This story was published January 9, 2020. It was last updated Nov 27, 2020 at 2:40 p.m.(CST)
Citrus Heights, CA – It’s been over three months since news of an alleged cheating scandal in a poker live stream at Stones Gambling Hall in Citrus Heights, CA rocked the poker world.
Mike Postle, a 16 year poker pro, is accused of having access to other players’ hole cards (or receiving an unfair advantage), on the Stones Live Poker show and allegedly profiting in excess of $300,000 over approximately a year and a half.
* Plaintiff Veronica Brill Drops Case Against Stones, Kuraitis
* Judge Denies VerStandig’s Motion To Withdraw As Counsel
* David Tuchman : “You Told Me A Couple Of Weeks Before What Might Go Down”
* Justin Kuraitis Breaks Silence In Open Letter To “Poker Community”
* Stones Gambling Hall Settles Poker Lawsuit; Lawyer Says No Cheating By Casino Found – The Sacramento Bee
* 27 Holdouts In Stones Case As VerStandig “Withdraws” As Counsel
* Marle Cordeiro’s Case Against Mike Postle Dismissed
* Marle Cordeiro Responds To Mike Postle’s Motion To Dismiss
* Mike Postle Files “Motion To Dismiss” In Nevada Case
* Mike Postle : Cordeiro’s Argument Inconsistent With The Law
* Marle Cordeiro Responds To Mike Postle’s Motion To Dismiss
* Statistics In ‘Postlegate” Completely Fabricated
* Mike Postle Not Making All The right Moves Volume 1
* Mike Postle Not Making All The Right Moves Volume 2
* New Revelations Deflate “Postlegate” Narrative
* Unearthed Evidence Exposes Major Error In Lawsuit Allegations – Marle Cordeiro Complaint
* Reporter’s Errors Lead To Misreported Facts In Postlegate
* Mike Postle Asks Court To Dismiss Complaint
* Allegations Against Justin Kuraitis Don’t Add Up – Responds To Lawsuit
* Mike Postle “Smoking Gun” Cheating Theory Flops With New Revelations
* Evidence Supports Mike Postle’s Version Of Infamous “Moneymaker Hand”
* I Told Mike Postle To “Make Some Money From The Moneymaker, With The Moneymaker”
* Mike Postle Re-loads Twice In A Session He Plays With Bart Hanson : No Mention Of Non-Reported Add-ons In Interview With Win Rate Graph Creator John S.
* Breakdown of Mike Postle May 18, 2019 Stream At Stones : $2,000 In Non-Reported Add-ons Highlight Major Reporting Flaws
* Video : Watch Mike Postle Receive $2,000 In Non-Reported Add-ons During May 18, 2019 Session At Stones
* Even When Gump And John S. Get It Right, They’re Wrong
* Postle May Have Played Regularly At Other Casino
* Breakdown of Mike Postle July 20, 2019 Stream At Stones
* New Numbers Cast Doubt On Postlegate
Related : “Deep Pockets” Card Rooms Unfairly Targeted In PPC Debacle
Veronica Brill (@Angry_Polak), a player and regular commentator in the game, was the first to voice her concerns that Postle might be cheating.
After relaying her suspicions to Stones’ management, she was subsequently notified that an internal investigation had taken place and no cheating was uncovered. The assurances, however, didn’t satisfy Brill.
On the final stream which she co-hosted on September 21, 2019 everything came to a tipping point after Postle folded a big hand to poker vlogger Marle Cordeiro that “didn’t make sense” to Brill.
Veronica Brill Compilation Of Suspicious Hands
The story gained momentum when poker vlogger Joey Ingram weighed in on the popular poker forum TwoPlusTwo, which now has over 1,300,00 views on its related “Mike Postle cheating allegations” thread. He then began a series of live-streamed “investigations” on his YouTube channel joeyingram1.
For additional articles see industry leader PokerNews.com’s coverage here.
