The council includes five well-respected members, and not all are connected to GGPoker. Jason Koon and Fedor Holz (GGPoker), Andrew "LuckyChewy" Lichtenberger (LearnWPT), Seth Davies (Run it Once), and Nick Petrangelo (Upswing Poker) have been selected to help fix one of poker's biggest problems — cheating.

https://www.pokernews.com/news/2022/...list-41547.htm

This could be huge:

"Even worse for those permanently banned for serious offenses, the PIC is working with major live tournament operators to install an industry-wide ban. That includes the World Series of Poker (WSOP), World Poker Tour (WPT), Triton Poker, Poker After Dark, Kings Casino, Asian Poker Tour (APT) and many more."

Lol'd at the last sentence:

"If the Poker Integrity Council is successful in cleaning up the game, Koon and GGPoker will be heroes."

In my view this seems like a good first step.

It'll be interesting to see how they handle the first case of someone going public that they were banned but did nothing wrong. If it's a matter of a huge number of detailed hand histories determining RTA, then how would that be presented to those of us with popcorn on the sidelines? Or would someone's accusations of being banned for no reason just not be addressed in public?

In my view public perception of the PIC will be very important.

How many people who are banned for cheating admit they did cheat if they didn't get caught red handed?

That's not even a poker thing. Tom Brady got banned for cheating and hasn't ever admitted to any wrongdoing. Lance Armstrong only admitted to doping when it was proven with almost 100% certainty that he did. Then he said he would do it again. Getting wrongfully accused and banned sucks but I guess that falls under occupational hazard.

Kind of ironic GG, the site with the least integrity, is running an integrity council.

Solid line-up of names though.

Apestyles was banned from GG for using RTA and has always maintained he is innocent

I'm referring to those who state that they did not cheat despite being banned, such as apestyles as mentioned by someone after your post.

the guys they picked for this poker integrity council are some of the most boring players ive ever watched play, and at the same time id probably pick these guys as the most trustworthy. Maybe that goes hand in hand? Either way, I think they have a good group of guys to tackle the cheating issues.

Poker Integrity Council headed by people with vested interest in the poker market who make their money either by directly engaging in poker games or staking people. Sounds like a terrific idea and is not at all a conflict of interest.

Yeah this isn't going to work at all

Which is exactly like Tom Brady who got suspended 4 games even though he keeps saying he didn't cheat. Most of the time people are just lying. Sometimes it hits the wrong people, the same way it does in every regular court of law.

I don't think we are saying opposing things. Or maybe I don't at all understand what you are saying? For that reason I will try to clarify what I am saying.

It will be interesting to see how they handle cases in which the person comes forward and credibly denies cheating. Tom Brady's denial wasn't credible to most people in my view.

Yes people lie, especially cheaters. If the PIC bans someone for cheating and the public learns about it, then in my mind it'll be pretty darn likely that the person actually did cheat unless the PIC does something to violate public trust (very unlikely).

Then if that person publicly states that they didn't cheat and offers some sort of explanation for what occurred, it will be interesting to see whether and how the PIC responds publicly at all.

If the PIC does not respond publicly at all, then it's up to us popcorn-eaters to make up our minds based upon the likely very limited information we have. In other words, a credible denial (not Tom Brady's denial) would probably sow significant doubt maybe to the point that many of us wouldn't have any confidence in believing one way or the other whether that person cheated. That would in my view undermine one of the primary reasons for having the PIC.

If the PIC does respond publicly, then for the response to be effective it would probably need to convince a decent percentage of us that the person actually did cheat and I don't know how they would be able to do this effectively if the evidence is many thousands of hand histories which most of us do not know how to sift through and figure out. And I doubt that the PIC would publicly argue the case anyway and instead would just leave it at "This person has been banned for cheating due to RTA" which could leave us in the dark.

In a best-case scenario for the PIC they ban someone for cheating and whether or not the person comes forward to deny it we the public feel pretty darn certain that the person cheated. I suspect that this will happen in the majority of cases such as recently with Jake, Ali, and Brynn in which I believe that most people seem to agree they cheated.

It will be interesting to see how the PIC handles cases in which the person comes forward and credibly denies cheating. My statement is not bold just that it will be interesting.

Get what everyone is saying but at least they are trying right? Could deter some people at the very least,

Come on Im sure they will be fair and impartial and would never try to remove all the folks they're losing to

OK. So what is your solution?

There isn't one at the moment, but having a system that is potentially banning legit players is worse than doing nothing.

I don't know what role the players above will play in decision making but you can't have active players deciding who is and isn't cheating, it's a huge conflict of interest as already stated.

Online poker sites won't share evidence with each other and then there's GDPR issues on top of that. GG have banned apestyles and he's current at the WSOP, if the above deal with live operators goes through is he banned from all live events?

This is a great idea, but they really need some diversity to this panel. First of all Phil Galfond's name needs to be part of this, I can think of no one in the last 20 years of poker that has his level of respect for everyone. Secondly, it is important that all of the panel members not be NLHE high rollers. This cannot be perceived as simply guys wanting to gain an edge. As a low, mid level cash game player for 15 years, our games are greatly impacted by cheaters, stables, bots, certainly with a higher frequency than the big games. Additionally, we need members from other countries. I am sure we can find some highly respected long term players that represent at least the highly populated online countries.

Sounds interesting concept in theory. In practice sounds like an idea that could open a whole another can of worms.

Honestly dont think it makes much of a difference

first thing they should do is provide correct pokercraft results instead of results before rake. I never understood why this is legal

Didn´t Holz also ghosted with his stable in the Pokercode Stream House?

This has potential to be excellent or a disaster.

Err....

Which member of the council is going to be the one that gets to tell Leon Tsoukernik he's banned from his own casino?

Trash High Roller Regs have the ability to ban elite regs.. what could go wrong...