8 ms·

It seems to me that security at the venue is extremely inconsistent. They care enough about cheating to time-delay the stream (even to the announcers), but play

It seems to me that security at the venue is extremely inconsistent. They care enough about cheating to time-delay the stream (even to the announcers), but players are allowed to have phones and keys and things at the table? Maybe don't allow that?

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
umvi 7y ago
Seriously, even a phone without internet seems like a massive opportunity to cheat. Simply create a custom app that allows you to input all available information via accelerometer input or volume button clicks which is fed to a poker engine and the then the app communicates the result of the engine's decision via vibration pulses. Even IF you allow phones though, it seems insane not to make players play in an RF-shielded room so that radio signals can't enter or leave.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  If it's an inside job, the phones are not even necessary. Body language could communicate the state of competitor's hands against his. And because the stream is delayed, there is not even a need for hand states to be revealed by RFID. This info can be retroactively added with better techniques.
- manav 7y ago
  A poker engine wouldn't really help you since it can't read players and intentions, also most decent players can calculate odds in their heads.
- ar_lan 7y ago
  It sounds like your idea is just calculating odds - this is a slight advantage, but most pro's have learned to do this in their heads already. Poker math isn't very complicated.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    maybe this is just my ignorance showing, but really? people can just computer large factorials and binomial coefficients in their heads fast enough to participate in the game? I had always thought that knowing the odds exactly just wasn't that useful because there was a lot of missing information and it was more important to read one's opponents.
    - gameswithgo 7y ago
      only recently have very powerful computers gotten better at poker than good humans. a phone probably can't do it yet. but a phone could be used as a way to do various kinds of digital spying or communicating with other people etc.
    - jcampbell1 7y ago
      There are a total of 169 starting hands and at most half are relevant. Most people you can put on a range of 40 or fewer hands. All the math you need can be inferred from about 100 things you need to memorize, most of which are fairly intuitive.
    - femto113 7y ago
      It's usually not anywhere near that complicated. To use an example from the article he folded a QJ against a QT with 89J on the board with no flush possibilities. In this case there are not very many hands that can be beating him: the pocket pairs AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 99, 88, stuff that makes two pair like J9, J8, 98, and the straights QT and T7. Overall this is going to be close to the chance when holding 77 that your opponent has a higher pair, which most professional players will "just know" is about 3-4% because they memorize tables of such facts[1]. This means he should believe he's a pretty substantial favorite and why the fold was so unexpected. [1] https://poker.stackexchange.com/questions/1203/pocket-pair-starting-hands-vs-probability-of-opponent-having-a-pocket-pair https://poker.stackexchange.com/questions/1203/pocket-pair-s...
      - appleshore 7y ago
        It is that complicated if you’re trying to factor accurate ranges, card removal and bet sizing. He’s obviously not doing this because he’s playing an exploitative style. In otherwords, he’s guessing perfectly based on his perceptions. For the mathematically perfect, they spend hours studying solvers which takes considerable processing power to generate the trees. A human player can calculate aspects of it but they can really only memorize what the solver would do. And some high stakes online players are using custom software to augment their decisions. Depending on the bet size, the solver could call the turn a % of times. And depending on blockers, unblockers and the bet sizing, the solver could advocate to call/raise/fold.
elwell 7y ago
It's very common to use your phone at a poker table at casinos.
crazypyro 7y ago
I've heard several theories that it was an cyber security failure. Using phones at poker tables, especially ones without RFID systems, isn't really a risk.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  how do you figure out if the phone has an rfid system?
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    Poker tables with or without RFID systems, I think, is the issue.
- anoncareer0212 7y ago
  It's a massive risk - it's the only external source of information he has at the table, without it, cyber security failures mean nothing
  - dmix 7y ago
    This could easily have been an inside-job situation with Postle knowing someone on the tech team who feeds him the information and the split earnings. The fact RFID is observable wouldn't make much difference then.
cepth 7y ago
A 30-minute (minimum) time delay on a live stream is usually a legal requirement in most jurisdictions, enforced by the state gaming commission. Most poker rooms also allow you to use your phone, as long are you're not a participant in the current hand. The alleged cheater (Mike Postle) is said to have hid his phone under the table, in his crotch area. Obviously, it's going to be pretty hard for other players and the dealer to check for that at that angle. In the end, the no-phone rule in most poker rooms is going to be largely an honor-system based thing. Edit: Jason Somerville, who founded one of the most popular poker streaming companies (Run It Up), has described how stringently the Nevada Gaming Control Board inspects casinos that are hosting streams. E.g. multiple inspections of the streaming equipment, a requirement for a guard at the streaming booth, etc. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS47DB94-vk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS47DB94-vk). He mentioned that California does not seem to have the same level of on-site scrutiny. Edit2: On TwoPlusTwo (the popular poker forum), long time players at Stones Gambling Hall (where the alleged cheating took place) mentioned that their poker room did not institute a no-phone policy until sometime into the alleged cheater's crazy run of success.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  The Nevada Gaming Control Board doesn't mess around. I remember there was an HN thread about reproducible builds, and someone who worked on slot machine software mentioned that the NGCB would walk up to a slot machine on the floor of a casino, dump the filesystem onto a memory card, hash it, and the hash had better match what they had on file or someone was getting dragged into court.
  - SilasX 7y ago
    I usually hear that in the context of comparing to our (much worse) voting machine security...
  - jumpingmice 7y ago
    That strikes me as pure security theater. There’s no relationship between what the machine is doing and what is contained on an apparent copy of the machine’s purported storage device. Just like TSA booting my laptop ... when they do it my laptop boots into a Microsoft Windows environment that I’ve literally never used. When I boot the same machine I get netbsd. Weird, right ?
gameswithgo 7y ago
having phones near the table is so dumb. chess has already dealt with similar challenges, people should have known. maybe they did!
paggle 7y ago
Poker is a very slow and boring game and with people's attention spans these days it's going to be hard to ban phones outright. Maybe only at the highest stakes tables.
- anonymfus 7y ago
  But apparently people watch streams of other people playing poker. How is this not considered an unsporting behaviour as it clearly disrespects the audience?
splonk 7y ago
Almost every poker room allows phones at the table. Turns out poker's a really boring game when you're at a table for hours and hours. Many of them technically don't allow use of them during a hand, but those rules tend to not be strictly enforced. Often players at the table are even playing online games against each other concurrent with the poker game - sometimes gambling on things like open face chinese/pineapple, or just regular games like Words With Friends. Source: played thousands of hours of high stakes live games, and I'll bet that some of the regulars are among the best Angry Birds players in the world.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  I play at Stones a bit, and last time I was there, there was this dude with a laptop open on his drink cart playing a few tables online on the side while playing live. They are very (too) lax about technology there.
  - splonk 7y ago
    This is also not uncommon. I've seen similar at Oaks, Bay 101, Wynn, Casino Arizona, Commerce, and probably others as well. I tend to believe that it shouldn't be allowed, if only for the pace of the game, but it's not unique to Stones.
Too 7y ago
There's a lot of focus on his phone. If this guy is really cheating it's probably way more sophisticated than that. There are super tiny hidden in-ear earbuds that would easily go unnoticed unless someone really looks for it. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/E~0AAOSwqABbH4mT/s-l640.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/E~0AAOSwqABbH4mT/s-l640.jpg Or vibrating devices hidden anywhere else on the body. This paired with some information from the RFID stream, either through some insider or by hacking the Wifi. As you say there are also lots of other items brought in and worn by the players, looking at the video i see people wearing hats, shades, bags and bulky clothes where you could easily hide all kinds of equipment.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

