Ok sorry I don’t twitter…

I used to watch your vlog.

You should make more!

ryan has always seemed like a decent person in the little bit I have seen of him and he is the only one smart enough to keep his mouth shut about the hand until he has some facts.

so my question is this...

How in the **** did you get stuck, or choose, to be in business with a scumbag like nick? every time this guy opens his mouth he cheapens your brand. i mean...he's really scummy. you can hear it in his voice and see it in him manners. plus he's a dick. dude doesn't know what 2FA is. dude doesn't think he needs to run background checks.

Dude is an idiot.

make better choices Ryan.

Sorry, but what kind of people do you think get into the casino or poker business?, do you think they are saints or something. Much more likely the opposite is true.

As I mentioned earlier ITT, you are making a deal with the devil anyway (whether you are a good person outside of poker or not) when you run a gambling operation that relies directly and indirectly on preying on the weak (weak meaning addictive gamblers, obviously not all gamblers are), and/or you are providing an outlet for the weak to succumb to their weaknesses.

When you are looking for a business partner/someone to put up the money in something so niche, you have a pick of a very limited number of people, and in the gambling/poker business they are likely all not to be totally "perfect".

I do agree though that the 2FA thing is a bit dumb, I mean it's been around for maybe 15 - 20 years or longer so even someone low on tech knowledge should have come across it before, it is literally everywhere as standard, or as an addable option.

pssss, they don't run a casino. it is a production company

But it is totally reliant on players playing poker and gambling while doing so, so it is an absolute extension or mirror of what the casino is doing.

A line up comprising only of a bunch of GTO pros is not a product (see some of LATB's recent streams to see how boring a spectacle this is to watch), or it is a product but with very limited appeal, so there needs to be players getting buried and those net losing players are procured by the show or tempted into applying to play on the show, because the show has been created in the first place.

Also, do you think that every player who has ever played on the stream has just got up and gone home afterwards, or do you think that some,
particularly those that lost, may just have got up and tried to chase their losses in table games.

No, I have not. We don’t do that.

none of that means anything and is like saying The NFL Today is a football team.

People working for the production company and also playing in the games...is a bad look. Terrible look even.

People running the production company and also playing in the game...should be unacceptable.

Do Garrett or other pros give you or Nick kickbacks on their winnings via Tips

@Ryan, this is a quote in the report thread from another user:

Can you confirm whether pokergfx was running in testing mode or if all hole card info was on a pre-programmed delay?

When it comes out they were cheating and you get a lifetime ban from every casino in California are you gonna while like a little girl like Vick Nertucci and play the victim card?

No, never. If anyone ever tried to give me a tip or anything, I would turn it down immediately. That’s not how I/we operate.

Damning assessment of HCL's poker stream security by Matt Berkey. Do you have a response Ryan?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbf8UWuNt5E&t=3405s

He knows what’s happened, or at least what’s possible/most likely. My guess is within the week players will boycott and force their hand. Seems to me all it takes is to be buddy-buddy with a crew member? Ez game.

Thank you for answering questions Ryan.

1. Were you or Vertucci suspicious/concerned when an employee (Bryan),making a moderate salary, was gambling at HCL on tables well above his financial level?

2. At a well regulated and secure casino seeing an employee exchange large dollar amount of chips with another player/employee would definitely be captured on security cameras and cause suspicion.

And Bryan had access to hole cards in live time yet he’s on camera exchanging $10,000 in chips with dgaf. How was this allowed/condoned?

The bolded is perfectly fair and I can totally believe Nick does a lot behind the scenes but how is he a fun player or a character? Literally nobody wants to watch him play on this show and I doubt anyone wants to play with him. I actually think he's a good commentator but what's entertaining about him at the table?

Hello Ryan,

Thanks for taking the time to respond to some of us here. I do have one question for you.

How do you guys still feel okay about running HCL shows? I could see why you kept them going beforehand after the Garrett allegations because that was not definitive proof. But now we know there is a lot more going on than just Garrett accusing Robbi of cheating. How do we not know more money wasn't stolen in previous shows? How do you guys still feel okay using the Pokergfx software with real time and not a delay? How do you let production keep their devices on them when working in the booth, especially with real time information be relayed constantly? Like I get you guys fired Bryan instantly but how do you know he's the only one in on it? He would of never gotten caught unless Garrett threw a fit about Robbi which led to private investigators to be hired. Without that, he'd still be working there.

