Stones live streams - the worst Postle hand of them all?

[fundiver199]

Unless you were living under a rock back in the fall of 2019 (or not into poker yet), you have surely heard about the Mike Postle / Stones gambling Hall cheating allegations. The fascinating thing is, that even though the stream stopped, after the scandal exploded, all the footage is still there to watch on Stones Live Poker Youtube channel.

And some of it is actually quite worth watching. First of all it was a pretty cool stream with a nice relaxed atmosphere and some nice commentators. So its really a shame, this thing happened and killed it off. Streamed live cash games are often a bit artificial, because people know, that if they sit and play tight, they will not be invited back to the stream again. But they also have streams of MTT final tables, where you can get a real idea about, how people actually play in low stakes live tournaments, should you ever want to enter that scene yourself.

And of course its still fascinating to watch the streams with Postle to see the differences between "god mode" and no "god mode", and how it evolved along the way, as well as how the way the commentators talked about him evolved. Allegedly the cheating began min july 2018, so any stream prior to that is free from it, and sure enough we do see Postle do things like getting bluffed or picking bad spots to bluff himself, which are almost absent from the "god mode" streams.

This one is one of the last ones, where Postle played, and it contain the famous hand, where Postle turn the nut flush, but a player called Firas turned a straight flush, which resulted in a massively underwhelming pot. But actually this same stream contain another hand, which I dont think was ever brought forward by the content creators looking into this, and which to me is almost even more atroceous than the flush over flush hand.

It begins at around 3:45 hours into the stream with EP opening 84s, HJ 3-betting AQo, and Firas in CO 4-betting AKs. While all of this is going on, Postly is clearly staring deep down into his lap, as we also saw in many other situations. After which he decides to cold call the 4-bet on BTN with 63s. Yeah.......

This is just not a thing! First of all Postle is not closing action, and if either of the 5 players still in the hand comes over the top with a 5-bet, he will need to fold. And in top of that if either player has a big pocket pair, which will often be the case, when there is a 3-bet and a cold 4-bet, then Mike is just toast. He has around 20% equity, and even with position he is usually not going to be able to bluff people out of a bloated pot, if they have an overpair.

But as in the famous hand, where Postle goes all-in preflop with 54 offsuit against two opponents, who magically both have AK, he masterfully pick a spot, where nobody has a big pocket pair, even though there has been both a 3-bet and a cold 4-bet in front of him. So he actually has equity, and he also has position on Firas and a good chance to outplay him postflop, since he probably know exactly, what Firas has.

The flop comes 983 with two spades giving Postle bottom pair and Firas the nut flushdraw with two overs. Firas makes a healthy sized C-bet, which Postle call, and I guess this is pretty normal, if you are going to call a 4-bet preflop with a hand like 63s. Your opponent could after all have AK, which you now beat, so you kind of have to peel off one street at least, if you somehow accidentally called that 4-bet.

The turn pair the board with another 9, and this is the next point, where the hand goes totally off the rails. Firas bet again, as he probably should, and for anyone, who cant see their opponents cards, or are drunk and have to much money, this would be the end of the hand. The reason is, that while neither player should really have a 9 in a 4-bet pot, Firas can easily have all the overpairs, and if that case Mike is now drawing to two outs, plus he has no fold equity with Firas having less than a pot sized bet left behind.

So anyone with a minimum of understanding of poker, and what normal ranges look like in a 4-bet pot, are folding bottom pair on that turn. But oh no. Mike Postle makes one of his magic soul reads and put Firas all-in essentially raising bottom pair for value/protection in a 4-bet pot. This is just not a thing! For anyone, who understand a bit of poker, this hand in itself is as good as 100% sure evidence, Mike was cheating. Because there is just no way, a professional winning player is doing something like this without knowing his opponents cards.

