Think it's unnecessary to flame the arb panel, they all put in lots of hours to make the decision in a tough spot with no compensation.

Most of them are probably quite successful busy people who gave up their time and came to what they thought was a fair decision with no malicious intent, disagreeing with it is one thing, but it's not an easy job to do and there is basically no reward for it.

This maybe correct but my opinion is it is different in this situation.

Is there strict evidence of op exploiting his opponent from a dataset coached by Thomas? Did this dataset result in winnings beyond variance in multiple spots?

Where is the evidence?

All I see here is arb team understanding he hasn’t told the whole truth so their decision to void the very thing is soley based on feels.

Same op then decides to save faith and pay out the side bets in an attempt to “solve the solution”.

In circles that won’t post here this is an absolute joke and no one is saying a word.

I agree completely. So can the arb panel please publicly post the evidence that lead to their decision? Clearly just saying that it is unnecessary to question a 5 person ARB team that has come to conclusion is ludacris to me. There is a reason why arbitration in the courts is 1-2 maximum.

Allow us all to stop speculating and post the evidence and conclusions.

5 people came to a conclusion allegedly so why can’t we?

Lol “they did a great job”
Who the fk r u?

I think they should release the arbitration discussion. Let's see exactly what sort of a kangaroo court this was.

They have released the decision. Release the evidence that supported this descision so we can stop speculating and make a more educated understanding of the matter. In my opinion OP sacrificed himself due to a ruling based around “not telling the truth about being coached on a 6,000 hand history sample”.

Okay that’s fine and understandable, does it warrant losing the Hu match, paying back many side bets and ultimately destroying his reputation?

If the arbs think think this is correct then please to avoid further speculation release the evidence so this matter that has been ever so public be finalised.


This so important for multiple reasons:
1: The community that do not understand HU to a level where they would dismiss a 2 year old hand sample resulting in soul crushing ev river exploits that grant an edge.

2. This situation in general will likely determine OPs future in any type of situation similar to this and be a speculative “cheater”.

3. Anytime a decision is made by a selected team of arbitrators it means that every situation surrounding their decision has a ripple effect and guilt/truth will never be questioned.

4. Anytime someone loses a heads up match they will bring up information they likely KNEW at the time of the loss to angle a decision awarded in their favour in the event of defeat.

It would also help to know the arb process, how each side presented their evidence. Maybe OP didn’t do a good job articulating his side. How evidence is presented is as important as the evidence itself. Especially when dealing with what I assume are non poker playing individuals. I can’t for the life of me figure out how how people who don’t play poker could accurately arb a situation like this. It seems they would need a lot of background and contextual information about HUNL, data mining, hand history sample sizes, etc to determine what kind of EV gain OP could have expected from this 2 year old sample (relatively worthless to anyone who knows the rapid evolution of NL over time).

Going by the Discord screenshot that was posted, one of the arbitrators was Kagome Kagome who was one of the most successful HU draw and FLHE players from fulltilt days

You dont have to be an arb if your too busy to be an arb you shouldn't accept. But its a hard job but releasing the arb chat is very easy

I think the same reasons the arbs decided in ruling against paint are the same reasons paint has folded publicly. Arbs don’t want to be seen allowing a speculative cheater win and the public doesn’t want to see a suspected cheater cheat . Everyone is quick to judge and fold to pressure that if this continues every heads up match may contain an underlying angle .That’s what people should be talking about not the specifics of this case so to speak.

I am terrible at articulating things I would get eaten alive by a 5 man panel. This brown guy seems well connected. I could see arbs being subconsciously bias especially in a bigger panel which can become more of an echo chamber or where you want to fit in and go along

See this is the exact problem.

The public see public poker figure and jump straight to conclusion.
We know who the arbs are. No one is saying the decision is correct or incorrect we are saying to stop speculation publicly post the evidence.

If I’m completely honest, a HU reg from 5 years ago may aswell be a fish. Apart from Kevin and another I wouldn’t suggest that an opinion from any of the rest would warrant the outcome that had succumb based on theoretical knowledge of HU. Not only that the decision was based on something that did not result such an edge that would be classed as cheating.

If they have evidence the public doesn’t have, simply post.


The questions should be.

Did paint cheat?

What is cheating in the arbs opinion?

Did suspected cheating result in complete ev advantage over his opponent or should there have been an infringement.

If none of the above is correct then you have a feel based opinion that has been advised by Brandon’s concerns by which the public would see as “cheating” thus pressuring the arbs bias to void the match.

Arbs voiding the match then in the public’s eye defines paint as cheating, he is then bullied into paying out side bets based on the arbs decision(poor decision by paint) but given the outcome seemed logical at the time. Upon reflection it seemed that what some initially thought at the time has come to light.

My issue is:

Why do they have to post?

If the decision is final and there's no way around that then what's the point?

I feel OP and any1 else in his corner may find it easier to move on from the challenge.

I’ll give you an example. From this case let’s stay I challenge a HU end boss 6 months ago, the end boss laughs at the challenge but he goes and studied my game non stop for 6 months, reaches out to other players/coaches I have and Aquire “exploits” against me.

I find out about this and in the arb contracts or agreements if there is any foul play then the match can be awarded in my favour. I knowingly keep this to myself.

I play the Hu match vs the end boss, he crushes me and I say that the end boss has gained an advantage from talking to my old coach. The old coach and the end boss dismiss everything because the information discussed was let even worth studying.

