I don't have any call to action about the commentators - I think they are incredibly suspicious.

Thank you.

I somehow doubt there are many guns for hire in the realm of expert testimony for poker as there would be in the field of forensics

They do get to decide who appears as a witness in their court and I believe depending on the juristiction (fed vs states) they can request more testimony

The barrier to appearing as an expert witness in a court for a field is rather high

In any case very few cases make it to trial - 99% of the action in these cases happens outside of the court, and the most juicy parts are usually depositions and subpoenas

I doubt the defending sides here (including the card room) have the resources or will to take this to a full trial (or avoid summary judgement based on pretrial which seem slam-dunkishhh)

Based on the podcast there is no way this guy stands up to the scrunity of a good lawyer in deposition

You are wrong. They were playing a lot off stream. How many streams were there 5 years ago? It was def off stream and even HU if I remember correctly. I try find the article and post it.

1. Judges sometimes do hire neutral experts. It isn't common, but it's permissible.

2. The assumption that this is going to be a morass of numbers assumes that prosecutors would be completely incompetent in presenting their case. Now, in fairness, that MIGHT happen. But it isn't likely to.

Because there's just such an obvious way to tell this story that is completely understandable to the jury, that focuses on how Postle's play changes when he starts receiving the information on his phone, how he stops playing when he doesn't have access to the data, how he switched to the hat when they banned phones, etc. All the experts would need to do is substantiate that he changed his play and got worse results when he was out of God mode. Defense experts who tried to deny that would face withering cross-examination in a well-tried case.

And again, that's just based on the evidence we have. If this is properly investigated, we're gonna have a lot more evidence at the end of this process.

You don't get to monologue why he's guilty up there on the witness stand. You're also subject to cross examination AND more importantly the defense will have it's own "expert witnesses". The "circumstantial evidence" you present may be put together by the Jury like you want or the Jury might go a completely different way with it.

No prosecutor is going to touch this as a trial case without a "smoking gun" direct type evidence because they know a circumstantial evidence case will result in an acquittal an increased percent of the time thus jeopardizing their conviction rate.

That's true in the strictest sense, but the game was played like a home game (even when Postle wasn't there). Bomb pots, straddles (including Veronica's trademark "V straddle", where you could literally post any amount of chips you wanted in front of the BB as long as you arranged them in a shape of a V), players 3-betting junk pre-flop, etc.

It was very much designed to be a great television show. There were very few raise-and-take-its when Veronica and Friends played.

...also, natural for a poker forum to focus on the individual, but from my perspective (with the ever present big IF cheating yada yada) the real villain is the Casino. And (yawn IF etc) the regulator gonna do all the damage needed...no judge, juries, lawyers etc (at least that's how it works in the UK...maybe different in the US??). Is that not why the Casino have hired an investigator...damage limitation, get your defence in early etc etc?

I won't opine on what prosecutors will and won't take, because the gaming industry is going to put a lot of pressure on to not do anything to rock the boat here.

But you are absolutely wrong about the strength of this case. What are defense experts going to say? That he didn't win more money when he was in God mode? That he didn't play differently? That it's perfectly normal for poker players to look at their phone hidden in their crotch at big decision points? That it's possible to get soul reads on opponents while never looking at them.

I hear this stuff all the time from non-lawyers. People outside of the legal profession seem to think that you never get a conviction unless there's a videotape of the crime or 2 eyewitnesses or something. Or that anything the defense says will automatically be believed by the gullible jury.

No. Juries actually tend to believe prosecutors. If anything, they do it too often (e.g., take a look at how much evidence was required to convict Scott Peterson and give him the death penalty). Defense lawyers always have an uphill climb. And VERY OFTEN, juries see through bad defense arguments and reject implausible defense experts.

If you are going to say that this is a weak case, you have to come up with something more than "defense lawyers will muddy the waters". They do that every case, and most of the time it doesn't work. What do you think defense lawyers will seriously say here that would actually work to refute the story that he plays differently and wins lots of money only when he has his cell phone in his crotch or his special hat, and his friend is not in Las Vegas?

I made my observation based on this stream and how he was barely playing any hands in the beginning. After watching more and given the comprehensive footage we have obv. it seems unlikely.

As far as bolded though, if he knew a Q was coming he would want to fold out QQ to win the pot sooner obviously. Whereas the standard play on the flop would be to call with top pair weak kicker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AADIsPTsxc
This hand at 4:10:00 would also prove my point about knowing what cards are coming. Given that its likely he cheats on this stream and knows his opponent flops top pair, how does he call and bink set on the turn. Again I don't think its likely he knows future cards and don't even know if any technology makes it possible

I don't know America, and I'm no lawyer, but one of your Legal Eagles (who presumably plays poker) has commented on one of your media outlets, that half your prison population had been convicted on a lot less evidence than this.

