ohhhhh....so the absence of evidence is the evidence? Is that right?

no? they were pointing out suspicious behavior and saying its suspicious, also Ryan trying to hide the information isn't "absence of evidence" its just a fact.

I was referencing the "two guys living together" inference, not the poker stuff

[QUOTE=smoothcriminal99;58444329]I dont think Ludas a good player but he plays in lineups where everyone is really awful. I imagine the reason latb banned Luda is because he was poaching players for home games not that he was cheating but without a statement it’s speculation. I don’t think Luda is even winning that much at latb but maybe he is top 20 at the moment. He certainly isn’t usually top 20.

dunno where Luda got his money but he was definitely no nit at 5/5 I can confirm that. he just blast opened (like 7x+ raises, at least a 20% 3bet (serious) and stacked off light several times PF. He also put several people on tilt and made the games good. other than the excessive tanking he was very good for the games. he's likely a winner against fish-filled HCL games but 100% not winning at 5/10+ in any normal lineup and even a loser at some 5/5 games.

Its not the fact they lived together its the fact they covered it up

[QUOTE=acescracked84;58448953] he's far from a wizard. but with the loose passive donks that fill up HCL he's going to win through sheer aggression.

This was not one hand in isolation. GT's point was he was being targeted ("a mark") with stacked decks against him for a while. He also mentioned "this is why I keep getting asked to come back".

He mentioned the KK < 44 hand against airball right after he bought big. Big pre-flop 4bet. 2/3rd flop bet on 883. Airball called. and turn is a 4. He lost more than 100K.

During the same session his KK ran into Airball's AA and he lost ~150K but somehow saved half of his stack. Because of airball's turn check-jam line instead of bet-bet-bet line. Airball had AA > KK against Santosh too in the big million dollar game. Interesting that a desi insider was picked for the desi marks - GT and Santosh.

A few sessions earlier GT 3bets 75s over a button / LP raise, Airball cold 4bets 92o from BB and board runs out 568x7 and airball stacks GT.

He had several sessions where Luda and him went back-and-forth where Luda mostly had garbage against GT's premiums. He won some and lost some. But all that was to set up this hand. At least in his POV.

Luda and Airball are the two biggest insiders of HCL. If an occasional outsider gets set up again and again against them, suspicions are very natural. Especially after the LATB backstory of Luda and Ryan's long incestuous relationship.

I was very surprised to see GT back. After the last year's episodes and his big losses, I thought he had already figured out that he was a "mark"

The buttonclickr and Airball hand comes to mind in this context, too.

Also interesting there was no game on Wednesday, the day after. They showed a previously recorded session. As soon as GT decided that he was not going to play the next day, the game broke. The mark left and there is no game any more.

Airball is down piles on this show. He also plays more than basically everyone. Of course sometimes he's gonna cooler people in big spots. It's basically all been downhill for him after the Buttonclickr hand.

yes exactly. Just because Luda or Airball had long losing streaks, or are overall losers, does not mean they are not part of a cheating ring. They could just be quietly losing to other lower profile ring members while fleecing the outsider marks. Their personalities attract the outsiders who lose in ridiculous setup hands (Luda calls 4bet oop 50 bigs with a third of his stack with 86s and Airball cold 4bets 92o) which are justified by saying that's how Airball and Luda play. And then in other sessions, they quietly lose to other insider ring members so that their overall winrates don't look ridiculous. Not all cheaters are Postles.

I reference an actual scandal, with bigger money, more important people (Lerner Family not the HCL nitwit family) and you still want to talk about the roommates like it’s a smoking gun, and with zero new evidence presented. People are entitled to privacy and might not want their living situation public for lots of reasons other than a stream poker scam play. Get some real evidence and make me type out a flowery post praising all of you investigators.

If some hands are indeed stacked against outsiders, as GT suggests, that would explain the GMan-Robbi episode. GMan controlled the lineups and played his A+ game against much weaker players creating huge profits for himself, but would never agree to deck-stacking or any form of cheating ever.

HCL initially benefited from GMan's popularity and got the eyeballs. But eyeballs and Youtube ad dollars are tiny compared to profits that can be made by setup hands in favour of insiders and against the outsiders who are attracted to the show because of the eyeballs. Also some fishes did not want to play against GMan any longer as they were losing too much just because the skill difference was so huge.

Once the show became popular enough that Ryan and Nick figured the popularity would survive without Gman, the Robbi plan was hatched as that was the only way to get Gman out of the show. There were two options. Either start cheating Gman in subtle ways so that he stops playing because of losses, or cheat so blatantly by an unusually bad actor Robbi that Gman would immediately figure it out and stop playing himself. Not sure why the second option was preferred.

I have no evidence that GT is right, so this is just an internally consistent pure speculation.

GT is the furthest thing from a nit you can imagine. He has a famous hand played on Hustler where he 5b 22 and got set over set against Henry. I was also playing in the game and saw him play all day and he is no nit. He was a nice gentleman who loved to battle with anyone.

Always found this strange tbh.