It comes out that the end boss did look at data somewhat gained in a grey area but dismissed it as being an edge .

The arb team rules this as cheating, villian is awarded the win.

You can essentially setup HU matches in this scenario due to the nature around what is cheating and what is not.

Did the end boss lie? Yes. Did the end bosses coach lie. Yes. Did it result in cheating no. It’s simple as that.

I haven't quite qot my head around how a xbook works so i am assuming Paint had been paid out $25k from being up in the challenge and had to pay back the money when the challenge was voided.

So we have a realistic number around $30k? (As it was possible the challenge could have gone south with a different arb ruling/if the challenge had been fully completed.)

PLUS about $8k in coaching to zenith/thomas.

And im now aware $10k was a mistake to pay out the sidebet to Brandon (from Paint's pov).

** Q: can Paint reframe the situation as a $30-40k investment in becoming a better player/a v v expensive lesson? **

I am not saying you're wrong.

I am saying: it's too late to do anything about it now.

If it was a big freeroll from Brandon vs Paint then from Paint's perspective it must feel gutting.

But that's only 1 possibility.

Is Josh (the original arbritator) to blame?
Is Thomas (Paint's coach) to blame?
Is Brandon to blame?
Is Paint to blame?
Are the 5 arb's to blame?

because op clearly cares about his rep which is why he possibly torched some money and made this post. if op didn't care he wouldn't post

You didn’t understand my post or maybe I didn’t articulate it well enough.

If this isn’t talked about now it’s essentially an angle any reg can have in the event of knowing their villain is studying information gained in an unethical way/ grey area.

Comments like there is nothing he can do about it now further strengthen my opinion that if we throw the rug over this situation and not truely identify strictly the evidence surrounding the decision then cases moving forward can be compromised in advance.

Quite frankly I think all of the above have made poor decisions and are somewhat to blame. The situation here is has brought an issue to light at directly what is cheating and does it warrant the outcome, despite paint succumbing to the arbs decision.


So essentially to answer your question I would say the arbs and public opinions having weight towards individuals and their public status that ripple affects an end result.

To the last couple of posters (movin target and koshko) thank you for taking my posts at face value and engaging with them fairly.

My point is:

1. Yes the arb ruling/process in this exact case may need to be reviewed. (Although every1 knows it is binding, and it won't change anything.) It was possibly an angle by Brandon and it would be good to tie up any loopholes for future situations/challenges.

2. Specifically for Paint. Nothing will change! His reputation will not be salvaged in the short-term even if the arb's provided more information and the consensus is that the original ruling was incorrect.

He has tried his best to salvage the situation/make things right.

The mature/objective people/players can see that for what is. The rest of the community will continue to call him a scumbag and scammer.

IMO he has to look at it this way: if you compare today to 6 months ago (or whenever the challenge was accepted) whatever has happened in the meantime look how much better of a player he is now, how much more he knows, how better placed he is to take advantage of an opportunity in poker now (based on skill, experience, knowledge).

Your first point is the only thing worth discussing at this point imo.

Are you Paint on a burner account?

(If no who are you? Why are you invested in the situation?)

I am interested in the situation but am not directly involved so have kept it @ a distance.

You seem not to have.

Also don't see why the arbs should post their chatlogs for the twoplustwo jury.

If you agree to arbitration, you have to stick to their judgement - I appreciate OP cares about his reputation and wants to get his side of the story out there, and that the arbitration could be seen as a bad conclusion, but even OP isn't I think requesting it's reversed.
The level of outrage in the thread also seems a bit overdone, it's a tough situation to rule on.

I, for one, didn’t realize there was already a large thread about this issue.

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...andal-1821912/

Can’t delete previous post but acknowledge I made incorrect assumption about arbitrators.

Quite simple really.

1. No coach on earth would be able to use a 6k HU sample a devise a counter strategy against someone learning a GTO strategy, they wouldn’t waste their time on it.

2. Over 2 years the hand sample would likely be significantly different.

3. You could not develop a strategy over 25k hands let alone 6000 hands as variance would likely factor in Brandon’s “exploitative” play.

4. Even if there was a magical strategy that you could develop , I don’t think that Thomas would be capable of coaching it or even comprehending it.

7. After x amount of hands being beaten Brandon suspends play and starts conversations by which he suspects zenith is coaching paint.

8. Why would he suspect this? It would be almost impossible to know.

5. Even if all of the above occurred I personally don’t think it is cheating, unethical yes, cheating no.

6. I suspect that the Arbs would likely be susceptible to backlash if there was evidence of unethical play they would be in a very tough spot and almost have to claim the situation as cheating to uphold their status in the community.

In my personal opinion it is much easier to identify GTO frequencies in spots from students if you have been taught them yourself.

It could be as simple as two players are taught one spot very strong and then other spots very weak. The player that plays 2 years after still remains somewhat strong in spots Zenith coached well but weak in others and this exploit/ realisation is then an angle.

I believe in this specific case that Brandon has identified such aspects in paints game, may have been aware of Zenith coaching him and maybe used that as an angle as an out for being down so much.

Identifying that your opponent is using a strategy that was likely taught to you 2 years ago is much more believable than figuring out that you’re being exploited from a 6k hand sample.

No horse in the race just logically doesn’t seem right to me.

My logic combined with the actual events seems more likely to me than cheating from a 6k hand sample. The only people that have that information are the ARBs, so with complete respect to them can we just specifically clarify exactly what was cheating?

It was stated earlier ITT that Zenith had 250k hands, not 6k