The story drew mainstream media attention after Scott Van Pelt highlighted it on the “1Big Thing” segment on SportsCenter. “If you’re the equivalent of a guy who shows up to play pick-up basketball and you never, ever missed a shot for a couple of years…wouldn’t you go play in the NBA? If you’re some kind of poker god who almost never lost, who made the right call or fold virtually every single time – if you were this good – why would you be playing in games only with a video feed and a 1-3 table at Stones Poker Room. Why wouldn’t you be in Vegas winning all the money in the world?” – Scott Van Pelt
A few days later Ryen Russillo from “The Ringer” interviewed Joey Ingram, considered the utmost authority on the scandal and head of the ‘unofficial’ investigation credited with “solving the case”. Russillo initially contacted Bob Voulgaris (Director of Quantitative Research and Development for the Dallas Mavericks), who had been tweeting his own opinions about the case :
Those tweets have since been removed, as was another from Voulgaris on October 9th.
Voulgaris suggested Russillo get in touch with Ingram.
In his interview with Ingram, Russillo, after admitting he knows little about poker, repeated the narrative pushed by Ingram that Postle “won 62 of 69 events for a total of $250k. He wouldn’t play anywhere else…He would always get up and leave immediately”, and “This guy’s walking around sh*t talking people…” Listen to the interview here.
The consensus among “the poker community” and the aforementioned “mainstream media” is that he cheated. This conclusion was derived in part from “expert” analysis of hands that he played, but based primarily on his “absurd” win rate.
Despite reportedly winning over $20,000 in one session alone, we’ve been told the stakes were too low to win the ($250,000 to $300,000) amount or at the rate he allegedly won, as explained here.
Poker pros Scott Siever and Daniel Negreanu were two of the first high profile poker pros to speak out publicly saying seemingly without a scintilla of doubt, “he was cheating“.
Up to this point, there has been very little public support for Postle. It’s not clear if this is due to the fact that there is such an overwhelming consensus that he cheated and everyone is in total agreement, or if it’s from the fear of being publicly ridiculed if you dare raise any doubt.
Living poker legend Mike Matusow, who has conducted the only direct interview with Postle, opted to wait for all the facts to come out before giving his opinion. The reaction for not falling in line has been anything but understanding from the ever growing social justice mob.
We’ve been presented with numerous charts and graphs showing how Postle profited hundreds of thousands of dollars in roughly 300 hrs of play. One graph (below) circulated through social media, displays how infamous online cheater Potripper’s win rate pales in comparison with Postle’s.
These “indisputable” numbers, we are told, prove Postle’s guilt.
Where did these numbers come from ? Who put them together, and can they be trusted as factual enough to destroy someone’s reputation ?
The first instance we uncovered appears to be when John S., under the username js84, made a post on Two Plus Two on October 2, 2019 which included a link to a chart he and his friend Russ McGinley created, tallying the data of the streams in which Postle played.
John S. lists the “bottom line” of their report as “+$253,300 in 277 hours of play, winning in 62/69 sessions”.
That same day, Joey Ingram posted the chart on twitter.
Just posted on 2p2
Mikes approx results from 2018/2019 on stream. Absolutely GOD LIKE. What happened during June??????
+$253,000 in 277 hours of play
62/69 winning sessions https://t.co/pC9W1PsgwK pic.twitter.com/IKodFpbl2m
A few days later, in an October 7, 2019 CrushLivePoker interview, John S. and McGinley explained the methodology they used to track Postle’s win rate. Bart Hanson hailed the two as “a couple of local heroes”. Listen to the full interview here.
In response to a question posed by Hanson as to how they were able to compile the numbers in such a short period of time (just a couple of days after the story broke), he says that some streams took less than 15 minutes because Postle had a chip lead and couldn’t add on, so he was able to ‘skip ahead’.
In the interview he also reveals that after their chart was made public, someone else found three more sessions in which Postle profited an additional $25,000. From those additional winnings, he concludes that Postle profited “just under $1,000 per hour”.
The purported $1,000 per hour win rate matches data used in the infamous “Potripper / Postle comparison graph” (below).