Just watched the video of the hand. Saw Luda call off almost a quarter of his stack (13K) with 8,6s. Right then I knew something was up. Then we see the flop - BOOM! The fix is in.

Afterward Luda's whole conversation is weak sauce. Almost sounds like a low level con man trying to sell oil stocks or home siding. I like when he blinks multiple times in succession while talking. That's a tell folks.

I wouldn't advise anyone I know to get within a mile of that game. This guy's Vertucci's dialogue only makes it look more suspicious. Whether the massage girl is involved is irrelevant to me. Not sure any signals are required to stack a deck.

I've seen it all (and then some) in my life and my final comments are this. When there are large sums of money and human beings involved you better watch your back. There are a million ways to fix a game. It's actually much easier than beating a slot machine that takes a lot of technical know how, and they've done that too. And are still doing it to this day! I've seen crooked shoes and crooked crap tables and know for a fact that they were in use during the mob days in downtown Las Vegas.

Cheating and collusion has been going on in L.A. forever! In games 5-10 and up it's prevalent to this day. I've been on the losing end of a couple of cold decks in years gone by, and seen dealers who work closely with the player sitting next to him. Yes, it happens!

You ever watch how well a magician handles a deck of cards. Well there's some magic in play here too, and everywhere else big card games are played. I do know of one very adept card mechanic (from Ohio) who dealt in Vegas for years, and I've been the victim of a card mechanic sent in to stop me from beating the house playing Blackjack years ago. That's back when the dealer held the two decks in her hands. Yes, I said her!

I'm at an age where I no longer give a sh-t. I made mine in real estate and don't need to try to outun the nuts any more. Good luck to all you honest poker players (and that's most of you). Just be careful is all I'm saying. If it looks funny and feels funny trust your instincts. For the most part the big tournaments like the WSOP are still on the up and up 100%. The big side games there are another story. I've played some 75-150 there in year's past and the players were a little too chummy for me. Ha Ha

Stay well kids!

Yep first time a spew tard ever put In too much pre and flopped trips.

Watch other episodes. Its standard for him. He open hands like Q2s utg and calls big 3b OOP or limp/3b/call_4b w/ Q9o etc. Mostly loosing obv.

I've always been a fan of watching HCL, the lineups are great and action super fun to watch. As a long term winning poker player who is very much on the nitty side, I'm always in awe (not sure thats the correct word, perhaps amazed is better), that payers who play like maniacs or like Luda are seemingly winners long term. The samplesize here is absurd to take into account. In my experience and yes, all these maniacs who play like Luda, are long term losers and end up busto. There's a fine line to appear like a whale whilst being able to sustain a decent winrate. Of course in home game type scenarios, you have to give action and give up ev etc, but I find it very hard to beleive that alot of the very loose 'pros' are winning long term. For exmaple look at Nik, hes basically a whale, who has nitted it up majorly since his -8m downswing because even a fish like him is starting to learn that you can't splash about like a fish and be a long term winner - you can see he's visibly frustrated with having to fold stuff he usually used to be in the mix with. Theres a difference of it being an illusion of being loosey goosey which top pros can walk to tight rope. People like Luda are a dime a dozen and come and go in poker all the time, hes fun to watch and it's entertaining and the 86 hand is kind of whatever, but to call a whale maniac who is running super hot a cheat is a little far fetched. Lets revisit it in a year and see what happens. However I wouldnt be surprsed if there's cheating going on too, I'm just here to watch and enjoy, and try to live vicariously through the maniacs.

Im amazed this is even a discussion.

Spewy player flops trips in a 4bet pot and stacks Aces, and ??

There is literally no evidence here at all.

some 2p2'ers just love a conspiracy theory.

I still don't get how people think Airball is a cheat.

He is down $500k across live streams and lost $1m in a single game to Handz, Rob Yong and Tom Dwan who probably aren't helping him hide his losses.

Plus he lost $1m+ in that heads up vs Berkey.

It's almost as funny as the people who think Eric Persson is part of a cheating ring.

Its as simple as Airball comes off as a less than reputable person, so people are more inclined to think that he is somehow part of a cheating scheme. Its congruent with the rest of his character to be a cheat.

Where does his money even come from? How can he lose week after week? No one ever confirmed what firm he supposedly works/worked at to gain his money.

Its not really that implausible of a scheme to have a cheater who loses big by having him win big setups against "outsiders" and then dump it to other insiders by just playing loose/bad. If he loses to them, fine. If he wins, fine. They are splitting the money after the game anyway (if they are cheating ofc). Also loose play generates views.

The lineups are going to crap. Slowly losing interest in the show. Imo the lodge needs to stream way more. Hellmuth was on HCL the other night, Mattusow was sposed to be on too but they wouldn't let him. Lame.

with all the bickering (especially when Airball called the clock on Mariano with KK) and mindless chatter the stream has become unwatchable for me.

That's not really anyone else's business to "confirm."

Its not anyones business but you would still think that someone on reddit or twitter, or elsewhere on the internet, would have dug up something that confirmed anything about it after so much time of him being in the spotlight. The non-existance of any info makes me believe its not the truth.