It’s encouraging for people who just want attention to see something like this spread to mainstream outlets.
What’s good for poker is whatever encourages more people to play at the bottom of the poker pyramid, not what brings in more whales to play nosebleed stakes at the top.
The best thing for poker would be if Robbi turns into a draw who people want to watch.
Like, regardless of what happened here, the fact that all it would have taken to cheat in a game like this is hiding a device the size of a stick of gum that costs < $250 and a notification device ($140 - $250) should be extremely concerning to the community. Both could be easily hidden in a hat, clothing, jewelry/watches/whatever, or inside common card protectors or containers that are generally allowed on the table during live streamed games.
This widespread idea that it’s virtually impossible that cheating is occurring is really bad.
The fact that (and this doesn’t apply to this hand or these two at all), I could hide that device at the bottom of a pack of gum, sit in the 3 seat, and offer a stick to the 1 seat, passing it over the 2 seat’s cards, then have a hidden bone conduction headphone say the two cards, should be deeply concerning about RFID security.
The fact that if the range is more, I might be able to hide that in my hat and just angle my head towards your cards and get that information, should be even more terrifying. I’m not an expert on this technology, but my understanding is they’re working on being able to read RFID in shopping carts as you pass under a reader on the way out the door, which would indicate that the range can be at least a 4-5 feet, right?
The community badly needs an RFID expert to break down what’s possible and what’s not in the context of all games involving RFID cards so that we can figure out ways to protect those games.
Sooooo this. Nailed it.
Up until this happened it was a goal of mine to play on the 10/20 game on Mondays, and to try to build my bankroll high enough to play in the intermediary games (50/100 or 50/100/200, not 200/400/800) within the next couple of years.
I’ve scratched both off my list at the moment. If they tighten up security significantly after this investigation, I’ll re-evaluate.
She just did an interview with poker news. Still saying she thought she had j3 but also full of bluster regarding her skill.
The one thing that is amazing here is everybody is taking the nut low path to a good resolution!
Hi everybody.
The mod team is trying to cool things off around here and this thread has been a particular hot point so I’m going to pass along the warning Tilted issued in the Log of Moderator Actions:
Thanks!
If they don’t make significant changes at HCL and he continues to play, will you question how sure he is that he was cheated?
Yes. But I’d be shocked if they don’t make significant changes.
I think it’s a terrible look that Doug is going on the show. I get the whole, “You’d have to be insane to try to cheat on a live stream this week,” logic, but just based on his take that it’s not safe and being a highly prominent pro, he shouldn’t go on there.
This is totally worth watching.
he doesn’t actually think it isn’t safe, he’s 99% a content creator now
paying her back would be admitting he was wrong, neither he nor anybody on his side is ever doing that
Isn’t his youtube channel basically dead?
his website upswingpoker does pretty well
Everything I knew about him before this is he was a totally stand up guy. Still think he is and just caught up in all this insanity.
My vague understanding is that an RFID reader that small would not be strong enough to read Robbi’s cards if it were in Robbi’s water bottle.
Also, the RFID signal from a card doesn’t tell you what the card is, from what I understand. The card RFID just gives you a serial number, probably non-sequential if they are serious about security, and you have to map it to the card in the computer being used to produce the stream.
Reading the RFID signal at the table seems to be a dead end. Any cheating would seem to require someone on the inside with access to the data. The path to coming close to a definitive answer is either finding someone in production who is a likely confederate or determining that no one seems likely to be involved. Instead of chasing shadows on streamed video, the super sleuths who think she’s guilty should be trying to get a list of HCL employees and digging into their lives.
GMan’s donation reminds me of when Bryn Kenney added a buy-in to the WSOP main event giveaway organized by Nadya Magnus.
Watching this video I am now 99.9% no cheating. There is no world in which someone does this interview, and several others , days after cheating someone for $300k+.
Lol she claims they are going to play HU!
I don’t think the water bottle is likely but I have no idea which is why I think having an expert go over this for the community and these stream houses is important. What’s the range? Does it correlate to size? Can it work through different objects? They work through the table from close range, obviously.
Correct but you can map it in any reading system. They should be rotating decks regularly and not using the same deck again for a couple months. But these decks aren’t cheap, either. So I doubt they’re rotating them as much as they should.
I disagree but we really don’t know. Hence needing an RFID expert to help the community.
The inside would include the shuffle manufacturer, card manufacturer, table manufacturer, RFID reader manufacturer, graphics software manager, stream software manager, hardware managers for the stream production, and perhaps more.
In that session. Why did he not play with the ahead/behind knowledge
I don’t think it’s fair to call this a fact without a lot more evidence that this type of cheating would be this trivially easy with widely available equipment. I’m not saying it’s not possible, and I don’t know a lot about the technology, but reading cards from across the table seems like a stretch.
Your posts contain a lot of reasonable skepticism and uncertainty, but this part struck me as moving too far toward certainty that it’s even possible.
I agree 100% that this should be a wakeup call and security processes (and transparency) should be ramped up significantly. Unfortunately it’s also true that they wouldn’t want to be completely transparent about their security setup and any countermeasures in place.
Finally, as described, your device seems closer to a pack of gum than a stick, and this is not an insignificant difference.
Would returning to the ancient era of hole-card cameras be any easier in terms of managing the security of the game?