Hanson points out that the chances someone could have the (approximate) $1,000 per hour win rate the chart alleges, is “..one in one hundred zeroes”.
Russ McGinley’s method for calculating the 2018 streams was different than John S.’ as he relied more on a digital tracking system, which we will address in an upcoming report.
The second chart being circulated (since deleted on December 31, 2019 but can be viewed here) was created by a video gamer named Gumpnstein (“Gump”) and presented by Joey Ingram on October 7, 2019 on his YouTube channel joeyingram1. Ingram mentions the previously reported profit number of +$253,000 before highlighting Gump’s new alleged profit number of $329,289. In a post on TwoPlusTwo Ingram includes a link to the chart which he praises as “a thing of beauty“.
The $250,000 to $300,000 profit number(s) have been referenced numerous times in determining Postle’s guilt, see examples here, here, here, here, and most recently in an article on PokerNews.com entitled “Top 10 Stories of 2019 : Mike Postle Caught Cheating On Livestream“.
Postle, however, disputes the alleged numbers saying in an exclusive interview with Mike Matusow that it “couldn’t be further from the truth”, estimating his winnings to be closer to “half of what’s been reported”. He seemed very confident that, if given time, it could and would be proven.
“THE MOUTHPIECE” Interview Part 1
“THE MOUTHPIECE” Interviews Part 2.
While Postle’s assertion that the numbers are off has been brushed aside by seemingly everyone, including the media, Joey Ingram himself inadvertently seemed to give credence to it on a video in which he set out to calculate Postle’s true profits.
After the painstaking task of charting each hand Postle played (keeping track of his wins and losses) during a December 17, 2018 stream, Ingram referred back to the Gumpnstein graph to see how his numbers matched up. To his “disgust” he points out the Gumpnstein chart lists Postle’s winnings for the session at $8,000 while his own calculation had Postle winning “$5,000 less” (overreporting Postle’s profit by 62% in one session alone).
Ingram then inexplicably tries to point out that Postle’s win rate “is still completely absurd”, despite just proving he has no idea what his win rate actually is, since true profit numbers are required for an accurate calculation. Watch here.
Since this stream aired on October 13, 2019 there has been virtual silence on the scandal from Ingram. If Ingram, who was praised by Van Pelt for being “cautious” and “fair”, is truly trying to get to the truth, why isn’t he looking further into these glaring profit number discrepancies, after all, we’ve been told the numbers are the heart of the case.
With each side projecting different “bottom lines”, who can we believe ?
Rather than rely on the narrative, and since the alleged crime happened in public view for anyone who wishes to spend the time to review, Rounder Life Media decided to conduct its own independent investigation into random streams to see how the numbers match up. At the time of this publication Rounder has over 40 streams in various stages of review, and over 250 man-hours on the case.
In our initial report we’ve tallied the results from 14 random streams, all of which were included in the lawsuit filed by The VerStandig Law Firm, LLC,. We matched our findings against the John S. and Gumpnstein charts, using whichever of those charts listed a lower profit number for Postle.
*Gumpnstein notes that he inserted the numbers from the chart created by John S. into his chart, so you will notice their 2019 numbers are nearly identical. Russ McGinley’s 2018 breakdown is not provided (only his bottom line of $93,300 in 31 sessions) so we use Gumpnstein’s data for 2018).
What we’ve uncovered thus far is that the alleged profit numbers from these charts are not just off, they’re not even close. What’s being missed are errors in starting and ending stacks, cash on the table add-ons and re-buys, out of pocket chip add-ons, as well as graphical errors which lead to major bottom line profit discrepancies.
The Rounder Report – Report #1 Summary (14) Streams
The total amount of profit listed by Gumpnstein and/or John S. in the (14) streams reviewed was $65,392.
The total amount of profit listed by Rounder in those same (14) streams was $36,883 for a discrepancy of $28,509.
* These numbers are not final, as ‘out of pocket’ add-ons and graphical errors are very difficult to catch and more instances may be found as we continue our review.