Eventually Firas end up calling with 47% equity, and Postle only win the hand, because he got lucky and won both runouts, after they agreed to run it twice. After getting felted you can see the frustration in Firas face, and I cant help feel sorry for the guy as well as all the other people, who got cheated by Postle. Such a shame that an otherwise great stream was abused and ruined in this way.

If you are interested in watching this atroceous hand as well as the famous interview with Mike Postles brother, who is in the booth in the early part of the stream, just follow this link. And if you want to watch many more hours of people playing poker with or without cheating and nice commentators, to go Stones Live Poker channel on Youtube

 

[DS3]

Thanks for the deep dive which is good to have on CC for posterity.

It was a farcical episode from start to finish but one which no doubt helped raise the security stakes for all such streams/technology.

However, the real takeaway from the saga was if you are ever suspicious of being defrauded in a similar circumstance then discreetly go to the authorities first and have them investigate. Do not take it to the court of public opinion, and then expect the police/FBI to follow up in a case where the culprits have had ample time to destroy evidence.

 

[fundiver199]

It was indeed farcical, and its also fairly tragical to listen to some of the commentary from a stream like this one. On many occations the commentators came so close. But apart from Veronica and I think Casey Mills, they never quite managed to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Towards the end of this stream there is another very interesting hand, which I had not watched, when I wrote my post. Remember that this is the stream, where Postle just check-called with the nut flush on a paired board, when his opponent had a straight flush and made a very small river bet with only something like 600$ behind, since it was early in the stream.

In this other hand towards the end, Postle flop top pair with KJ on KT7, bet the flop, get called, and now check the turn. His opponent had JT and picked up equity, since the turn card gave him a flushdraw, so he bet, and Postle called. So far pretty standard, and the river was a J giving them both two pair with Postles of course being the best.

Postle now check again, and his opponent bet for somewhat thin value. Board was KT7-4-J with no flush possible, but the J gave both AQ, Q9 and 98 a straight, so two pair was not exactly the nuts. The commentator Scott even speculated, that this would have to be just a check-call for Mike, but once again Mike made the perfect play and went for a small check-raise of 900$, which got called. The same guy, who earlier in the stream just check-called with the nut flush, when his opponent only had 600$ left behind.

In this case Mikes opponent even had more behind, so by check-raising Mike opened up the door to potentially be exposed to a very unpleasant 3-bet, which a normal player would usually have to strongly consider folding to because of all the possible straights, that were now on the board. But somehow Mike apparently knew, that was not going to happen, so he went for the thin mint value raise against an opponent, who had a slightly worse hand than his.

After the hand the commentators continued to talk about it, and Scott went on about the fact, it was a very thin range, Mike was targeting. "But what will actually call a check-raise, like maybe JT? But it would have to be JT with the backdoor flush, so its like, Mike put him on not just that type of hand but his exact combo". Which is probably so close to the truth, that its kind of painfull to watch Scott still not realise the most obvious reason, why Mike might be capable of such "soul reads"

 

[fundiver199]

However, the real takeaway from the saga was if you are ever suspicious of being defrauded in a similar circumstance then discreetly go to the authorities first and have them investigate. Do not take it to the court of public opinion, and then expect the police/FBI to follow up in a case where the culprits have had ample time to destroy evidence.

I dont know, how much chance their was for a criminal investigation, regardless how it had been handled. Such investigations seem to be the exception, when there is cheating in poker. Although to be fair a few years ago a danish pro was convicted to do time in prison as well as having all his winnings of several million dollars confiscated, after he planted trojan horses on the computers of several opponents, so that he could see their cards.

But other than the fact, this was a case for a much bigger amount of money, and it took place in another country, what made the difference was most likely, that substantially more evidence was available like witness statements. Maaaaybe such evidence could have been secured in the Postle case, but other than some accomplish coming forward and admitting, what had been going on, he would pretty much have had to get caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

I actually think, the people, who suspected cheating, did the completely reasonable thing, which was to bring up their concerns to the tournament director. Unfortunately in this case he was however either completely incompetent or part of the scam, and this is why, no proper action was taken to stop the cheating. Which should after all be priority number one.