Which may of may not be accurate (or even truthfully posted) but it is kinda funny...assuming anyone here has still got their sense of humour.

I don't think he knows what cards are coming - his play is just consistent with the perfect decision if you knew your opponents' cards. That said - there is a Rabbit card feature with the software so my opinion is he can not see what's coming in most scenarios, but every now and then he is able to have information relayed of what's coming next.

yea, it would just be so dumb to involve them though, they are not needed and would really cut into the profits. i mean, Mike did get outed by a commentator in the end, so why involve only some? if i were running the show with commentators in my pocket, i would only have those guys commentate.

But then again, mb some commentators caught them in the act and were forced to be let in, or mb they are all really good friends. The people involved with this were obviously very sloppy so cant rule anything out. look forward to hearing more about this in the future.

I've been following this thread from the start. I don't believe I've missed any pages, and there's something I can't remember seeing covered....namely the economics of Stones setting up and maintaining the stream.

We've heard a few times that e.g. only a "few hundred" people watched the stream live. I was a subscriber on Youtube and even then the views seemed minimal and struggling to get out of 3 figures (I don't think numbers were blockbuster on Twitch either). Obviously they've increased a fair amount in the last week. Remember that YT has a global reach (I'm in the UK) so very few of these subscribers/watchers are going to think Stones is worthwhile to visit, unless they are in the Sacramento area anyway.

Basically, the "worthwhile" audience must be minimal. If the advertising on stream is for future events at Stones, I still don't believe that the outlay can be justified by the (apparently) small prospective uplift in business.

Now let's look at the underlying investment to set this up and keep it running:
-Dedicated RFID table ($$$$), lets say $2k
-Dedicated RFID cards ($500-ish each) so lets say $1k minimum
-RFID tech/software
-Having a poker table that probably can't be used the rest of the time
-Dead space around the table for lights/cameras
-Camera set-up, presumably not rented, but likely owned or at least leased
-Building a booth, and using up that floorspace
-Dedicated floor manager (JFK) during stream
-Dedicated tech people during stream (and for setting up & shutting down afterward)
-Commentators (presumably paid something, maybe Veronica can confirm)
-Not sure what the rake situation was (if any), but it's NOT paying for 5 or 6 employees.

To wrap this up:
The stream was unlikely to be paying it's way & I can't believe Stones owners/mgmt wouldn't have realised this, so who was underwriting the running costs. Was there any cost/benefit done. I'm suggesting that for e.g 2019, the stream itself could been potentially closed down as uneconomic but named persons realised this would kill their cash-cow, so had it's recent running costs covered indirectly by Mike P's winnings

Cliffs: the Stones stream wouldn't exist into 2019 without Mike's $$$$

I agree with this. They often played 5-5-10 and 5-10-20.

It was almost always a straddled game. I would say 1-3 was in the minority of the streams.

The games also played big and deep.

But to me the difference in hand selection paired with his frequency of being right post flop in the most insane spots is what I find undeniable.

I mean the guy goes from folding hands like K9 and QT for $5 or $15 to calling $700 cold with 54o and 95?

Prior to cheating, he bluffed in reasonable spots, but ran into the nuts numerous times. He would value bet when his opponents had nothing instead of slow play as well. Until he activated god mode, then all of a sudden he was bluffing in insane spots but never wrong and always slow playing correctly.

Yeah seems legit.

+1 to lawdude, good posts. Hindsight is everything. Worth noting that even the guy T-bone who was the opponent in one of the most blatant cheating hands (the 86o river bluff where he leaves opponent getting 6:1 or something, and then 'the graphics were wrong!') said he didn't suspect anything and thought Postle was just owning him. (post is here: https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/s...postcount=5040) That said, Joey has said he has info outside of what we know ITT that makes him suspect more people than the big 3, so we'll see.

Another point that came up yesterday/this morning but just reposting again for visibility - in the crucial hand where Mike had 86o and then the cards change to 98ss (from the opponent, T-bone a/k/a 2cunning4yew on here:

I wonder if he is sure enough to testify in court if it comes to it, because this hand is kinda at the heart of everything when it comes to the involvement of Stones staff.

I could care less about some old school players that are losing/breakeven players live that also could'nt even beat micro stakes cash games online in 2019 defend him. Come back to me when you have the top players in todays games defending him.

HINT: They don't exist.

It's importante to note that on Mike Matusow's podcast he claimed he always played the same 'unpredictable style' and his game NEVER CHANGED ...

