Bad look - agree
Can’t keep growing with him playing -disagree

As evidenced by the popularity of the stream. These guys are top notch at creating. And I’m not sure anything short of outright cheating is getting in the way of what makes them clicks and money.

As evidenced by Nick Vs real estate seminar BBB history of claims filed. The numerous accusations posted online sound so close to criminal, but just a sliver of air to get paid and keep the money without serious legal troubles. At the very least several of his customers thought he engaged in highly unethical behavior.

It will not change. Greed is a powerful motivator. They will ignore the background noise unless the masses call for it. They have enough random joes watching now who could care less if he fleeces his “regulars” on the regular. Or if he excludes crushers from lineups or where they sit at the table.

I don't entirely agree with this.

I think that bad ethics, bad publicity, bad behaviour, bad background of an owner, whichever of these might be present, leaves a bad taste and will put off a significant number of viewers.

I agree that there will always be random Joes as you put it, but when 10K people are watching the stream, a lot of this number are not random Joes, they are people like you and I that follow poker and what is going on in the game / the industry.

A similar thing happened with Doug Polk (promoting the now failed or semi-failed CoinFlex), ..... do you not think that his brand was damaged by it and that it has not affected his views? I would say that it has definitely affected it negatively.

I don’t see a scenario vis a vis the HCL investigation in which you aren’t at liberty to answer the following. So I’m respectfully asking.

1) Were you and/or Nick V aware Robbi was being staked by RIP? I think no biggie if so FWIW.

2) Did Beanz approach DGAF who approached you to get Robbi on the stream? Again IMO I think that’s fine. Beanz is a leach by not necessarily a cheat. And obv she was a good choice. Well until the hand etc.

3) After X (dunno who) canceled and 2nd choice Double M couldn’t get from NYC to LA in time (he said this on Nick V’s pod) Did Airball and RIP plastered out of their minds call you to get on show? My hunch nit/decent winning player Airball who’s prolly always last choice used RIP to encourage you to get himself a seat. Where as you wisely took that opportunity and snagged the much better choice, rec player RIP, to fill the seat.

and if Nick says "No, I'll keep playing" ... what next... you think it makes sense for Ryan to post messages on 2+2 trashing his partner?

They definitely exclude people. Maybe not on the big stakes games where they'd otherwise have an empty seat.

but the lower stakes games have a lineup and if you're not connected, the organizers won't even talk to you. LATB also had a much more open list until Ryan got involved.

They literally said that these streamed games are "reality television". That you are basically only going to get an invite if you show up and play loose and spew chips and have a high VPIP. And that the "insiders" like Vertucci can have low VPIPs and not jeopardize their invitations to the games. You get a seat for playing poorly if you are not connected. But connected players are not held to that same standard and can play tighter or protect their wins when ahead and not risk being uninvited in the future.

This is absolutely true. I had business in LA quite often and played on LATB a couple times pre Ryan. I had a trip pre Covid so I contacted Ryan the week prior by phone, email and PM on 2+2. Never heard back. Went to the Bike to play anyway and actually played with Ryan a bit. Brought it up and he said he was running the list different than the old LATB and he was pretty much putting known players in rather than randoms. He was cool about it and actually got me on as an alternate if anyone left early on that days show. They actually called me with 30 minutes left in the show but I passed. He also said the next time I was in town ti contact him and he’d try and get me on. Never followed up though again after that. You need to pretty much know him, be a known player or know someone involved with the show to get on.

1) no

2) yes

3) Nik was asking me earlier that night (the night before the show) but I had no idea at that point that he was out drinking with Rip. Late that night, I thought of Rip as a possible replacement for the player who had cancelled, so I texted him (again, not even knowing he was with Nik), and he confirmed that he was down to play. I usually am going to try my best to fill seats with the most fun/softest players first.

It’s fine for Nick to play in his own game. Tons of people do that. It’s not ok for there to be one standard of play for everyone else then Nick gets to nit it up every stream.

Are you at all concerned that by creating super soft lineups you may be ironically limiting the show's viewership potential? I have no doubt that your work was instrumental in improving LATB viewership and making HCL the best poker livestream in the business. But perhaps the formula for success that you've established is actually limiting HCL from taking things to the next level?

Look at High Stakes Poker's formula to success for the first few seasons. 2 recreational players, 2 big name players, 2 online crushers etc. This provides something for everyone. Big name players for the droolers, recreational players for the degenerates, and online crushers for the pros/serious hobbyists.