As for the civil lawsuits, that followed, they were just dumb. Apparently a private gambling dispute is not accepted by a californian court, and the lawyer of the plaitiffs should have known this and saved his clients the expenses and trouble. There is also no reason to think, Postle would ever have been able to pay the money back, since he was in all likelyhood basically broke. Its quite reasonable to assume, that part of his motive to cheat in the first place might have been to get out of financial trouble and pay back private loans etc. Before the cheating he was pretty much a "bad reg" just making it by in mostly low stakes games.

The defamation lawsuit by Postle was equally ridiculous, because for starters he was probably cheating. So clearly their was no defamation taking place, and it would not have been to difficult for the accused parties to convince a court of that. Luckily all of this is now finished, and everyone involved has moved on with their life. And as for Postle he got the punishment of losing his source of future income, since obviously he can never play live poker again after this.

 

[DS3]

I genuinely feel a case could have been made quite easily.

People are charged with committing fraud on small and large scale all the time. However the case regarding Stones Gambling hall would have been compelling for obvious reasons. It was a novel crime which could have garnered a lot of attention for the police department/FBI who not only solved it but brought it to the public’s attention.

Further, all involved, starting with Veronica Brill, had an ace up their sleeves which they completely misplayed. They had it all on video tape.

It should have been easy to go to the police or FBI and explain there was something suspicious/nefarious going on and present the filmed proceedings to set up a potential live stream sting. Not simply Mike Postle making ‘impossible’ calls but the fact he was constantly looking at the phone in his lap. That his baseball hat had a suspicious bulge in it etc.

Regarding approaching the Tournament Director Justin Kuraitis, that was another poorly thought through move (though my personal take he was likely dumb rather than an accomplice – I believe it was a tech assistant on the live stream). One of the first comments I ever made on the matter was that Mike Postle could not have managed this on his own, that Stones staff needed to be collaborating (the idea not even occurring to most who were commenting at the time). So Veronica Brill, after having suspicions for months, according to her, should have been smart enough to not mention it to anyone at the Casino as it was patently obvious staff were involved with Postle.

However, as soon as this story broke I recall another poster and myself – to many people’s chagrin - making the call the case would fall apart because it had been tried in the Court of Joey Ingram (for god’s sake) and they had promptly provided Mike Postle and accomplice (s) weeks to dispose of evidence.

 

[fundiver199]

I genuinely feel a case could have been made quite easily.

People are charged with committing fraud on small and large scale all the time. However the case regarding Stones Gambling hall would have been compelling for obvious reasons. It was a novel crime which could have garnered a lot of attention for the police department/FBI who not only solved it but brought it to the public’s attention.

Further, all involved, starting with Veronica Brill, had an ace up their sleeves which they completely misplayed. They had it all on video tape.

It should have been easy to go to the police or FBI and explain there was something suspicious/nefarious going on and present the filmed proceedings to set up a potential live stream sting. Not simply Mike Postle making ‘impossible’ calls but the fact he was constantly looking at the phone in his lap. That his baseball hat had a suspicious bulge in it etc.

Regarding approaching the Tournament Director Justin Kuraitis, that was another poorly thought through move (though my personal take he was likely dumb rather than an accomplice – I believe it was a tech assistant on the live stream). One of the first comments I ever made on the matter was that Mike Postle could not have managed this on his own, that Stones staff needed to be collaborating (the idea not even occurring to most who were commenting at the time). So Veronica Brill, after having suspicions for months, according to her, should have been smart enough to not mention it to anyone at the Casino as it was patently obvious staff were involved with Postle.

However, as soon as this story broke I recall another poster and myself – to many people’s chagrin - making the call the case would fall apart because it had been tried in the Court of Joey Ingram (for god’s sake) and they had promptly provided Mike Postle and accomplice (s) weeks to dispose of evidence.

