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So what is the consensus? He has an accomplice who is watching the stream and texting info? Does the stream show the players' cards (never seen it)?

by tempsy 7y ago

socialist_coder 7y ago
Read the article dude, it explains it
- tempsy 7y ago
  I did read it. It doesn't actually confirm anything.
  - dugditches 7y ago
    >He has an accomplice who is watching the stream and texting info? Does the stream show the players' cards (never seen it)? From the 4th sentence of the article: >and the game was broadcast on a half-hour delay so that viewers couldn’t relay information from the broadcast to the players during the hands
    - bloody-crow 7y ago
      It's entirely possible that as a former employee he has access to the system that is responsible for introducing the streaming delay and gets a real-time feed on his phone or some other wearable device.
- aidenn0 7y ago
  I read it twice and there was only speculation on various ways that he might have cheated; no definitive answer to how he did.
- jandrese 7y ago
  The article doesn't explain it at all. There's a lot of hand analysis proving that it is a statistical impossibility that he's not cheating, and a lot of speculation on possible methods, but nothing that explains how he actually did it. The most likely method seems to be a RFID reader either in his keys or hat transmitting data to his phone, but from what I can tell nobody has nailed down his technique exactly.
  - jefftk 7y ago
    > There's a lot of hand analysis proving that it is a statistical impossibility that he's not cheating, and a lot of speculation on possible methods, but nothing that explains how he actually did it. While it does sound like he's cheating I don't see how you can get there with just statistics. He could be incredibly good at reading his opponents. (But it's super implausible that he doesn't play anything but these specific games, and then wins by such a large margin.)
- socialist_coder 7y ago
  4 pieces of data for you that explain how he was cheating: > While his neighbors keep their phones on the table, he always keeps his phone on his chair between his legs, with his left hand holding it in place beneath the table. He almost never brings his left hand up above the table. He puts his head down to glance at his phone before he makes decisions. It all seems so obvious now. > Like the fact that he starts wearing a hat that has a strange bulge around the brim—one that vanishes after the game when he’s doing an interview in the booth. Is it a bone-conducting headset, as some online have suggested, sending him messages directly to his inner ear by vibrating on his skull? Of course it is! How could it be anything else? It’s so obvious! Or the fact that he keeps his keys in the same place on the table all the time. Could they contain a secret camera that reads electronic sensors on the cards? I can’t see any other possibility! It is all starting to make sense. > He also deleted his LinkedIn account, which indicated that he was connected to the company that ran the Stones Live broadcasts and had worked for them as a consultant in the past. > The fact is, the mystery was solved a long time ago. It’s just like De Niro’s Ace Rothstein says in Casino when the yokel slot attendant gets hit for three jackpots in a row and tells his boss there was no way for him to know he was being scammed. “Yes there is,” Ace replies. “An infallible way. They won.” According to one poster on TwoPlusTwo, in 69 sessions on Stones Live, Postle has won in 62 of them, for a profit of over $250,000 in 277 hours of play. Given that he plays such a large number of hands, and plays such an erratic and, by his own admission, high-variance style, one would expect to see more, well, variance. His results just aren’t possible even for the best players in the world, which, if he isn’t cheating, he definitely is among. Add to this the fact that it has been alleged that Postle doesn’t play in other nonstreamed live games at Stones, or anywhere else in the Sacramento area, and hasn’t been known to play in any sizable no-limit games anywhere in a long time, and that he always picks up his chips and leaves as soon as the livestream ends. So, does he have an RFID reader in his keys which communicates data to him via his phone or his hat? Or, does he have a backdoor into the non-delayed feed with an accomplice? Either are possible and he's definitely doing one of the above. If he wasn't cheating, he would be a world class all star poker player.
MFLoon 7y ago
I doubt he has an accomplice. I think he's intimately familiar with the RFID system, including having had direct access to the actual one being used on Stones Live (per his connection to them that was observed on Linkedin), and enabled a multiplexing debug feature to send his phone a stream of every card being read.
- bonestamp2 7y ago
  It could be pretty independant from the main system too. They could wireshark the system's network connections to see if any rogue data is being sent and find nothing. But, what if the data is coming directly from the RFID readers? Depending on which boards they're using to read the rfid cards it could be a simple bluetooth broadcast that his phone picks up. His phone could constantly scan for bluetooth signals -- it wouldn't even need to make an actual bluetooth connection, the card data could be embedded in the advertising signal for anyone who knew the schema to pickup.
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    I was thinking that he could encode the already read card data in a modulation of the RFID transponder itself. If the signal were randomised then it would just look like a noisy power supply or something?
- umeet 7y ago
  There were some hands where he made weird bluff and his hole card in graphics changed after the opponent folded. (so his hand changed from air to very strong hand) Someone said it was a bug in RFID but it happened only to him and not constantly. I think he has an accomplice. Either someone working at the casino or with remote access to casino computers.
  - MFLoon 7y ago
    I actually think the "changing cards" situations were the stream employees seeing the action and finding it so implausible that he was playing a given hand that way, and inadvertently gaslighting everyone by overwriting the graphics based on their assumptions. So they weren't necessarily complicit, but were sort of forced to cover for him because they couldn't say "Hm, maybe he's just cheating" to explain the insane moves hew as making.
fulvous 7y ago
That wouldn't work because of the time delay.
- gojomo 7y ago
  Unless it's being relayed by someone on the production team who does has access to the live video/RFID feeds, as part of preparing them for the delayed streaming elsewhere.

