‘LET’S SEE YOU WIN LIKE POTRIPPER AT THE LODGE’
By Staff
In a lawsuit filed ten days after Veronica Brill publicly accused 16-year-pro (at the time) Mike Postle of cheating on the Stones Gambling Hall poker livestream in 2019, “statistical analysis” referenced in the filing was believed to be the “nail in the coffin” for Postle in what most perceived as a “slam dunk” case.
In a video interview after the lawsuit made headlines, poker pro Jonathan Little went through the Complaint, line-by-line with lead counsel for Plaintiffs, famed poker attorney Maurice “Mac” VerStandig.
Little read through the filing, while highlighting key data points. “Number 54 here… ‘He had optimal decision making so precise that he had a winning session of more than 94% of his live games’ — which literally no one does, probably ever in the history of poker…”
“Essentially number 56 says that every scenario where he could quote, unqote be guessing, it all worked out… Every single time he had a one way or the other decision, it was always right.”
He concluded, “All this is basically saying the same thing, right? We are using math to prove that all of this is absurd”, to which VerStandig replied “Yep.”
Little followed up, “And um, I guess are you allowed to talk about, like you have a mathematician who has run these numbers for you to confirm all these numbers are right?”
VerStandig responded, “We’ve been through a lot of statistical analyses. We are going to have a period of time before we have to designate in public who our expert witnesses are.”
Despite the “eyebrow raising” dodgy response, no one questioned VerStandig’s “out of this world” data claims, who compiled them, or how they were so readily available just days after the scandal broke, considering there were approximately 10,000 hands and nearly 400 hours of footage to analyze.
With no pushback, VerStandig pressed on, repeating the ever-growing “fish tale” to anyone who took the time to listen, including reporter AustIn Carter of KTNV Action 13 News in Las Vegas, who repeated the now known to be severely flawed data, to his audience in script-like fashion.
In the segment the KTNV news team repeated the claim, “Postle won more than 94% of the Stones Live Poker games… while raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars from fellow players… His winnings were statistically unfathomable in the world of professional poker…”
Despite publicly available statistical analysis that actually proves Mike Postle did not win 94% of his sessions, but rather 78%, close to his career average, neither KTNV or Carter have corrected the report. In fact, none of the numerous “news” outlets who repeated VerStandig’s flawed “findings” have.
When a weary sounding Mike Postle made an impromptu guest appearance on Omar of The OTC’s X Spaces this past February, he once again touched on the “fake data” used to convince a scandal thirsty public of his guilt.
When popular poker pro Allen Kessler reviewed a chart circulated by Rounder with links to 16 losing sessions, he tagged Bart Hanson, who originally cited data as “proof.”
“Wow according to this, Postle didn’t fare too well on the stream. These numbers are accurate?” – Allen Kessler.
After Hanson ridiculed Kessler for drawing attention to his debunked data, many started questioning the validity of the cheating claims, and how those viewed as “gatekeepers” missed crucial key points.
“How is it that poker pros who make a living recognizing BS missed the BS?” one casual observer asked.
Hanson countered that it didn’t matter if the initial data assessment was off (over $130k).
“Who cares he had the highest bluffing frequency of anyone on the show by multiples…”
*Hanson didn’t provide any actual statistics to support his latest analysis.
The following night, in another Omar of The OTC’s X Spaces, a guest who identified himself as someone who worked at MIT with numerous other poker enthusiasts there, brought up the recent data discussion, and shared that his group had come to the conclusion that “if” Rounder’s data was accurate, “to say it’s proof of cheating is absurd.”
He went further pointing out Garrett Adelstein won at a similar rate (75%) on Hustler Live against a far more superior lineup.
A few days later POSTLEGATE lead “investigator” Joe Ingram and guest Doug Polk discussed Postle’s reemergence on Ingram’s popular poker podcast. The topic quickly turned to Ingram’s investigation and the contested data Ingram admitted was flawed.
He then announced he wanted to give Postle an opportunity to tell his side of the story.
Polk then stunned the audience by offering to stake Postle at his card club, challenging him to match his incredible run at Stones. (Full clip)
If the challenge is accepted, it’s expected millions will tune in to see if Postle can win like POTRIPPER at The Lodge, or at least like Garrett Adelstein did on Hustler Live.
