No it doesn't. Bullying has no place in this forum.

The Ataman discussion should have been over once the user got banned. Please stick to the topic of this thread. Thank you.

The statement was that you don't bully a troll. Of course you bully a troll, they deserve it for trolling. That's like saying you don't jail a rapist or fine somebody for speeding.

And everyone just loves to feed it.

The big problem for Mike Postle and Justin Kuraitis trying to accuse Veronica of inviting a known cheater to her game, is that 1stly for that argument to make any sense, they have to agree that Mike Postle is a cheater.

Secondly, they have to prove that she knew about it.

And even if the second point is true (which all evidence seems to point the other way)-- they are still saying "hey Mike Postle" cheated.

So what their odd argument is trying to say is that (paraphrasing Postle/Kuraitis): "Veronica is honest, and an honest person wouldn't knowingly invite a cheat to a game. Therefore, Postle and Kuraitis were not cheating." -- that is what they are TRYING to say, in an odd Catch-22 roundabout way.

The problem with their argument is that we can show that an HONEST person can indeed be fooled, lied to, tricked, and swindled.

So it is not mutually exclusive that Postle could have cheated AND Veronica had no knowledge.

I think these two events are entirely possible to occur at the same time: 1) Postle cheated with Kuraitis' help AND 2)Veronica knew nothing about it.

It seems to bolster Veronica's innocence that she was the one who blew the story and always thought his play was odd-- which is caught live on camera.

^What I've just said above might be obvious to everyone, I just wanted to spell out exactly how odd their argument is.

Wilbury:

With the usual proviso that IANAL, my understanding of the way criminal prosecutions work (where a conspiracy is involved) is the prosecutor has a talk with all the co-conspirators and their attorneys. The gist of the conversation goes something like this: "OK, the first one to talk gets the best deal" where the "best deal" is [often] a grant of immunity for agreeing to rat out his/her co-conspirators.

Since California law is that state courts don't get involved in resolving "gambling disputes" between players, the only possible criminal law violation I can see is Postle committing tax evasion via structuring. If the IRS can prove that Postle was structuring and did so with JFK's full knowledge and consent, a criminal conspiracy - to evade taxes - might exist. In that case, the Government might decide to go after both Postle and JFK hoping to turn one against the other. (If the Government secures the testimony of several of the chip runners Postle allegedly recruited to cash out his chips, that would strengthen their case against both Postle and JFK as chip runners would be very unlikely to be cashing a player out without their bosses implicit/explicit knowledge and approval.)

If the IRS charges a criminal conspiracy (for tax evasion) against both Postle and JFK, it will be interesting seeing how quickly one turns on the other. This might explain why Kuraitis has been so adamant in his insistence that Postle did not cheat. He must fear that if the Government charges both him and Postle in a criminal conspiracy, MK won't hesitate to turn on him.

True....I take my share of blame for this. Posts rightfully removed

It is only the California civil courts that don’t have jurisdiction to resolve gambling debts- a criminal case could still be brought through the courts.

The structuring isn’t tax evasion- it’s done to avoid the cash reports and SAR to the treasury. So proving structuring may not prove anything. Arguably, Mike could have paid all his taxes on those funds even if he processed them through the cage 5k at a time. I think the only persons that can be charged in a criminal conspiracy for tax evasion on personal taxes are husband and wife.

Proving structuring is proving a crime, since the act of structuring is itself a felony.

Criminal cospiracy to evade taxes? No you certainly ANAL.

JFK's "consent"? What does that even mean? How the f does JFK consent to Postle structuring?

The obvious charge here is the one you over looked, and the actual crime that may have been committed is hacking the wifi (if the wifi was hacked of course). I don't know if JFK can give Postle 'permission' to access the wifi or not, but if he did that would seem to be a pretty good defense. JFK wasn't a lowly worker, he was the poker room manager if I understand correctly, Postle could reasonably believe that he had the authortiy to acccess the system for w/e reason.

But the conspiracy thing is adorable. Really. Consent. LOL

You are correct. I should have said proving structuring may not prove tax evasion. Also, the crimes suggested would be federal, not state, crimes and not subject to the jurisdiction of the California courts.

There are definitely Ca criminal statutes that could be used to prosecute the cheaters.

And, here, what?

You structure by structuring. You commit tax evasion by not paying taxes on all your income. Doing the first does not mean you did the second. The proofs required for both crimes are unique.

I don't even think the IRS investigates structuring. Isn't that a banking law? Isn't that FBI? Or some other agency?

No way is Mike Postle going to get arrested and charged with some high level tax ****. Maybe the IRS will send him a bill or a judgment or garnish some wages, but he is not going to federal prison for tax evasion lol.

We do have quite The Situation here.

In other news, Mike Postle was spotted at Ralph's Grocery store.

https://youtu.be/44Ut6tyBPV4

Oops, sorry... I thought I was being clearer about the civil vs. criminal distinction governing that policy, and that a criminal case is probably the next resource to actually get Postle for cheating – a long shot as it may be. Thanks jjj.

Also, the income tax idea has the Untouchables fan in me intrigued. Veronica, start practicing your delivery on the line "here endeth the lesson."