Also, I miss the Friday games you put together on LATB. It was really fun watching Dan Zack, Gary, Art, GMan etc all battle each other with Nick being the only fun player at the table most nights.

So you try your best to fill the seats around Vertucci with the softest players first. Which is what everyone already knew was happening. Do you see where this is highly unethical to allow him to play in a way, day after day, differently than you expect the other players in your show to play? Spots they will no longer be allowed to take if they don’t play loose or soft. Or do you look at it as doing them a favor putting a handicap on how they play?

Basically all of the pros back then were super big names. Big name pros still clearly can get seats on HCL. Ivey can play pretty tight and still come back bc he draws viewers. But nobody wants to watch GTO autistics. Dnegs Doyle etc were on almost every HSP episode. I'm sure HCL wouldn't turn them away. Additionally HSP didn't show every hand, HCL does making GTO top level pros even more of a bad idea for a streaming show.

you are right larry, but he is not going to answer that here, and nick is not the only one spoon fed these line-ups. i mean, garrett as well

"Basically all of the pros back then were super big names"

Wrong. Guys like Jason Mercier, Brian Townsend, Brad Booth, Erik Lindgren, and more were not well known at the time. Yes, if you played online and read 2p2 you probably knew all of the above already, but casual poker players didn't YET.

"Nobody wants to watch GTO Autistics"

Triton Poker's viewership numbers would disagree. But I'm not even suggesting HCL puts on games with 80-90% autists. Just that having 1 or 2 in a 9 handed game could make for some exceptionally interesting viewing. For instance, I loved watching Art Papazyan or Dan Zack put Garrett in the blender on LATB. Pretty much no one that Garret regularly plays with on HCL is capable of putting him in gross spots.

Compare continuing to run stream to a terrorist alert. There are levels.

Berkey wants to close the borders.

Also, caveat emptor. Especially given the players have been warned.

Just one guy, but as someone who watches a little poker on the youtube, my reaction to the above posts:

1) I want to see a mix of recs and pros. All rec line ups are the nut low. Followed by Garrett vs all recs. Will not watch. Very pro heavy lineups are OK and can be interesting. I'm a winning rec in normal 2/5 to 5/10 games. Balancing your 8 bet bluffing range is not too relevant to my games. I mainly want to learn from superior players and how they handle lineups similar to those I face. I also think a rec/reg mix is the most entertaining.

2) The ethics do matter to me. I'm sure I'm in a small minority. I used to watch HCL more. I even found NickV pretty likable. As I've learned more about the stream, and who is involved, I just don't enjoy it much. Rarely, if ever, do i just watch the stream. Sometimes watch HCL highligts. Most of the time, these days, I'd see hands as they are broken down by Little or whoever.

Actually, I never used to post on NVG in many years on 2+2. I think I first came here to find out about Mikki and what kind of scam he is running, as the guy makes my skin crawl and he was obviously lying about baccarat and being a pro gambler and every other time he spoke. Then I learned about Nick, Lucky and so on. This makes the stream less enjoyable, so I'm less likely to watch.

Kind of like when you find out an athlete beats his wife or something. Nor really boycotting per se, but it just takes the fun out of it.

I’m impressed you’re willing to admit this.

My questions for you, which definitely shouldn’t impact the investigation.

1. Do you think this is a long-term sustainable strategy? It seems some of the spots have already wised up and either drastically reduced their stream appearances or stopped showing up altogether.

2. In that vein, how long is your waitlist, in terms of non-pros, for the Friday games? My guess is there’s gotta be a very limited number of people that want to play that high AND in front of YouTube?

3. It’s clear that pros want to play but many claim they can’t. For example, Art. Is there a reason he isn’t allowed on? Will you let more pros join the streamed games in the future?

Bump

because raver wants to be liked

OK. Now the hard question.

Why is someone leaking misinformation to Dwan?

It’s cool that Ryan’s here answering questions. It’s pretty obvious he’s trying to do the right thing, and he comes across as an honest man.

But Ryan, you have to know there’s an inherent conflict of interest with Nick playing in these games. I’m sure the players don’t mind enough to quit playing, but that doesn’t mean they don’t mind. I doubt anyone would protest if Nick and his 11% VPIP sat it out.

Also, it was understandably a crazy situation and people are going to make mistakes, but the way the Garret/Robbi debacle was handled was wrong. And fine, he’s a big part of your business and he can get consideration, but he shouldn’t be able to demand you call out another player for an interrogation when he has no evidence beyond his intuition.

