hahahhahaa just highlighting for absurdity, these guys are backed for tournaments and get demoted/promoted for having a good/bad MONTH. excellent management/business model over there, obv.

Hi, I am a recreational player and new to this forum. I was advised about this thread so thought I would give my view on my experience at partypoker live millions earlier this month. For all those who think that “you want these players on your table” and “it is good for the game etc” please read this – I had been saving for this festival for ages and planned to play the opening event, satellites to the main and then the finale. I paid for a car and hotel at £800 for the week, bid my wife and kids goodbye and headed to Nottingham. I play maybe only two festivals a year due to other commitments and some other weekly comps locally so these big ones are a big deal to me. I paid for all the entries myself of course, with hard earned cash.

Opening event - I played the opening £1k event and busted with a sizeable shove from the cut-off with AQ and was snapped off by the “Partypoker Pro” in the big blind with K high (and he was not that deep, certainly didn’t need to call off two thirds of his stack with rubbish) who spiked a K and sent me to the rail. He had been playing loose-aggressive and clearly wanted to amass a big stack in one of his “free” entries to go deeper, any way he could.

Satellite to main event – I bought into a 30 seat (£159,000) guarantee satellite £550 which had an add-on of £500 which I also paid for. There was clearly massive overlay in the satellite from the outset. I went deep and at 32 players left we were 4 tables of 8. I had a big stack so wasn’t worried particularly. However, there was at least 3 players on our table with bankroll supply shirts who were clearly communicating and working together to survive and isolate other players. Example? How about this – folded to SB bankroll supply player who has 1.7m behind and 80k in the blind – BB also bankroll supply player and has only 180k of which 160k is in the blind. SB folds allowing BB to pick up 400k in blinds and antes thereby saving him. Anyway, with my stack I made it and won a ticket but I felt sorry for some of the other players who had been knocked out against the BRS “team.”

Main event – so, I am playing in one of the biggest events I have played in, having grafted for hours and hours to win my seat for over a grand. I am on a table with another well known “Partypoker Pro.” This player is playing unbelievably loose-aggressive and is in every pot. I raise his blind for a chunk with A9 and he calls – flop K99 with two hearts. Player checks, I make a sizeable bet as I want any possible straights and flushes out and to make opponent pay for any more cards. Turn comes 3 spades, nothing. Player checks again and I bet 90%of my remaining stack which is the majority of the “Pro’s” stack – “Pro” puts the rest of their stack in, I call and “Pro” turns over J10 clubs for a gutshot! Hits Q on the river and cripples me – went out fairly soon after of course. Now, to all of you who say “oh but you want players on the table like that!” Do I really? Do I really want to spend a chunk of money and hours of play winning a seat after dodging BRS players only to play the main event and get busted by somebody who has most likely unlimited re-entries at £5.3k a pop, does not care how they build their stack as eventually given the number of entries they will get there leaving casualties along the way and generally is playing like a lunatic. Do I really want to make this journey and play in this comp and go out like that, to somebody who is not even working off of their own money and just wants to get lucky on the way to a big stack before playing properly? NO is the answer.

Finale event – so I limp into the finale, £550 x 2 entries, again my own cash. The first entry I amassed a good stack early on only to get my raised QQ smashed up by a pre-flop all in who had K2 – this person was, you guessed it….a BRS player. I found out during a cigarette break that this person was on multiple re-entries and got to keep 25% of any cashes. To put it into perspective, I had 800k, raised to 100k on 20k/40k levels with the QQ and this person shoved 550k with their K2, hitting a miracle K on the turn. I went out to the same player four hands later when they had A10 against my JJ shove – of course, they got there. The second bullet by this time I was on tilt and had not enjoyed my week so I confess I played badly and busted before driving home in a very dejected and miserable state of mind. Will I go back or play any more PP live events, especially there? Not unless this practice of staked entries/re-entries by the heaps being dumped into events stops, whether “Pros,” “BRS,” or otherwise. I feel completely cheated to be honest. If there are guarantees, then these guarantees represent guaranteed money, cash. If for example the main event has £4.5m then I expect to see 500k from the organisers added into it – not 500k of BRS players, Pros or any other players for that matter. Thank you for reading a Rec’s story – I hope that people can see how such practices create an “unfair” event on multiple levels and how players like me can be put off going to events for life.

From an equity perspective the answer is undeniably yes. If you want to make money there is no argument against having ******s in the field spazzing out and donating chips. Or would you rather play against solid players that chip away your stack by making superior plays?

That's of course not the whole part of the story, because for recreational players poker is also about the experience and the aspect of competition. This is what shills like Pads don't understand and that is why they see no problem with posting pictures of grinders bunched together in factories and sharing masses of hand histories to be examined by laboratories and used against recs.

