Have you ever met someone who claims to have a photographic memory? Let’s say I give you a Stephen King novel and a month to memorize it. If you then read back verbatim a page of my choice, full punctuation, line breaks, any typos, etc., I need no further information or evidence. Case closed.
I’ve been taken for a ride.
How? I really don’t care. From a mathematical standpoint, the odds of you being the first and only person with a photographic memory out of 7 billion and me happening to catch the first demonstration of it is quite slim. Plus, one must factor in the probability that someone with a true photographic memory actually exists in today’s world. This isn’t X-Men where one small mutation in the genetic code causes people to run through walls. This caliber of evolution would likely take 10’s or 100’s of thousands of years and a countless cascade of extremely lucky neurological mutations in just the right sequence.
Crossing Over to the Dark Side
In the last article, I described what can be referred to as a lone-wolf RTA. These are very stealthy and creation is in the eye of the beholder. The better you are at coding or whatever means of creation, the better the RTA. These are most commonly used by very experienced online players who often have a win-rate without them. This behavior likely started out as a realization that anyone can access information undetected. For example, you can look up prohibited reference material on a separate device while playing. They realize that there is no limit to the amount of images, charts, or data that they can access. Eventually, GTO solutions are simulated, purchased, or copied from another RTA. Unbeatable plays are much more useful and profitable than any type of reference material.
At first, just the toughest situations are mapped out after an honest grinding session for study purposes. Then who would ever know if you occasionally, once in a blue moon, accessed a GTO solution? A broken clock is right twice a day, and in theory, every player unknowingly occasionally makes an amazingly unorthodox GTO click. Who’s to say that click wasn’t made on a lark? Isn’t one free to play a hand in any manner seen fit? In addition, a lot of GTO solutions are intuitive to humans and obvious lines are already being taken daily with no consequences. For example, when out of position post-flop, the GTO solution is often to check close to 100% of the time. Many players have been taking this line for decades. Are they using RTAs? However, the obvious, natural lines aren’t the lines the lone-wolf is interested in. It’s the counterintuitive and complex mixed solutions that they are after.
Eventually, further justifications will be made. They will blame the site or rake increases for having to use the RTA. Other players are probably using much better RTAs. Over 85% of play is still their own so this likely doesn’t even qualify as an RTA. And if it did, they would have been caught by now. They will use it only on weekends, or when running bad, or in difficult spots. They are trying to convince themselves that they are doing nothing wrong. Any and all success is because of their own poker skill and experience. This is how a good guy can slowly become a bad guy.
Game Integrity Quiz
An 18 year-old female is finally able to legally play poker as her birthday was May of this year. It’s two months into the pandemic and her timing couldn’t be better as online poker is experiencing an uptick. Right out the gate she starts playing $200NL 6-max and is shortly dipping into $500NL. This started with two recreational deposits of $500 but now that her roll is up, she follows typical conservative bankroll guidelines. Over the course of her first three months of ever playing poker, she has played an astonishing 200K hands. Her win-rate is 5bb/100 with an average big blind of $3, for a profit of $30K. Everyone is suspicious of this new killer on the scene and thus she is reported to Game Integrity. She has already cashed out $20K when her account is frozen rendering her unable to play or withdraw the remaining $11K.
Game Integrity asks her questions and she offers answers. This information is irrelevant to the case in my opinion since there is a non-zero probably that she knew the exact questions she would one day be asked. Basically, we learn that she is very intelligent and has been studying poker for a very long time.
Next, as has been described in great detail on the various poker forums, Game Integrity temporarily unfreezes her account to request a 90-minute video of her playing her usual 6-8 tables. There are 360 panoramic views, ear piece checks, over shoulder views, and her hands, mouse, keypad, and monitors are visible during the entire session. Everything about her play during the video is consistent with her historical play. It is concluded with near certainty that the person playing poker in the video is the same person who played the 200K hands before the video.
What is the proper course of action?
Private RTAs
The best RTAs are capable of allowing the user to play 100K+ hands/month and bring in $20K-$30K+/month. My homemade RTA designed for game integrity purposes is a laughable joke compared to what is possible in 2020. Often, over 75% of clicks made are near game-theory optimal. These RTAs are very fast permitting multiple tables and often involve game play monitors being covertly duplicated with GTO solutions presented in HUD-like fashion on the duplicates. Great care is taken to hide these duplicate solution monitors.