The latest video says he could be up as much as 330k, winning 77 out of 87 sessions. Holy****.

And the casino has probably removed/scrubbed all physical evidence on site that could have been used to assist.

It's a weak case unless the jury is comprised of an actual professional poker player peers.

Defense experts will simply say he is being punished for winning money. How statistically significant is his winnings? Well, we don't know because the sample of live players we have to calculated from is basically non-existent. Polish it up a little and it'll sound like a bunch of losing players are crying about losing.

I'm not saying you'll never get a conviction it's just very uncertain.

For this reason you won't get a prosecutor to prosecute. You also have to get law enforcement to investigate.


Tend to and will are different.

It's a weak case and if you polled a group of prosecutors they would not take your case. They would instead convict people they can easily convict. Or more likely take deals on people they have dead to rights. That's how prosecution works these days.

What a salty guy. He's a professional poker player and couldn't see anything wrong when sitting with him at the same table (or didn't speak up). Yet he expects it from recreational poker commentators. I understand he feels duped but he shouldn't take that out on the wrong people.

I'm praying that he's not guilty only in the court of public opinion.

The question of whether Mike P is a good player or not is a total distraction. It's incautious and unnecessary to suggest, as some people have been tempted to do, that he's cheating because otherwise he'd lose. He probably can play decent poker. He did play it professionally for 16 years, after all, and he was winning on the (admittedly small sample size of) 6 Stones Live streams he played on before he started cheating on July 18, 2018. But he has won a lot more since then. He has won more than most professionals can make in a year in about two months worth of hours. There is your motive.

And it coincides with a complete, instantaneous change in his mannerisms and playing style. If Mike is in fact good enough to hold up against some of the best, as he claimed to Matusow, then he'd be playing in a very different way. (Not calling 4bets with 95o, not perfectly 3bet bluffing rivers, not folding TPTK only when he's beat and continuing with third pair when he's not, etc.)

The video should start by juxtaposing his Stones interview where he brags about waving money in a security workers face and mocking him for his minimum wage job, interstitched with his Matusow interiew where he claims he doesn't care about money/ego, he's the nicest/most humble person ever, etc.

Don't need to debate ad nauseum but I'm digging in my heels there's major hindsight bias. This is the first time there's ever been a livestream cheating scandal. As soon as the idea that cheating is even a possibility is even planted in your brain it's going to totally change how you perceive everything. With all the evidence in our face, many people are still skeptical - so people who are commentating (itself a distracting job) are supposed to make incredibly bold, public, and unprecedented accusations of the organization that hired them?

Here's some food for thought for people who are suspicious of commentators: there's at least one player who PLAYED with and LOST MONEY to Postle that made a vlog complimenting his play rather than accusing him of cheating.

If something like this had ever happened before I would give the commentators much more grief for not being suspicious. But this is an unprecedented scandal.

And for all we know, some commentators may have made those accusations privately, we wouldn't know. I think Veronica deserves a TON of credit for being brave enough to take this public. If she was wrong, SHE might have trouble being welcomed back into a poker scene.

I am, of course, not ruling out that any commentator COULD be in on it (although if I was inside man I'd see no reason to cut them in). I'm just stating that their lack of public accusation against Postle before Veronica, to me is zero reason to be suspicious of them. I also laugh at people who even implicate Veronica. I would bet my net worth that Veronica is in the clear because if she's in on it there's a tiny chance she'd face jail time and why the hell would she ever risk prison time for something that has extremely little upside and massive potential downside?

JFK is the one who had accusations taken to him by commentators and top pros . Cheating WAS planted in his head. He does not have the commentators excuse to say he just wasn't considering that angle. And he didn't just do fail to find evidence, he actively discouraged further investigation. I'm seeing more evidence linking Taylor to it which is also interesting, but even then I like Postle/JFK/Taylor more than just Postle/Taylor.

JFK feeding Postle was the explanation put forth last week that cleanly explains every piece of evidence put forth so far. People want to theorycraft all sorts of other explanations, but the simplest one is still there, still sitting strong, and has not been disproven whatsoever.

If it's RFID based you can't rabbit hunt with it - at best RFID can tell you what is in the pile but it isn't accurate enough to tell you which order they are in

You're referring to the older Chinese based cheat systems which relied on marked decks and IR

Any decent poker room or casino anywhere in the developed world already has defenses against these systems as the camera literally stands out like a bright torch with the right defensive intelligence tools that the security teams there would have

We are also assuming that Postle will have a decent attorney defending him.

If Postle is no longer gambling because of the fallout, wouldn’t he likely end up with a public defender if this becomes a criminal case?