Updated on 22 Feb 26 by
Barry Carter
Poker Expert

When does perfect play become cheating?

How well does somebody have to play in a game of imperfect information before you should question if they are playing fairly?





We are only a few days in but the story of alleged cheating on the Stones Poker Live stream may already be the most talked about poker story of the year, within the community at least. 

How the cheating is alleged to have taken place has not been agreed upon, though the recurring suggestion is information is being relayed from someone involved behind the scenes of the stream or via the RFID chips in the cards. The sheer winrate of Mike Postle is what first aroused so much suspicion. He has had barely any losing sessions over the last couple of years on stream and is up over $150,000 in $1/$3 and $5/$5 games. 

What really has the poker world talking is how he plays in these streams. Postle seemingly makes the perfect play in almost every hand. He has been managing to fold second best hands, sometimes near nut hands, without investing much money. When he has the best hand he never folds no matter how unlikely it is that it's the winner, perhaps most notably getting 54o in ahead (in equity) preflop against two players both with Ace King. There are a lot of videos going around at this point, the one below is a good starting point, this Reddit thread summarises a lot of the key points and if you want a deep dive into it check out this 2+2 thread:

The Fundamental Theorem of Poker

To an outsider the poker world might seem like a very alienating place this week. Without a shred of direct evidence of how they are supposed to have done it, somebody is being accused of cheating. Indeed when you have seen films like Rounders you assume some players have this sixth sense ability to read people at the table and can win every hand. To an outsider this might all seem like sour grapes from the poker world. 

The question is, how perfectly can somebody play at the tables before their winnings become impossible? We have all seen insane runs in poker, but this is not like Postle went on a Jamie Gold-esque run of cards hitting his one out every time. The reason why the poker world is irate is because Postle seemed to know where he was in every hand to a degree we have never seen before in poker. 

It reminds me of David Sklansky's Fundamental Theorem of Poker from his book The Theory of Poker, which states:

Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. 

Even the best players in the world are not able to put people on specific cards, they play against a range of likely cards. Almost every hand of note from the 15+ hours of Stones Live Poker archives was played in the ideal way against the specific hand Postle was up against. 

The simplest explanation

Occam's Razor is the idea that when there are two competing theories, the simplest one is usually correct. This is a useful heuristic usually used to refute conspiracy theories, however in this case it seems like the simplest theory to how somebody could play near perfectly for such an extended run of time is that they had assistance. 

Almost every high profile player on social media who has spoken out about this has concluded that some form of cheating has happened. Although we have our fair share of crazies, the top end of poker is populated by some of the most rational, intelligent and, in some cases, genius people. 

As long as there is no direct evidence that Mike Postle was in cahoots with somebody else working on the stream or had some sort of device helping him, I don't think we will see this go as far as legal action. However, the poker community is correct to air their concerns when they see somebody playing near perfect for such a long stretch of hands. The now infamous UB Superuser scandal was exposed for precisely the same reason. An account was playing close to perfect so often that the simplest explanation was no longer that they were an excellent player. 

As many people have said this week, either something untoward is happening on these streams or Mike Postle is the greatest player in the world. 

What are your thoughts on this story? Let us know in the comments:


Barry Carter
Poker Expert

Barry Carter is the editor of PokerStrategy.com and the co-author of The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2, Poker Satellite Strategy, PKO Poker Strategy, Endgame Poker Strategy, GTO Poker Simplified, Mystery Bounty Poker Strategy and Beyond GTO. In 2025, he won the Global Poker Awards for Best Book and Twitter Personality of the Year.