In this case the perceived fairness and the experience of casual players is at stake. If party poker wants to cater to these stables then I really wonder what the gaming commission thinks about that. Also if there are guys playing freerolls that's unfair in so many ways. For example without knowing who is freerolling I am at risk of bluffing people that literally cannot be bluffed.

43% growth in a declining industry isn't suspicious at all, no sir!

That is all your doing through right? Just saying? Don't just say

Where is party poker listed?

Never mind, party was converted to bwin and then to GVC. Currently listed in the London stock exchange. They seem to be having a rough quarter although still slightly up YOY.

Pretty much the same if they are listed, at least in the perception of the market. Does the Londen exchange have some sort of public filing? Stocks I am used to are mostly Nasdaq and have to file at the SEC when they intend to buy or sell which could influence the market. Any chance any of the major holders wants to pump the stock before selling some off?

Joeys podcast with Rob Yong is even more interesting now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk4hdKp7jMM

Several times Joey mentions the growth of Party in the last couple of years and Rob is downbeat about it - with hindsight obviously Rob is aware of how much of their 'growth' is due to BRS and stables rather than the normal punter.

Also it's kind of hinted that Joey should go to their event in the Bahamas, which I presume would have been comped. I really hope that Joey does the right thing and lets his audience know about the suspicious things that have been going on.

https://gvc-plc.com/wp-content/uploa...ing-Update.pdf

For the full release.

By the way could also be related to stock options that are vested when a certain director reaches x amount of revenue over a certain quarter. I'm just floating stuff that has no factual basis, just hypothesizing.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm not quite as cynical as that. I think the situation would be more like someone higher up at the company saying to the poker event organisers "Here is a marketing budget. Please do something to increase the number of players participating in live events."
It's just that they've spent that 'marketing budget' in a way that doesn't meet everyone's approval. Indeed, it looks shady.

You are of course correct in regard to the equity perspective however I would “prefer” overlay to be in the form of zero players staked in rather than loose players or any players at all for that matter. Overlay should be overlay right? Also I still think that having a load of players playing crazy on free entries although statistically beneficial to other players means that invariably recs like me will get sucked out on and there will be “casualties” which shouldn’t be the case in such a high buyin event where you expect a good standard of play. I was one of the casualties and yes I am a little bitter but in my opinion they should not have been in it in the first place. It’s a lot of money for me and I can’t accept being bust out as a strong favourite in the pot by some freerolling nutter who should not even have been playing. Sorry if you disagree but it’s just my take on a miserable experience which could have been different without the hoarde of free entries.

Of course overlay is better than literally the worst players on earth since it is free money, but realistically they would have lowered the guarantee if they couldn't fill it.

Yes for the next event maybe but surely they couldn’t have cut the guarantee for this one if it looked like overlaying right?

They would have lowered the guarantee for this event if they didn't know in advance they had access to a whole bunch of stable tumors.

Ah yes of course that I understand - it would not have been £5m I suppose

If you can cut a guarantee because it looks like overlaying, then it's not a guarantee.

Yes I think he meant if they didn’t have the stable of players in reserve then they would never have guaranteed £5m in the first place. Shouldn’t be like that though should it.

Can you elaborate on the chip dumping and other collusion? Were the BRS bosses telling people to collude or were fellow players annoyed when you didn't 'do them a favour'? How wide spread was this? Are you able to provide any evidence for this (skype screenshots or texts etc)?

Hi - I'm a newbie too and forum lurker. I'm bored on a Sat night, watching the footie, waiting for pizza before X-factor comes on to watch it with my daughter, so I thought I'd add my brief two penneth fwiw...

First of all, the reason I have quoted 'The Lipo Fund' is because I agree with most of what he is saying, he has written it very eloquently and succintly, with inteligence.

I'm pretty sure he is Ryan Reiss too, if anyone wants to know - so you know it's written from someone you may respect.
The reason I know this, or rather think I know this is because I overheard RR talking to another grinder in Nando's pre £5k comp, and specifically he said "I am currently 2nd in the leaderboard".
If it's not RR, then I apologise
Anyway let's be real - it's 50-50 whether it is RR. It either IS Ryan Reiss, or it's not


I have never been (or wanted to be) in the BRS official squad but I have played for them many times over the last couple of years - I am extremely grateful for the chance and opportunity that they gave me, whether it was keeping 25% of winnings or not, I was and am grateful.
They even offered me the chance to go to Kings and Sochi and play for them in $5k and $10k buy ins - I was flabergasted, but each time I had to unfortunately turn those opportunities down. Some of us have businesses and families you know and don't just click buttons with terrible posture and live in our mum's basements!


I think that stables are good for the game and if you want to put a load of people in the comps then great! The prize pools are epic and the comps are great. The more players the better.

From reading a lot of this thread though it seems clear to me that the greyest of areas or as some of you say 'shady dealings' and perhaps the ones that most need to be explained and clarified are the following:

1. accumulative $PPL$ being used in one squad/stable...for anyone...whenever and for whatever. against the T&C's I believe.