Ryan do you think it's pure coincidence that Robbi only got into it with Charles and JR on 9/23 and Eric and Garrett on 9/29? I thought this hand about a half hour before the J4 hand was interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR_PWVGUMVQ&t=1h35m29s. Prior to this at 1:29:53 Eric is still up and RIP gets up the moment Eric sits back down, 1:30:10 Phil gets up and 1:30:15 RIP is back down (after he sees Eric sit back down?), but gets up again when Phil gets up. I think it's 3-4 hands into the game being 6 handed and a very similar spot to the J4 hand appears, with Robbi getting Qs3d UTG and folds, Ryusuke opening As7d in the SB and Eric defending 76ss out of the BB. Had this been dealt one hand later, Ryusuke would have opened his hand on the button, Eric would have defended his 76ss in the SB and Robbi could have defended the Qs3d out of the third blind.

Flop comes 8s8h5s, Eric flops an opening ended straight flush draw and probably would have led had he been in the SB and first to act, Robbi could defend with an over and one spade (similar to the J4 hand) and Ryusuke may have peeled once as well before folding on the turn. Turn came 3c that could gave Robbi enough reason to stick around after Eric fires a second bullet or pull the same bet->min raise->all in->hero call move she did in the J4 hand.

Ryusuke had nothing in this hand (as played and not in my imaginary scenario) so the action ended on the turn, but Eric had a monster draw and asked Sami to see the river which was a Qh. I wonder if this was a setup hand for 6 handed action that got dealt one hand too early, because Eric probably would have bombed the river when he missed and the Qh would have given Robbi a reason to call, had she not already got it in on the turn. That hand stuck out to me because in every hero call spot, Robbi would go oh I think you have a missed draw and in the J4 hand, she claimed she thought she had a 3 and turned a pair of 3s and in this case, she actually turned a pair of 3s vs another missed opended ended straight flush draw. Also Robbi tends to stick around way more often when she defends out of the third blind, almost as if it was predetermined that her hero call spots will come out of the 3B as she would be able to play the most trash hands in that position. I wonder if that's why she stuck around in the J8dd vs Q4ss hand when Garrett turned a full house, because she says she thinks Garrett has a missed draw on the river (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR_PWVGUMVQ&t=1h51m) and the only obvious draw actually got there on the river and she's blocking the other draw (backdoor flush) because she has it, almost as if it was predetermined that she was going to hero call a missed draw.

Deeb had asked her on Joeys first show about this whole mess:

"Did anyone in the game know he was staking you in this game?"

And she replied "Yeah"

But I don't believe a single player in the game has corroborated this (even Eric mentioned he didn't know about the staking arrangement). Now we see Ryan confirming neither he nor Nick were aware either.

So it does appear Robbi lied when responding to Deebs question. And while the staking arrangement isn't a humungous deal overall, since staking in high stakes games can be fairly common, the big deal is that it appears she is lying, and you have to wonder why, what is she trying to cover up?

Unless she was telling the truth, and it was one or more of the other people that were lying about not knowing that she was staked.

Btw, I think it is highly likely (although not certain) that some form of cheating went on in that hand, and perhaps in other hands in that session or in previous sessions, but I am also starting to think that if it did happen, then Robbi may have been some kind of "patsy" in the scheme, so only semi-aware of what was going on or tricked in some way into taking part in the scheme, and not fully realising the potential magnitude of it.

I say this, because she comes across as an intelligent person in an overall sense, however she comes across as ditzy specifically in the area of poker/gambling/math, so I can easily imagine a sharp and dishonest poker operator(s) or player(s), selling it to her by saying something like, "come on, it will be fun", and "we'll get the money back that was "stolen" from us anyway" by Garrett. "It's poker after all and we're not doing anything to him that he hasn't been doing to us."

I can see a ditzy (in the poker/gambling/math sense) woman going for this, particularly if it is to "please her man".

N.B. a) I have no idea if there was or is a Robbi and someone else romantic link involved and b) I am not saying that all, or even many, women are ditzy, very few are, but Robbi comes across as ditzy in the sphere we are discussing.

But I don't really know of course for sure about anything. All of the above is my instinctive feel at this moment in time, and nothing more.

If Dwan or whoever didn’t interrupt her we’d have a clearer picture of what in her mind leads her to think N and R knew. Was it cuz Airball most likely knew? 7 hours of tequila they mos def mentioned it to him.