umvi 7y ago

Seriously, even a phone without internet seems like a massive opportunity to cheat. Simply create a custom app that allows you to input all available information via accelerometer input or volume button clicks which is fed to a poker engine and the then the app communicates the result of the engine's decision via vibration pulses. Even IF you allow phones though, it seems insane not to make players play in an RF-shielded room so that radio signals can't enter or leave.

wallace_f 7y ago
If it's an inside job, the phones are not even necessary. Body language could communicate the state of competitor's hands against his. And because the stream is delayed, there is not even a need for hand states to be revealed by RFID. This info can be retroactively added with better techniques.
manav 7y ago
A poker engine wouldn't really help you since it can't read players and intentions, also most decent players can calculate odds in their heads.
ar_lan 7y ago
It sounds like your idea is just calculating odds - this is a slight advantage, but most pro's have learned to do this in their heads already. Poker math isn't very complicated.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  maybe this is just my ignorance showing, but really? people can just computer large factorials and binomial coefficients in their heads fast enough to participate in the game? I had always thought that knowing the odds exactly just wasn't that useful because there was a lot of missing information and it was more important to read one's opponents.
  - gameswithgo 7y ago
    only recently have very powerful computers gotten better at poker than good humans. a phone probably can't do it yet. but a phone could be used as a way to do various kinds of digital spying or communicating with other people etc.
  - jcampbell1 7y ago
    There are a total of 169 starting hands and at most half are relevant. Most people you can put on a range of 40 or fewer hands. All the math you need can be inferred from about 100 things you need to memorize, most of which are fairly intuitive.
  - femto113 7y ago
    It's usually not anywhere near that complicated. To use an example from the article he folded a QJ against a QT with 89J on the board with no flush possibilities. In this case there are not very many hands that can be beating him: the pocket pairs AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 99, 88, stuff that makes two pair like J9, J8, 98, and the straights QT and T7. Overall this is going to be close to the chance when holding 77 that your opponent has a higher pair, which most professional players will "just know" is about 3-4% because they memorize tables of such facts[1]. This means he should believe he's a pretty substantial favorite and why the fold was so unexpected. [1] https://poker.stackexchange.com/questions/1203/pocket-pair-starting-hands-vs-probability-of-opponent-having-a-pocket-pair https://poker.stackexchange.com/questions/1203/pocket-pair-s...
    - appleshore 7y ago
      It is that complicated if you’re trying to factor accurate ranges, card removal and bet sizing. He’s obviously not doing this because he’s playing an exploitative style. In otherwords, he’s guessing perfectly based on his perceptions. For the mathematically perfect, they spend hours studying solvers which takes considerable processing power to generate the trees. A human player can calculate aspects of it but they can really only memorize what the solver would do. And some high stakes online players are using custom software to augment their decisions. Depending on the bet size, the solver could call the turn a % of times. And depending on blockers, unblockers and the bet sizing, the solver could advocate to call/raise/fold.

