Thinking more about this last night. Gotta put this theory out there.

It's clear Mike had access to exact hole cards on his crotch phone. So what's up with the hat stuffing? Why would another device be needed?

I think it is possible this device was used to tell Mike the community cards (or some of them) before they come out. This would explain the long pauses before he decides to proceed in some hands with straight napkins (45o 94o ect). This also explains a hand where he peels 77 on flop incorrectly with one over card and ofc turns his set. This also explains why he continues with QT v AA on Q high flop v Frank and peels his Q right on the turn.

Hoping some of y'all can dig deeper and run with this theory and see if it makes anymore sense or can be debunked.

https://youtu.be/PR6eMJZ3STk?t=2440 <--- Fixed the link for you

This really is a good hand to watch. What it tells me is there is no way in hell he is looking down at his phone and processing this much information this quickly. Most likely someone is speaking to him through a headset, telling him he has the best hand with 46% equity. Then when he is heads up the person tells him his opponents exact cards. The person could just be talking him through the hand telling things like "We just need to avoid a 9, a queen or a jack."


We need dates on these photos.

There needs to be more investigation into this. That interview makes me really think that Justin is probably not involved. Still, there is a lot of evidence that leads one to believe he is the one involved.

This could be a 3-man operation, but that seems unnecessary. Everything that is done could probably be accomplished by 2 people with no need to give someone else a cut of the money.


He was frustrated and made a mistake, IMO.

She also takes all of her money back, right off his stack of greens! It's the only way to beat him!

Interesting insight mrtoodles. It's crystal clear at this point the whole operation around the televised poker was so compromised and unprofessional, with personal relationships blurred into it all. A small time operation riddled with bad practise throughout.

With this in mind, it's hard to know for sure whether Mike just took advantage of this set up himself. He may not have needed the help of someone on the inside, they were so incompetent and blinded by the atmosphere they had created. I'm not saying this is a favourite, but it does seem possible as crazy as that should be.

That's why the 89s hand is such a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Thanks for the insights mrtoodles

You're right and you're wrong. The 2019 stats (done by me) and the 2018 stats (done by Alecspade).

There were several streams in which he added-on if another player had significantly more chips than he did. There were also times when he would gamble early, almost as if to get more money on the table. The more money on the table, the bigger the game played, and he could win bigger pots.

I looked at each stream on YouTube, determined his earliest possible stack, and looked for anytime his stack got bigger. If he won a pot to increase his stack, I did nothing. But if his stack increased without a visible pot won, I would increase his buy-in amount on my spreadsheet. Looking back, I wish I had a buy-in amount AND an add-on amount. Either way, I took his total buy-in (with add-ons/rebuys if applicable) and his final chip count, and used that to determine his total win/loss. Sure, I could have missed an add-on here or there, but whenever I was unsure of how he got more money I assumed it was an add-on and not a pot won.

Alecspade used Twitch, which has a !win (or something like that) function that counts how much a player is up or down. So his numbers include a starting stack, a final stack, and a win/loss. But because his method didn't account for add-ons, his numbers don't add up since he relied on the !win function, and not the (final stack) - (total buy-in) = (win/loss) like I did. His method is still very accurate though.

If anything, I think his win total is a few thousand higher than the $253,500 I came up with because I erred high. I also didn't count PLO, mixed games, and sit n gos, as others point out, so his actual win total on stream may be closer to $300k.

So no, even Mike's "they didn't account for rebuys" defense is full of ****.

Looking at his phone makes his cheating far more obvious and easier to be recognized. The headset in the hat is completely inconspicuous. If this was a 1 man operation then his only option would be to use his phone to watch the stream. However, if he has an inside guy then someone could simply dictate everything that is happening through the headset and nobody would be any the wiser.

It's possible that he has a device that can do this. However, it wouldn't be the primary form of cheating. That method of cheating requires an inside guy, and there are at least 2 inside guys who potentially have plenty of time to help out in other ways such as talking Mike through hands in real time, which would be far more useful than such a device.

BTW, if he really has an inside guy I wonder how possible it would be to rig the table with a device that reads the community cards. I suppose that is probably too James-Bondish for real life.

This may be nothing, but listen to this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBTJ...utu.be&t=13760

This is from the hand of PLO where the RFID only picked up two cards, not 4. It was mentioned ITT that The Impostle was visibly upset that he couldn't see all 4 cards.

At the end of the hand, JFK TD says "kinda fun to PLAY not knowing what the other two cards are" instead of "kinda fun to WATCH..."

The people PLAYING didn't know what any of the cards were, right... right?

Perhaps. But then you really need to explain the initial investigation into Mike's cheating some months ago, which Justin apparently managed. Justin claimed no evidence of cheating. But Mike said he was never interviewed. Mike was clearly never suspended pending a thorough review.

You would think Mike would need to explain a lot: his incredible win rate, some of the hands people no doubt highlighted some months back (whatever evidence prompted the initial investigation), the fact he looked down at his crotch non-stop, etc. Not only would I expect an interview with Mike, but he should have been taken aside without advance notice when he showed up to play one night, and they should have checked his phone and his hat, under his shirt, his sleeves, everything. If he refused to comply, he should have faced a ban and that was that.

Clearly there was credible evidence some months back, since Justin himself conducted a "thorough investigation" into the possibility that Mike was cheating. Why would Justin waste everyone's time if he didn't think the evidence warranted a thorough investigation?? And by the way, what prompted that initial investigation? Do we know?

I would have also expected a thorough IT review. Perhaps that happened, but since Mike was never interviewed, I doubt there was an IT review, either. It almost seems like nothing happened during this initial investigation!