I think, it was a reasonable first step to approach the tournament director JFK. Obviously its not your first thought, that the person in charge is in on potential cheating, and the commentators like Veronica also worked for him, so there was a natural feeling of trust and loyalty. However when JFK dismissed the claims, then the next step should definitely have been to go to the police and not the social media.

Its understandible, that Veronica wanted confirmation from more experienced poker players, that they also found Postles style suspicious. But she could just have asked someone like Bart Hansson or Jonathan Little, who had both played in some of the streams, to spend some time with her looking at the footage privately, rather than having Joe Ingram live stream his "investigation" for 30+ hours.

As for who was in on in, and how the cheating was done, we will likely never know. We do know some things about, what did not happen though. During some of the suspicious hands JFK was doing commentary in the booth, so if anyone was manually feeding information to Mike in real time, it was not JFK. As I understand it, he was also not kicked out from Stones after the incidence, and unless the owners are completely dumb, that does point somewhat towards him not being directly involved in the cheating. One has to assume, the owners have quietly launched some sort of investigation into, what really happened, and then quietly gotten rid of, whoever was involved .

 

[DS3]

I think, it was a reasonable first step to approach the tournament director JFK. Obviously its not your first thought, that the person in charge is in on potential cheating, and the commentators like Veronica also worked for him, so there was a natural feeling of trust and loyalty. However when JFK dismissed the claims, then the next step should definitely have been to go to the police and not the social media.

Its understandible, that Veronica wanted confirmation from more experienced poker players, that they also found Postles style suspicious. But she could just have asked someone like Bart Hansson or Jonathan Little, who had both played in some of the streams, to spend some time with her looking at the footage privately, rather than having Joe Ingram live stream his "investigation" for 30+ hours.

As for who was in on in, and how the cheating was done, we will likely never know. We do know some things about, what did not happen though. During some of the suspicious hands JFK was doing commentary in the booth, so if anyone was manually feeding information to Mike in real time, it was not JFK. As I understand it, he was also not kicked out from Stones after the incidence, and unless the owners are completely dumb, that does point somewhat towards him not being directly involved in the cheating. One has to assume, the owners have quietly launched some sort of investigation into, what really happened, and then quietly gotten rid of, whoever was involved .

This I largely agree with...but, I would underline that Veronica Brill ultimately stated she had her suspicions for months. It was impossible that Mike Postle was doing this on his own - he did not have direct access to the RFD technology (though there was lax security regardless) so the only conclusion was he had an accomplice(s) in house.

That said, completely agree with your next step of approaching someone such as Little privately, breaking down the hands/play and then taking their 'case' to the authorities to ultimately catch them red handed.

The shame is (as you say) we will never get to the bottom of this in a public sense. But once again I will agree in that I am sure Stones Gambling Hall ultimately had a very good idea about what had taken place and who had been involved.

By the by fundiver199, one of the best articles on the matter came a year later in Wired Magazine. Definitely worth a read and if you prefer you can listen to it as a podcast (found just a the top of the article).

https://www.wired.com/story/stones-poker-cheating-scandal/

 

[jaymfc]

it was just a reality show to producer JK and he needed a star to bring in a bigger audience. that's definitely a proving hand but the one where he folded nut flush to a straight flush was worse IMO. if irc he folded to a small bet on the river.

 

[fundiver199]

By the by fundiver199, one of the best articles on the matter came a year later in Wired Magazine. Definitely worth a read and if you prefer you can listen to it as a podcast (found just a the top of the article).

Yeah its a pretty good article providing a lot of information about the personal situation of both Veronica and Mike. I had not heard about the messy divorse of Mike, but this is obviously exactly such a situation, which I suspected might have pushed him into looking for an "easy" way out of his financial trouble.

The weak point of the article is, that the journalist dont seem to quite understand, what it is, that is so suspicous about the way, Mike played. Its not, that he was not "following a GTO style" or had a very high VPIP. Sure his VPIP was very high, but that was kind of normal for these streams, and other reasonably good players like Harlan also had a high VPIP.