Longtime luker to the forum. Been playing poker recreationally for a long time. I read the Wired article and it really peaked my interest enough to read through a lot of the thread and chime in.

First of all, to be clear, I think there is no doubt that he was cheating. For me, it's not about win rates or anything like that, just down to an incredible streak of individual decisions that couldn't have been right so consistently unless he knew the hole cards.

However, where I see things a little differently is this: statistical analysis is perfectly valid to find anomalous cases that are worthy of investigation. SA is also pretty persuasive when it comes to the Court of Public Opinion. However, I don't think it's ever been the sole basis of a prosecution, simply because (as others have pointed out) it's hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. If I were the defense lawyer, I'd say something like, "Things that defy the odds happen every day; the odds of hitting the Powerball grand prize are about 1 in 292 million -yet someone wins it. We fully admit that my client got extremely lucky, but the prosecution has presented no proof whatsoever that his luck was due to cheating." A jury (for the most part) isn't going to have the knowledge to understand that poker play isn't like the lottery. They understand "hitting a hot streak." I really think that a case like this, for criminal prosecution (and even civil proceedings) needs physical proof of cheating, not just Statistics.

What I really don't understand is why people continue to patronize Stones. It seems to me that most people who understand poker also understand that Postle cheated and that someone who works for Stones or an affiliated company had to 1) be in on it or 2) run such a shoddy operation that they are liable based on gross negligence. How is that place not shut down from lack of business?

Finally, I really think it's time to start thinking about removing technology from the poker table. If there is hole card information being relayed to someone in real time, that information can be exploited somehow. Streaming live cash games with hole card info just seems like a really bad idea. Whatever exposure a casino might get from Twitch, etc, just does not seem like it's worth it. It also makes me wonder: How many of the lower tier tournaments have had undetected cheating like this? Hell, how many of the top tier ones? It would be so easy to play just good enough to increase your chances without raising "GOD LEVEL" suspicions.

It may just come down to Stones being one of the few options for live poker in the area (I'm not from the area so I am just guessing here). It seems like that place had a strong local contingent, and locals can be loyal to their neighborhood room.

People might also be thinking that if their table is not on stream, then they don't have to worry about their hole cards being known by someone else at the table.

But ultimately it comes down to: degens are gonna degen.

Good question, though.

I think the easy answer to this is because Stones has a regional monopoly on offering an addicting game of chance (gambling). Not that I am all that familiar with gaming in NorCal, but I assume with traffic, it’s the only gaming option for a large population of players. Before the lawsuit was resolved, I would not have a problem playing there off-stream if I thought they employed normal casino live poker anti-cheating measures. After their conduct post settlement, I would take my business elsewhere.

Not to be a contrarian, but this argument that Stones is grossly negligent is pretty weak without knowing how the cheating occurred and how easy it was to compromise their card reading system. I think it’s pretty telling that very few of the players in the game expressed they were being cheated in the two year period or even immediately after. You would think these players would be paying the most attention to the table actions of the game’s biggest winner. You would think that the regulars would be watching the streams after the games for both information and entertainment. But after watching some of the streams and gameplay, the regulars frankly did not seem that smart.

I remember back in the day when they started the feature tables at the WSOP that players objected to revealing their hole card info based on security issues (and they were replaced at the table). With the hole cameras at the table, if I suspected cheating was occurring, I would immediately suspect somehow the information was being received in real time. It is hard for me to buy that Stones should have caught the cheating and were grossly negligent for allowing something so obvious to occur when the 30 regulars did not see it so clearly occurring in real time.

If there was proof that the livestream was the source of Postle’s information (which I believe is what happened) then I could buy negligence or gross negligence depending on those facts.

I don't think that's the case when you have Thunder Valley and to a lesser extent Capitol Casino.

TWEET BY: Bart Hanson - Crush Live Poker

RELATED: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...tories-769966/ (NVG - AP/UB POTRIPPER backstory)

A look back at the POTRIPPER scandal and how it relates to Mike Postle/Stones Live Cash Game hand histories.

Counter argument - People are convicted on DNA evidence all the time, which is presented to the jury as a probability statistic [of a match].

Probably the worst counter analogy I’ve ever heard

The case against Postle is in danger of going down a dead end and being a bit of a red herring if it focuses on exactly how much he won, as that precise figure will always be disagreed with by one side or the other, and is so time consuming, when that time could be spent in more profitable ways. And establishing how he cheated is more important to know than how much he won.

As time goes on, it looks as though all that can be confidently said is he cheated, as his streamed results were impossibly high, but it has not been possible to identify beyond doubt how he cheated. We know he was getting information on opponents hands sent to his mobile phone that he looked at under the table, and there are sessions when he seemed to get messages sent through a transmitter inside his cap. But who had access to the streamed information and sent him that information now looks unlikely to be discovered. One could narrow matters down by seeing who was working on the days of his winning streaming sessions to see if there are patterns. But when it comes to hard evidence, the bird has flown a long time ago.

All these poker conspiracy theorists gettin' BTFO'd has got me rollin. Hubris won't allow admitting they were wrong and ruined innocent peoples lifes.