Organization occurs over time due to the large sums of money involved. There is the person or group of people who developed the RTA. They typically have strong marks in programming, cyber security, encryption, statistics, poker theory, credit card fraud, ransomware, crypto, and other crazy stuff you never thought to think about. Online poker using RTAs is simply the flavor of the year and a very profitable one at that. They are constantly developing the RTA to improve it to something better that’s also less detectable and more user friendly. They will make things less GTO, add misclicks, time-outs and other types of noise all the while expanding the capabilities of it. Since the RTA creators are often already banned, the idea was born to train people to use their RTA. They will stake and pay them a certain percentage of the profit. After training, the player will be playing around the clock. The detection window can be long but time is definitely limited. Once caught, you will have your big day and you will either get kicked off the site or somehow manage to pass the video test which grants you a site-approved RTA. This is life-changing money.
By the way, how did she pass? Again, I really don’t care, but I’ll try to humor you. Maybe they used hidden nano-cameras to scrape up to 9 cards/base-13 numbers, stack, bet, pot size and feed the solution back in some fashion. Maybe they used a contact lens HUD. I say “they” because she likely did not pass the test without help. Maybe a high tech wire. They can’t make you strip down. Maybe a hidden ear piece either skin color or deep in the ear. Maybe develop clumsiness to your use of the RTA with timing and misclicks to make it difficult to label any video test a fail. Maybe commit to memory the top 20 most common unorthodox lines you are most likely to encounter on a daily basis. Maybe the sky is the limit with regards to video editing.
Why do we let these players make videos anyway? Why do we play on their turf? It’s so inefficient and a costly waste of time and resources. One can prove if someone is using an RTA from stats and historical hand history analysis alone. Basically, without getting into specifics, try to prove that the suspect has a photographic memory. Then, since photographic memories don’t exist, they must be getting assistance. In other words, if I give you a coin and you make it land on heads 25 times in a row do I need you to make a video? Do I need you to do it 50 times? Two twins put in separate rooms write identical essays about how their day is going. Is it a coincidence? Do they have telepathy?
What about the extremely rare case she isn’t using an RTA? We’ve probably still been tricked and I want her gone anyway because no one plays that well their first few months. It doesn’t happen in sports, music, academia, any career path, or anything of any substance for that matter. It’s a huge mistake to allow her to continue to play. The mistake actually began when we let her make a video. Now, we can’t confiscate. But if we stop doing videos we no longer have easy confiscations on the fails. We could disconnection of service (DoS) and then confiscate on the multi-account but most RTA players aren’t stupid enough to try that. They will train a new person.
In my opinion, the players in this case are owed $30K. She got the $20K out and will get the remaining $11K out. If we boot her, the site coughs up the $30K to compensate affected players. So, she did $60K worth of damage and gets to keep $30K. In addition, the refunds to the regulars and professionals will be high enough that most players will want an explanation for this force that somehow took four figures from them. Collusion and pure multi-accounting infractions never compensate that well. They will suspect RTA and suspect it was the high volume beast that they no longer see on the tables. Then they will compare refunds and recent players’ pools to forensically narrow down exactly who took their money. Then her hand histories will be combed through for final confirmation of real-time assistance. The players have lost faith, banned together, and are now doing their own game integrity.
Then they will hit the forums and social media. A witch hunt could ensue with accusations being thrown around. The site could lose traffic as who wants to play on a site littered with RTA players? Lower traffic means the damage goes past $60K. She was actually creating games, traffic and rake with no harm to the actual site whatsoever. Look at what this has spiraled into. This one player has caused catastrophic damage.
Here’s where a dark turn can be taken.
What if we somehow decide that she is legitimate and let her continue to play? Who are we to judge a young woman during a pandemic no less? Maybe she is just that good. Maybe she’s a savant. Maybe we are jealous and wouldn’t be in game integrity if we were that good at poker. Maybe she is just on another level. Maybe if we let her continue to play some of our problems will go away.
Uh oh.