What is much more damming is the inconsistency in playing style, where he always seem to make the perfect decision not against the entire range, his opponent could have, but against their exact holding. Like the example, I have already given, where he just check-call instead of going after the rest of his opponents stack, when he have the near nuts, but his opponent happen to have him beat. But then later on in the same session he check-raise in a situation, where its much more likely, he is beat, and he has far more money at risk.

This just does not make any sense, and neither do the hands like that one against Marle, which became the provervial straw to break the camels back. Nobody fold top pair with a gutshot to just a normal C-bet on the turn in a heads-up pot HJ vs. BB. You at least call and see a river, and then maybe you can consider a fold, if the opponent fire a large third barrel and you dont think, they have enough bluffs in their range.

Or perfect tailored bet sizes like the massive overbets, when the opponent happen to have the same hand, so that Mike was essentially freerolling. And all the cases, where he picked perfect spots to bluff without ever getting it massively wrong and bluffing into the nuts. This to me is the real evidence, not his winrate or his VPIP or anything like that.

And then of course his table demeneour, where Doug Polk did a great job of finding some of the most damming moments. Like being visibly annoyed, when the stream only displayed 2 of the 4 cards in a PLO hand. Or starting to raise his arms after getting caught bluffing, before his opponents hole cards had been revealed.

 

[fundiver199]

it was just a reality show to producer JK and he needed a star to bring in a bigger audience.

My take is also, that JFK was just slightly dumb, and that he saw the value of having a local "superstar" to make his stream and ultimately his casino more popular.

that's definitely a proving hand but the one where he folded nut flush to a straight flush was worse IMO. if irc he folded to a small bet on the river.

He did not fold the nut flush, that would after all have been to obvious even for Mike. Final board was Jd9d7c-7d-8s, Mike had AdQd, and Firas had Td8d. Pot was 430$, and Firas only had 550$ left behind, so a little more than a pot sized bet. Flop had gotten checked around, and on the turn Mike decided to lead out after making the nut flush, a third player folded, and Firas just called. The normal river line here with the nut flush out of position would be:

1) Betting around half pot with the intention to call facing a jam
2) Overbet jamming
3) Check-jamming

As both Bart Hansson and Doug Polk said, when they broke down this hand, you are not overly concerned about full houses here, because Firas checked back the flop. All the flopped two pair and sets would usually have bet for value and protection, so the only full houses, that would normally be played this way, are 87 and 88 exactly.

And with a 1-liner to a straight, you might very might get paid by a straight, or of couse a worse flush or even trip 7s. Mike was known for having a "crazy style", so its not like, his opponents made a lot of incredibly tight folds against him on the river. So Mike could certainly make a profitable stack-off here against the entire range, Firas could have, but of course not his exact hand.

As in many of the other hands there was also an element of his opponents misplaying, which allowed Postle to make more money, that he should, even knowing their cards. If Firas had just bet flop, bet turn and jammed river, I dont think, Mike would have had any other choise than to pay him off. Or Firas could at least have made a bigger river bet like 300$ rather than the 140$, he actually choose to bet.

 

[DS3]

Yeah its a pretty good article providing a lot of information about the personal situation of both Veronica and Mike. I had not heard about the messy divorse of Mike, but this is obviously exactly such a situation, which I suspected might have pushed him into looking for an "easy" way out of his financial trouble.

The weak point of the article is, that the journalist dont seem to quite understand, what it is, that is so suspicous about the way, Mike played. Its not, that he was not "following a GTO style" or had a very high VPIP....
.

Agreed. But you are seldom if ever going to get an article in what approximates main stream media which will be written from a serious poker perspective.

But, as you said, I appreciated that fact that both Mike Postle and Veronica Brill were 'fleshed out' as real people (flaws and all) in manner which no one else had bothered with.