It seems like there's lots of glaring issues in security that need to be addressed regardless of Robbi cheating. I get money is important but i almost feel like cutting the show off for a week of two to put some new security measures would be worth it in the long run for the HCL brand. Even if Robbi didn't cheat, HCL looks mad suspect now.

I attest to this. I played on stream 2 times (B2B days) in February. I had $80ish dollars over a round number and offered it to Ryan as a thank you for letting me play on the show here's $ for dinner type tip and he flat out refused it - saying he had already decided he'd never accept anything, even a nominal amount for dinner. He asked me to give it to the floor person instead which I did.

So in your opinion you believe it to be completely fine for the owner of a stream ... who knows the ins and outs of every piece of tech available in the control room ... to play?

I mean that seems completely alright to you?

I would say listen to Matt Berkeys podcast today if you say yes. Because I can assure you in no other business sport or hobby do I know of where something like that is allowed.

People play in games they host all the time. I don't see the problem. The real problem is (a) the hiring of Bryan, and (b) the allegation that hole cards were not on a pre-programmed delay. Now I don't know if b is true or not because Ryan hasn't addressed it here and Bryan is less than fully trustworthy. But imho playing in the game is not a serious problem and is very common for "home" games.

Home games with no RFID or wireless involved. Sure. People play.

Not owners of licensed gambling business that uses high tech wireless and RFID.

Having watched Berkey's breakdown of there being in his opinion multiple flaws, holes and possible exploits in HCL's game security, I get why Berkey is advocating a stream shut down while all of the holes are permanently plugged.

I also think it's pretty likely that many players will start saying no to the invite on the basis that the game might not be straight, and who can blame them for thinking that way.

Another alternative to Berkey's "shut the stream down" stance, is to keep it going in one or both of two ways:

a) Have just low stakes games for the time being. They could still have interesting line ups.

b) Continue with high stakes, or highish stakes games, but all players in the game have in advance declared that they are donating their finishing stack 100% to their chosen charity,
and make them sign a contract to this effect which also includes that they will show a receipt of the charity donation within 14 days of the game finishing.

This way you could still have a table full of $50K, $100K or whatever stacks (plus reloads) but there is minimal if any incentive for anyone to cheat because any money won
goes to their chosen charity. They are battling for their charity not for themselves.

Thanks for the reply, Ryan. I finally found the post on Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/poker/comme...pears_to_have/

https://www.reddit.com/user/barbaradoylelives/

It’s from an old account with all its other posts deleted, so could be someone who has something against you. Do you recognize the username?

Unless that person comes out with believable evidence/refutation, I’m inclined to believe you.


There have been a lot of other great questions posted by others, and I’m guessing you can’t answer many due to the investigation. After it concludes, would you be willing to answer them?

Lol this seems so disingenuous. So it's not ok for others to post so called lies about you, yet it's ok for you, Nick, and Garrett to slander and post outright lies about others? Slandering Bryan to Doug Polk insinuating that he was the inside man, saying that he moved the cabinets to see the live cards and how he "yelled out" when Robbi gave the money back, that's all completely fine right? Why aren't you in the Garrett thread asking the mods to delete his post which is full of outright lies and unfounded accusations? This post reminds of Garrett's tweet from yesterday, too funny, so ironic and hypocritical, https://twitter.com/GmanPoker/status...04873802825729


Stop repeating this nonsense about how you "had nothing to do with that". By you pulling Robbi out of the game to be confronted by you and Garrett, you directly facilitated in the refund of the money. Not only did you allow it to happen, but you were directly involved in making it happen through your actions and words. Fact is, you and Garrett put her in a situation and pressured her to return the money. When Garrett said to Robbi 'I want my money back', why didn't you tell Garrett something like 'hey that's not cool, that's crossing a line'? Don't you think that as the owner of the stream, it's your responsibility to do that to maintain the fairness and integrity of the game?

And how is it that a player can just decide to pull another player out of the game like that?? If any other player besides Garrett had wanted to pull another player out of the game, would you have directed that to happen so quickly??

That wasn't really a question, and I do not expect Ryan to keep responding in this thread if it just turns into a long list of people airing grievances and busting his balls.

Hosts playing in their own home games would have a much easier time cheating than anyone on HCL, by colluding with dirty dealers, using marked cards, installing hidden cams, etc.

Obviously a company like Ryan's branding itself on its integrity should not have owners playing in its own games. Maybe Ryan did not learn that lesson after the Armenian Mike debacle.

But I suspect Nick would never have invested in the venture if it didn't guarantee him the chance to play whenever he wanted.