I actually won my own £5k entry and tried to sell my ticket/entry several days prior to the comp but I wasn't allowed. Why?...It would've been used anyway, so the pot wouldn't be any less. But alegedly BRS and others maybe can swap and change any $PPL$ won and use it for anyone?

2. PP keeping/retaining money won on a split basis. This seems to be the greyest of areas for me. And actually I'm not sure that I disagree with it either. 'If' there's an arrangement in place that PP put players in to the comp and then keep/retain a % of the players cashing, so what?...keep putting people in, make your guarantees, wipe off the staking against tax by classifying it as sponsorship/advertising/promotion - clever business sense I'd say... 'If' they are doing that.
At the end of the day, that/those player(s) might not cash at all, so in theory the comp has still overlaid, and if they do cash, it 'might' not have overlaid as much.

I'm fine with it, keep doing it...I'll be in the car park tomorrow waiting for the call!

Hi JA23,

"The Lipo Fund" Twitter, aka Marty Mathis:

https://twitter.com/martymath?lang=en

PokerStars Blog writeup (from 2012) on Marty "TheLipoFund" Mathis:

https://www.pokerstars.com/en/blog/p...nd-089813.html

Current Twitter exchanges between Patrick Leonard and The Lipo Fund:

https://twitter.com/martymath/status...59438984122368

https://twitter.com/plenopads/status...94992316948480

Sorry - I did mean "a few businesses, in many jurisdictions" - fingers moving faster than my brain...

Despite sort of implying it in my post I am no expert on gaming law, its unsurprisingly really complicated and different jurisdictions and type of operator are subject to loads of different rules, it's actually not 100% clear which regulatory pannel would deal with a complaint should you make it.

A thick end of gaming law these days is all to do with responsible gambling and money procesing, with a lot less than you'd expect dedicated to "fair game." I'll try amswer as best I can to your question whilst maintaining I'm only very marginally better informed than anyone else.

In your example of the lottery, lotteries actually have their own set of rules (I realise this isn't relevant) to answer your question I don't instinctively believe that putting house tickets in cover a gte would be illegal in the sense that it broke gaming laws, I think as long as the game was fair within the rules of the game (so every ticket had equal chance to win basically) it would be allowed. In the most sophisticated jurisdictions there may well be some requirement to make the information public...On all this (lottery related), I might be wrong.

On the implied example of the consequence of a POKER operator funding players to play in a game that it offers, again, I dont think that would constitute a breach of regulations, as long as the game remained fair (any entrant, disregarding ability, would have an equal chance of winning). You could cite potential conflict of interest but that is a vague topic and not one that would be covered specifically by gaming law.

It would be my opinion, from my experience that the accusations towards Party ITT would not be classed as breaking any gaming law.

*my experience comes entirely from online operation and I have never worked in the UK*

He is not ryan reis

Originally Posted by JA23
2. PP keeping/retaining money won on a split basis. This seems to be the greyest of areas for me. And actually I'm not sure that I disagree with it either. 'If' there's an arrangement in place that PP put players in to the comp and then keep/retain a % of the players cashing, so what?...keep putting people in, make your guarantees, wipe off the staking against tax by classifying it as sponsorship/advertising/promotion - clever business sense I'd say... 'If' they are doing that.
At the end of the day, that/those player(s) might not cash at all, so in theory the comp has still overlaid, and if they do cash, it 'might' not have overlaid as much.



The issue with this is that it provides a house edge - no matter how small, it is still introducing one into a game where there is meant to be none.

Quote:

(While there are rumors that players have been also able to use PPL$ for online tournaments, I have yet to receive proof of this. I am offering a $100 bounty if anybody can send me proof of this claim. There are other accusations as well which don't exist beyond hearsay, so I won't mention them)

For now I can only speak to the facts of the things I've seen and confirmed. That PPL$ was transferred amongst BRS players through a central fund, with no obligation for the player won actually won the prize to use it.

I was with BRS earlier this year. Any PPL won was sent to the BRS holding account, this happened automatically and did not require me to transfer it. I can confirm that when I had won PPL I was able to use it to play online, not for a normal tournament as such but for an online day 1 of a live event. This money was transferred to my normal account by a 'brs ppl' account and I then had to register for this tournament. The money was in my account then so technically I could have used this to register any tournament, although that would have guaranteed punishment whether having bank roll 'zeroed' or being sacked.

Depending on current performance you could play an unlimited amount of PPL satellites, when they started the initial requirement was to get them to run by meeting the minimum amount of runners, rather than a focus on results. Surely if the main focus was to get them to run then the money was coming from party themselves?

I received no transfers direct from party they all came through brs.

I know A LOT of people feel the same as you man. UL.

I too didn't enjoy my week either (for other reasons too), and I didn't even bother coming back for the finale either as I'd not enjoyed myself that much!