 

[fundiver199]

The shame is (as you say) we will never get to the bottom of this in a public sense. But once again I will agree in that I am sure Stones Gambling Hall ultimately had a very good idea about what had taken place and who had been involved.

Or maybe not thinking about it. Whoever was involved other than Mike almost had to be working with the stream. And since they stopped the stream, maybe it was easier for them to just pretend, nothing had ever happened, and lay off the people working with the stream on the grounds, there was no more work for them, rather than accusing them of being involved in cheating. Wipe the whole thing under the carpet and hope, the storm died down, which in fact it did.

Agreed. But you are seldom if ever going to get an article in what approximates main stream media which will be written from a serious poker perspective.

But, as you said, I appreciated that fact that both Mike Postle and Veronica Brill were 'fleshed out' as real people (flaws and all) in manner which no one else had bothered with.

Agree. It is a very good article focusing on the human element.


Speaking of inconsistences in Mikes play style, this stream from august 2019, so also one of the fairly late ones, contain another pretty significant one. The first 2 hours and 20 minutes of the stream nothing much happened, and Postle was not really involved in any big pot. Kind of difficult to say if "god mode" was even used or not. Then however after 2 hours and 20 minutes we have the famous hand, where he fold KK preflop, when Firas 5-bet AA. This in itself is not totally crazy, because they were almost 300BB deep, so maybe people should actually at least consider folding KK to a 5-bet.

What is really interesting though is, that just 10 minutes later Mike wakes up with AA and play them in a completely different way. He raise preflop obviously and nobody 3-bet, but 3 people call, so a typical 4-way flop. Flop comes Ts7d6h, so a low and coordinated flop, which is a very dangerous situation for an overpair especially multiway. Mike now makes a standard C-bet, and a player called Kyle, who is on BTN, decides to raise 54s as a semibluff, since he flopped an OESD. Porter in BB has Td8d so top pair with a gutshot and BDFD, and he decides to cold call the raise. Harlan fold garbage, and Postle overcall.

Turn is 2d giving Porter a flushdraw to go with his gutshot and top pair, and Porter now donk jam for his last 1.100$ into a pot of 1.400$ esentially playing his hand like a draw / semibluff. Postle has 1.800$ left behind, and Kyle cower, so if Postle call here, he is clearly risking his entire stack against Kyle, who raised the flop. Yet without thinking to long about it, Postle find the call, Kyle of course fold, they run it twice, and once against Postle get lucky and win both runouts, even though he have to fade a ton of outs for Porter.

This hand in itself is also not evidence of cheating. There are certainly some players, who have a hard time folding aces or kings, and who might call here, even though its almost certainly a long term losing play. In a loose game like this offsuit connectors are well represented in field callers ranges, so either opponent can have 16 combos of 98, which flopped a straight, and they can also have sets or some two pair.

For Postle to be good here, they need to both be on a draw, and againt any made hand, that play like this, aces are just completely toast. So people, who are cold headed enough to fold KK preflop facing a 5-bet for 300 bigs, are also folding AA in this hand. But once again Postle makes the perfect soul read and fold, when he has a very strong hand, thats behind, but then just 10 minutes later he call, when he has a way worse hand, thats somehow ahead, because both his opponents are semibluffing with a draw. It must be nice to have such perfect "live reads"

 

[DS3]

Or maybe not thinking about it. Whoever was involved other than Mike almost had to be working with the stream. And since they stopped the stream, maybe it was easier for them to just pretend, nothing had ever happened, and lay off the people working with the stream on the grounds, there was no more work for them, rather than accusing them of being involved in cheating. Wipe the whole thing under the carpet and hope, the storm died down, which in fact it did.

Agree. It is a very good article focusing on the human element.

Speaking of inconsistences in Mikes play style...

Watched it through after you noted the time of the hand.