So what is the consensus? He has an accomplice who is watching the stream and texting info? Does the stream show the players' cards (never seen it)?

by tempsy 7y ago

So what is the consensus? He has an accomplice who is watching the stream and texting info? Does the stream show the players' cards (never seen it)?

socialist_coder 7y ago

Read the article dude, it explains it

tempsy 7y ago
I did read it. It doesn't actually confirm anything.
- dugditches 7y ago
  >He has an accomplice who is watching the stream and texting info? Does the stream show the players' cards (never seen it)? From the 4th sentence of the article: >and the game was broadcast on a half-hour delay so that viewers couldn’t relay information from the broadcast to the players during the hands
  - bloody-crow 7y ago
    It's entirely possible that as a former employee he has access to the system that is responsible for introducing the streaming delay and gets a real-time feed on his phone or some other wearable device.
aidenn0 7y ago
I read it twice and there was only speculation on various ways that he might have cheated; no definitive answer to how he did.
jandrese 7y ago
The article doesn't explain it at all. There's a lot of hand analysis proving that it is a statistical impossibility that he's not cheating, and a lot of speculation on possible methods, but nothing that explains how he actually did it. The most likely method seems to be a RFID reader either in his keys or hat transmitting data to his phone, but from what I can tell nobody has nailed down his technique exactly.
- jefftk 7y ago
  > There's a lot of hand analysis proving that it is a statistical impossibility that he's not cheating, and a lot of speculation on possible methods, but nothing that explains how he actually did it. While it does sound like he's cheating I don't see how you can get there with just statistics. He could be incredibly good at reading his opponents. (But it's super implausible that he doesn't play anything but these specific games, and then wins by such a large margin.)
socialist_coder 7y ago
4 pieces of data for you that explain how he was cheating: > While his neighbors keep their phones on the table, he always keeps his phone on his chair between his legs, with his left hand holding it in place beneath the table. He almost never brings his left hand up above the table. He puts his head down to glance at his phone before he makes decisions. It all seems so obvious now. > Like the fact that he starts wearing a hat that has a strange bulge around the brim—one that vanishes after the game when he’s doing an interview in the booth. Is it a bone-conducting headset, as some online have suggested, sending him messages directly to his inner ear by vibrating on his skull? Of course it is! How could it be anything else? It’s so obvious! Or the fact that he keeps his keys in the same place on the table all the time. Could they contain a secret camera that reads electronic sensors on the cards? I can’t see any other possibility! It is all starting to make sense. > He also deleted his LinkedIn account, which indicated that he was connected to the company that ran the Stones Live broadcasts and had worked for them as a consultant in the past. > The fact is, the mystery was solved a long time ago. It’s just like De Niro’s Ace Rothstein says in Casino when the yokel slot attendant gets hit for three jackpots in a row and tells his boss there was no way for him to know he was being scammed. “Yes there is,” Ace replies. “An infallible way. They won.” According to one poster on TwoPlusTwo, in 69 sessions on Stones Live, Postle has won in 62 of them, for a profit of over $250,000 in 277 hours of play. Given that he plays such a large number of hands, and plays such an erratic and, by his own admission, high-variance style, one would expect to see more, well, variance. His results just aren’t possible even for the best players in the world, which, if he isn’t cheating, he definitely is among. Add to this the fact that it has been alleged that Postle doesn’t play in other nonstreamed live games at Stones, or anywhere else in the Sacramento area, and hasn’t been known to play in any sizable no-limit games anywhere in a long time, and that he always picks up his chips and leaves as soon as the livestream ends. So, does he have an RFID reader in his keys which communicates data to him via his phone or his hat? Or, does he have a backdoor into the non-delayed feed with an accomplice? Either are possible and he's definitely doing one of the above. If he wasn't cheating, he would be a world class all star poker player.

MFLoon 7y ago

I doubt he has an accomplice. I think he's intimately familiar with the RFID system, including having had direct access to the actual one being used on Stones Live (per his connection to them that was observed on Linkedin), and enabled a multiplexing debug feature to send his phone a stream of every card being read.

bonestamp2 7y ago
It could be pretty independant from the main system too. They could wireshark the system's network connections to see if any rogue data is being sent and find nothing. But, what if the data is coming directly from the RFID readers? Depending on which boards they're using to read the rfid cards it could be a simple bluetooth broadcast that his phone picks up. His phone could constantly scan for bluetooth signals -- it wouldn't even need to make an actual bluetooth connection, the card data could be embedded in the advertising signal for anyone who knew the schema to pickup.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  I was thinking that he could encode the already read card data in a modulation of the RFID transponder itself. If the signal were randomised then it would just look like a noisy power supply or something?
umeet 7y ago
There were some hands where he made weird bluff and his hole card in graphics changed after the opponent folded. (so his hand changed from air to very strong hand) Someone said it was a bug in RFID but it happened only to him and not constantly. I think he has an accomplice. Either someone working at the casino or with remote access to casino computers.
- MFLoon 7y ago
  I actually think the "changing cards" situations were the stream employees seeing the action and finding it so implausible that he was playing a given hand that way, and inadvertently gaslighting everyone by overwriting the graphics based on their assumptions. So they weren't necessarily complicit, but were sort of forced to cover for him because they couldn't say "Hm, maybe he's just cheating" to explain the insane moves hew as making.

fulvous 7y ago

That wouldn't work because of the time delay.

gojomo 7y ago
Unless it's being relayed by someone on the production team who does has access to the live video/RFID feeds, as part of preparing them for the delayed streaming elsewhere.