elwell 7y ago

It's very common to use your phone at a poker table at casinos.

crazypyro 7y ago

I've heard several theories that it was an cyber security failure. Using phones at poker tables, especially ones without RFID systems, isn't really a risk.

gameswithgo 7y ago
how do you figure out if the phone has an rfid system?
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  Poker tables with or without RFID systems, I think, is the issue.
anoncareer0212 7y ago
It's a massive risk - it's the only external source of information he has at the table, without it, cyber security failures mean nothing
- dmix 7y ago
  This could easily have been an inside-job situation with Postle knowing someone on the tech team who feeds him the information and the split earnings. The fact RFID is observable wouldn't make much difference then.

cepth 7y ago

A 30-minute (minimum) time delay on a live stream is usually a legal requirement in most jurisdictions, enforced by the state gaming commission. Most poker rooms also allow you to use your phone, as long are you're not a participant in the current hand. The alleged cheater (Mike Postle) is said to have hid his phone under the table, in his crotch area. Obviously, it's going to be pretty hard for other players and the dealer to check for that at that angle. In the end, the no-phone rule in most poker rooms is going to be largely an honor-system based thing. Edit: Jason Somerville, who founded one of the most popular poker streaming companies (Run It Up), has described how stringently the Nevada Gaming Control Board inspects casinos that are hosting streams. E.g. multiple inspections of the streaming equipment, a requirement for a guard at the streaming booth, etc. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS47DB94-vk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS47DB94-vk). He mentioned that California does not seem to have the same level of on-site scrutiny. Edit2: On TwoPlusTwo (the popular poker forum), long time players at Stones Gambling Hall (where the alleged cheating took place) mentioned that their poker room did not institute a no-phone policy until sometime into the alleged cheater's crazy run of success.

Analemma_ 7y ago
The Nevada Gaming Control Board doesn't mess around. I remember there was an HN thread about reproducible builds, and someone who worked on slot machine software mentioned that the NGCB would walk up to a slot machine on the floor of a casino, dump the filesystem onto a memory card, hash it, and the hash had better match what they had on file or someone was getting dragged into court.
- SilasX 7y ago
  I usually hear that in the context of comparing to our (much worse) voting machine security...
- jumpingmice 7y ago
  That strikes me as pure security theater. There’s no relationship between what the machine is doing and what is contained on an apparent copy of the machine’s purported storage device. Just like TSA booting my laptop ... when they do it my laptop boots into a Microsoft Windows environment that I’ve literally never used. When I boot the same machine I get netbsd. Weird, right ?

gameswithgo 7y ago

having phones near the table is so dumb. chess has already dealt with similar challenges, people should have known. maybe they did!

paggle 7y ago

Poker is a very slow and boring game and with people's attention spans these days it's going to be hard to ban phones outright. Maybe only at the highest stakes tables.

anonymfus 7y ago
But apparently people watch streams of other people playing poker. How is this not considered an unsporting behaviour as it clearly disrespects the audience?

splonk 7y ago

Almost every poker room allows phones at the table. Turns out poker's a really boring game when you're at a table for hours and hours. Many of them technically don't allow use of them during a hand, but those rules tend to not be strictly enforced. Often players at the table are even playing online games against each other concurrent with the poker game - sometimes gambling on things like open face chinese/pineapple, or just regular games like Words With Friends. Source: played thousands of hours of high stakes live games, and I'll bet that some of the regulars are among the best Angry Birds players in the world.

ryandrake 7y ago
I play at Stones a bit, and last time I was there, there was this dude with a laptop open on his drink cart playing a few tables online on the side while playing live. They are very (too) lax about technology there.
- splonk 7y ago
  This is also not uncommon. I've seen similar at Oaks, Bay 101, Wynn, Casino Arizona, Commerce, and probably others as well. I tend to believe that it shouldn't be allowed, if only for the pace of the game, but it's not unique to Stones.

Too 7y ago

There's a lot of focus on his phone. If this guy is really cheating it's probably way more sophisticated than that. There are super tiny hidden in-ear earbuds that would easily go unnoticed unless someone really looks for it. https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/E~0AAOSwqABbH4mT/s-l640.jpg https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/E~0AAOSwqABbH4mT/s-l640.jpg Or vibrating devices hidden anywhere else on the body. This paired with some information from the RFID stream, either through some insider or by hacking the Wifi. As you say there are also lots of other items brought in and worn by the players, looking at the video i see people wearing hats, shades, bags and bulky clothes where you could easily hide all kinds of equipment.