It also underlined one aspect of a potential case that would have made everything more difficult - the commentary team gushing over Mike Postle. They spent five minutes waxing lyrical about what a stud Postle was for folding KK pre-flop. One of the commentators guessing Postle was going to fold due to his body language. Which was odd because he claimed to be recognizing something in Postle's behavior yet then made a subsequent song and dance that nobody had ever folded KK pre-flop in the history of the stream (?).

It always struck me if (note if) it ever went to court there were going to be tens of hours of the commentary team (including Veronica Brill) bigging up Postle as a great player making soul reads one after another. There they were watching him on countless streams, analyzing every hand concluding that he was nothing but a next level player.

Not a good look.

 

[fundiver199]

It always struck me if (note if) it ever went to court there were going to be tens of hours of the commentary team (including Veronica Brill) bigging up Postle as a great player making soul reads one after another. There they were watching him on countless streams, analyzing every hand concluding that he was nothing but a next level player.

Not a good look.

Exactly. I dont think, the commentators were in on it, because there was just no need for them to be, and it would have meant more people to share the profits and more risks of a leak. But had the case gone to court, and had the commentators been asked to witness, it would have been a bad look for all the them.

As you say, they were sitting there for tens if not houndreds of hours and watching Postle make perfect decision after perfect decision while actually analysing the hands. Some of them like Chris even being professional players. And yet their only conclusion was, that he was a next level player???

After Postle call with AA is this stream, someone commented in the chat "dont try to bluff Postle, he is a calling station". To which one of the commentators responded "well he just folded KK preflop". And still their only conclusion was, he had really good reads. Of course everything is much more clear with hindsight, but it is kind of amazing, that so many people went along with the Postle hype for 15 month, before Veronica finally blew the whistle.

 

[DS3]

Exactly. I dont think, the commentators were in on it, because there was just no need for them to be, and it would have meant more people to share the profits and more risks of a leak. But had the case gone to court, and had the commentators been asked to witness, it would have been a bad look for all the them.

As you say, they were sitting there for tens if not houndreds of hours and watching Postle make perfect decision after perfect decision while actually analysing the hands. Some of them like Chris even being professional players. And yet their only conclusion was, that he was a next level player???

After Postle call with AA is this stream, someone commented in the chat "dont try to bluff Postle, he is a calling station". To which one of the commentators responded "well he just folded KK preflop". And still their only conclusion was, he had really good reads. Of course everything is much more clear with hindsight, but it is kind of amazing, that so many people went along with the Postle hype for 15 month, before Veronica finally blew the whistle.

No, I never thought anyone on the commentary team was involved. I simply thought they were naiive and excited that the Stones stream could show what they believed was a high level of play, from a relatively small card room.

 

[fundiver199]

No, I never thought anyone on the commentary team was involved. I simply thought they were naiive and excited that the Stones stream could show what they believed was a high level of play, from a relatively small card room.

And for some maybe they also choose to zip their mouth and go along with the hype, because making public accusations about cheating and lax security was not exactly a career move. Chris, who did commentary in this stream, actually announced in one of the very last streams, that he was moving to Las Vegas, where he had been hired by one of the big cardrooms to do commentary on their stream. Quite good timing by him, and personally I sense, that he probably knew, something fishy was going on, but decided to keep quiet about it.

Chris is also the guy, who had to do commentary on the all-in preflop with 54o hand, and he has a really funny shift of his eyes, when he understand, which direction things were headed in. One can only imagine him thinking something like "oh f.... now I have to explain, why the biggest winner in the game, this next level god like player, goes all-in preflop with 54o, when both his opponents happen to have AK".

 

[fundiver199]

For those, who want to see, how Mike Postle play, when he is not in "god mode", this stream from march 2018 is a good example. At around 1:42 we see Mike dubble barreling the turn with absolutely nothing into an opponent, who just made a straight. And in the very next hand he check-fold AQ high on the flop, when its the best hand. Poker is clearly a much more difficult game, when you dont have perfect soul reads on your opponents