Not only are these results off, they’re off by an alarming number. Based on the evidence we’ve uncovered, claims that the charts are close to accurate or in particular John S’ claim that his calculations were 95% accurate are not just unfactual, they’re farcical.
Though still in the early stages of our investigation, with $28,509 in profit discrepancies already uncovered in approximately 20% of the total streams Postle played, we can conservatively predict that Gumpnstein’s alleged profit number of $329k will be off by at least $100,000. Projecting our results forward would realistically (using mathematical statistical probabilities) translate to the alleged profit number of $329,000 being off by over $150,000.
While Gumpnstein’s chart is nowhere near accurate, at least he was responsible enough to include the following disclaimer, to his since deleted chart, which to our knowledge no one has pointed out publicly until now :
Gumpnstein Disclaimer (image captured from original chart)
In addressing John S.’ findings, we’re not just referring to his failure to document some of the harder to detect instances, where Postle adds on chips himself like here, or where graphics errors lead to major mistakes like here. This would be somewhat acceptable. We’re talking about numerous “cash on the table in plain site add-ons” that he’s missing (see example from July 20, 2019 stream below).
Cash on table for add-on #1
At first glance his chart seems legitimate. He adds assurances to its accuracy claiming he “always erred in Postle’s favor”. In other notes he highlights his apparent attention to detail when he remarks “odd bluff river sizing”, yet in the July 20, 2019 session alone he was off by over $2,800, mostly from obvious cash on the table add-ons.
We want to make it clear that Rounder Life Media is not giving an opinion as to whether or not we believe Mike Postle is innocent of these very serious allegations. We are searching for the truth, and reporting facts not unsubstantiated conjecture.
The truth as we know it right now is that the alleged profit numbers repeated by virtually everyone, including the media, as evidence of Postle’s guilt, are nowhere near accurate.
In fact, from what we’ve uncovered to date, it appears Postle’s profit will be well within a reasonable win rate ratio once all the data gathering has been completed.
While we agree everyone is free to argue all they want about their opinions on how Postle played hands and if it does or doesn’t prove he’s cheating. That is clearly open for debate, but relying on a false narrative as a pass to make unsubstantiated claims such as “he cheated a dying man” for instance, could be considered slanderous IOHO.
Over the next few weeks we will be releasing detailed data on the streams we’ve examined. We’ll also have exclusive interviews and present vital information on other topics related to the case that you won’t hear anywhere else.
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Continuing Coverage of Our Investigation
New Numbers Cast Doubt On Postlegate
Rounder Report : Breakdown Of Mike Postle July 20, 2019 Stream At Stones
Postle May Have Played Regularly At Other Casino
Even When Gump And John S. Get It Right, They’re Wrong
Mike Postle Re-loads Twice In A Session He Plays With Bart Hanson : No Mention Of Non-Reported Add-ons In Interview With Win Rate Graph Creator John S.
I Told Mike Postle To “Make Some Money With The Moneymaker, From The Moneymaker”
Evidence Supports Mike Postle’s Version Of Infamous “Moneymaker Hand”
Mike Postle “Smoking Gun” Cheating Theory Flops With New Revelations
Mike Postle Asks Court To Dismiss Complaint
Reporter’s Errors Lead To Misreported Facts In Postlegate
Unearthed Evidence Exposes Major Error In Lawsuit Allegations
New Revelations Deflate “Postlegate” Narrative
Mike Postle Not Making All The right Moves Video
Statistics In ‘Postlegate” Completely Fabricated
In 2007 Rounder Magazine recognized Mike Postle as an elite pro and provided him with merchandise to promote the Rounder brand. No other considerations have been provided. Mr. Postle has never had ownership rights, nor has he ever been employed by Rounder. Rounder Life Media is not in a position to determine Mike Postle's guilt or innocence. This will be determined by the official investigation(s) being conducted, or through a court of law, not speculation. We will continue to pursue all relevant facts related to this case and report such, whether they support or disprove the charges.
