MP: Since the Fedor Kruse case, the poker rooms have started a war against Real-Time Assistance and GTO solver programmes. GGPoker suddenly banned a lot of players including you, which they also received some backlash for it. Some people said it was leading to unfair and biased decisions against regular pros, what is your opinion regarding the banned players controversy? Is that like a poker witch hunt?
apestyles: Yes, I have been banned from GGPoker even though I never used real-time assistance and with any due process, without even informing me what they have against me. They did however, give me my money back and I do believe they have the right to choose who they wish to play on their site or not. Honestly, it did seem that only winning players got booted off. I don’t know any losing player that has been banned.
Recently, I have also been under investigation by PokerStars, probably because of GGPoker. It is ongoing but I am absolutely 100% confident that I will be cleared because there is nothing I have done in violation of their terms and conditions. I am excited for that actually. Another reason was that I am associated with a site called GTOTrainer.com which shows on my Twitch after a session. I do have a program on my computer that is meant to prevent me from using the site while I am playing. GTOTrainer has a lot of different solvers that you can look up to for almost every situation postflop and we actually, work really hard to prevent cheating. In order to use the site, you must first download a program that doesn’t allow you to have other poker sites open and has a delay to make sure people cannot use it in real-time. I can’t stand cheaters and I have great respect for people who study their game to get better which is why GTOTrainer is meant to be used as a great study tool alone.
After all of that, I just realized that I have to be vigilant about what I have open on my computer because I teach poker and I have some documents that I really need to close while I am playing, regardless if I’m not using them. The poker sites have really good detectors which is great. I am glad that these sites have securities but it does suck to be accused when you technically work hard and don’t do anything wrong.