a player got up and consulted the rail when playing on a live stream table.

It's quite revealing just how entitled your little clique feel, that you will argue to the death to justify a clear breach of the rules or to brush it off as totally minor.

People are either honest or dishonest and once you slip into the odd dishonest thing hear or there it will inevitably escalate into doing progressively more
severe dishonest things and/or at a higher frequency.

Interesting that EEE admitted that he had made a mistake in his post and would accept any punishment handed down to him.

That is laudable, however later in the thread Joni Jouhkimainen said that they both thought it was reasonable to play on the phone (break the rules).

This makes EEE's sort of apology look like it was made because he got caught breaking the rules, not because he broke them by accident, or was unaware of them.

I guess I'll recap what (as I understand) actually happened here, since it's probably better than people reading all the nonsense and getting confused. Apologies if I got any of the details wrong.

1. EEE registers into the 1k WCOOP PLO Main from Finland, plays days 1 and 2 from Finland. Makes day 3, when he's due to be in Rozvadov. He travels to Rozvadov with the intention of playing day 3 from there while playing the 25k at the same time.

2. He jumps in the 25k, gets moved to the TV table and then gets told he can't use his phone there. It's too late to unregister and he has a huge equity spot in the PLO. So he'd either have to forfeit his stack in the 25k, or his PLO tournament equity (which I'm assuming was also around the 25k ballpark, not sure about that tho). Mistakes were made on the way to arrive at this situation, but once you're actually presented with this spot... it's a pretty impossible one.

3. He decides to continue playing on his phone at the TV table anyway.

4. This thread gets created.

5. Stars freezes his account.

6. EEE posts ITT, says he's cooperating with Stars fully, and that he takes responsibility for his actions and whatever punishment Stars decides to slap him with.

7. Stars investigation is still ongoing, the end (for now).


He broke two rules, which are:

-Playing on Stars from Rozvadov -- even though both Finns and Czechs are allowed in the exact same global network and this tournament was also available for both, the local jurisdiction doesn't allow foreigners to play from a Czech IP. So he used a VPN, which is directly against Stars rules.

-Using a phone on live stream (to play the PLO tournament), which none of the tournament directors made him stop, even though he was doing it in front of the cameras.

Neither of these gave him any sort of edge in either tournament. He sat out multiple times during the endgame of the PLO because he was in a hand at the live table, and I suspect he wasn't able to focus 100% on the 25k either for similar reasons. So if anything, he did his opponents a favor with his poor planning.

Should he have been smarter and planned ahead better? Yes. Was it a pretty silly thing to do to VPN on Stars while sitting in a live stream in front of 1500 viewers? Also yes. But honestly, faced with that spot, I would probably have done the same thing, because I wouldn't have known what else to do.

edit: I don't mean to imply this should just get shrugged off -- I think Stars are in a pretty rough spot here as well and it's really hard to say what's fair. I'm also not going to express my opinion on what my decision as Stars would be here, as I'm definitely too biased for that. But what for sure isn't fair is a lot of the posting ITT suggesting all kinds of nefarious crap.

Are you trolling or have you never been to a poker tournament that has a TV table?

There are no rules against it and people do it all the time.

FWIW, the main reason for the phone ban on TV tables is that it looks crappy on TV if players are on their phones the whole time unless they're in a hand.

Yes of course, everything else is nonsense, because you (Chuck Bass) say it is.

He broke rules to gain money / gain EV, it is a simple as that.

You are trying to give him a free pass in the sense of, "he could have planned his schedule better", "he found himself in a tough spot".

The bottom line is that he has shown a propensity to break some rules to make money (not lose money).

I think you are wrong, I think the main reason is to prevent it making it very easy for players to watch the play on delay. Put it this way, if phones were allowed
all players would be stupid not to have the stream loaded on their phone and be continually watching it.

Yes I have seen live streamed TV tables and players aren't running over to their friends all the time. There is a lot of chat before the first hand is dealt and in breaks but not much during play.

You're ignoring all of my other points about getting coaching, looking at push fold apps and that friends could be doing focused analysis or profiling from the live stream,
and sending their observations by phone.

Clearly you can consult a push fold app in between hands on a phone on a non live streamed table, but if you're the only one that can do it at a live streamed table, as well as look at GTO solutions, but no one else can, then you have a clear advantage.

Forgive me for saying that you have the worst takes here, which is saying a lot.

Luv u bro <3

You are so dumb it hurts.

I did play o/8, so the nut low was a priceless possession dunces <3

So was the rule that he can’t use his phone in the tournament at all, or was the rule that he can’t use his phone at the TV table? If it’s the latter that makes this whole thread even more of an idiotic reach.

Of course it is only at the TV table.

Really?

If phones were allowed on live stream tables, it would create a completely different kind of game, as players would all be watching the game on a 30 min / 45 min / 1 hr, whatever delay, and adjusting their play accordingly to what they have seen from previous hands. Players might also then play some hands in a different way deliberately, knowing that opponents will then see that hand 45 minutes later, so a kind of "style of play bluff", if you will.

So to let players have phones at the table messes way too much with the game dynamics, and would change it into a different kind of game.

If you really believe I am wrong, then why not just have the live stream playing on a big screen for all players to see?

Perhaps it is not me that is the dumb one here. Consider that.

The violation of rules *to gain an advantage* is what makes something cheating. There are rules about dress code and etiquette too. If you show up with no shirt and start yelling at people did you break the rules of the tournament? Yes, but you didn't cheat.

Call it what you like, if you did those things, I imagine you wouldn't get any of the prize money. The same thing should happen here.