And if that was the case, it is incredibly damning for Justin.

Final point: Veronica also raised concerns, and Justin quickly shot her down. Citing his earlier investigation, apparently.

First of all there are many many different options for sceeensharing besides TeamViewer and not all would be conspicuous.

The PLO discussion where he complains about missing cards is highly suggestive he was indeed watching the stream, although someone could also just have been sending Signal messages summarizing the stream and noting that they still only saw 2 cards.

I’m thinking later, someone else was watching the screenshare (not even necessarily in the casino, could be in the parking lot) and talking to Bluetooth hat.

I can buy JFK+Taylor inside job or just JFK. So hard to clear JFK because he’s such an enormous moron if he’s innocent, seems as believable to me that Postle just made soul read after soul read. What’s evidence of JFK in Bahamas?

All the x-ray contact lenses to communicate to satellites which read the whole RFID deck James Bond theories are dumb, I think they are fun to come up with but they have so much less credibility than inside man mirrored the stream to Postle and then later to someone talking to Postle via Bluetooth hat.

There's def at least one on the inside involved - and it has to be someone with power. I cite the first sham "investigation".

I’d love to see a breakdown of how much he owes everyone. That A3 vs A9 hand he owes the guy in the Yankee hat 2k ish

Does this case piss anyone off more than anything other thing in poker history??? Love to see Postle lynched.

used to play at stones all the time when I lived nearby, including on stream. always assumed mike was a massive whale/degen on a heater and tbh I always hoped he would be there because he played so poorly.

I remember watching the 88 hand live on stream when it happened and automatically assuming the cards must have been read wrong because the RFID reader in the stones live games was always really bad - I gave up trying to watch the streams I played in because it had the cards wrong so often. only played on stream 2-3 times in 2017 though so I'm not sure how ongoing the RFID issue was

its so obvious that justin and some of the other commentators know whats going on. Always defending mike and his play and sometimes visibly worried that hes going to lose. I wouldnt be surprised if the owner was also involved considering his relationship with mike and how the casino found 0 evidence of cheating in the past.

A relatively minor point about the RFID errors that kinda confirms some things people already knew/believed:

The two hands from around 28-32 mins in this video (where Postle wasn't playing) - https://www.twitch.tv/stoneslivepoker/video/447959031

First hand Seat 8 is dealt AhAd and plays a standard boring hand. Next hand Seat 9 is shown to have AhAd but folds the turn in an obviously incorrect spot (he is behind on turn but it's a tiny bet and he has a ton of outs). Commentators are very confused and conclude the graphics must be wrong.

Just bringing this up because it was mentioned at some point that if there was an RFID error it would be in this situation (incorrectly displaying the previous hand) and not the one pushed by Stones, and this appears to be evidence for that.

When was that investigation conducted? I wonder if there was any change at that time. For instance a change in the way the cheating was done or a hiatus from cheating for a period of time.

That's a funny slip up. Impossible to tell if he said too much or just was stuck with the word "play" in his head from the discussion or something. Super interesting, nice find

I bet there are a ton more "gaffes" where he makes it obvious that he knows what his opponents have that you guys have even found then.

This thread alone should be a huge deterrent to some future cheaters. Everyone involved has to be shitting their pants right now seeing how you sickos are finding all this ****.

Amazing

Here's another:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBTJ...utu.be&t=16350

The Impostle finds it necessary to add the qualifier "I didn't know what they had" as if that would ever be a question for any other player.

this is good stuff, but if you guys really wanted to help any official investigation, you'd create a separate list of just pure evidence

zero chance any prosecutor's office is skimming 4k posts despite whatever is in here

but frankly, at this point it's mostly a lot of reaching that when looked at alone makes the argument that he cheated preposterous

if someone takes a look and reads "he said he didn't know what he had, more evidence he's cheating" then it distracts from the real argument

I think the amazing thing is really the opposite: that you can cheat so easily, and if you don't get greedy, you can get away for it for a long, long time.

You'll probably need someone on the inside. But if you could make do with a reasonable win rate, you are gold. Just don't call all in's with 5-4 offsuit. And fold a lot more to solid bluffs when it's just too ridiculous to call. And don't shove all in with no fold equity with bottom pair after villain shows strength, especially during bomb pots. Just avoid those cheating leaks, and you are going to profit.

I'm glad Admo popped in offering his help for making a website. thumbsup

This is a good point. The FAQ I threw together that got moved to the 1st post is meant as a quick info notice to get the basics of the whole thing. It would be unfortunate if it's looked at by officials and they think "That's what they've got? Meh"

I guess we could compile something quite compelling if we aggregate all the info that's been brought up regarding individual hands, sessions, persons, etc

I would think that a gambling commision or law enforcement getting this case actually would spend their time going through the thread though. It's long, but just starting to read it should send anyone into the rabbit hole til' they're done reading it, especially if it's someone who gets paid to do so lol. Investigations and court documents are routinely thousands of pages of a lot more dense and boring information than this thread is

edit: Commision/officials/Law enforcement getting articles like this should quickly show them that there has been extensive work done though, so I doubt it'll be glossed over: https://www.theringer.com/2019/10/4/...veronica-brill
(Great article)

I also found a tweet somewhere from a person in gambling commission related work who said this is all over their desks, btw. A lot of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBTJ...outu.be&t=8310

Kasey finally starting to be concerned about The Impostle's play and JFK TD quickly shuts her down and explains it away.

It matches up exactly with the square that the guy who adjusted the contrast on Mike's hat showed


Ladies and gentlemen, we got him