Why do players record themselves playing with RTA?
After a series of self-owns from players getting caught using solvers with poker clients open, we ask is it time for all of us to be stricter with our solver use?
Last week a player was banned from WPT Global for having access to preflop charts during a live stream.
It's not the first time that players have been caught breaking the rules in entirely self-inflicted ways. Earlier this year Ebony Kenny was caught with GTO Wizard open while playing in a social media post and Nacho Barbero lost his sponsorship for doing the exact same thing. There have been a lot of similar instances in the past.
There are also plenty of high profile cases of players getting caught cheating on live streams, most notably Mike Postle. Why is it that so many people break T&Cs and even outright cheat in front of an audience?
Mostly sloppiness
In terms of the outright cheats, I'd argue it was laziness. By definition cheaters are the kind of people who want to cut corners, it makes perfect sense to me they show a sloppiness and lack of professionalism in everything they do.
There are other cases I have more sympathy for. In the case of Kenney and Barbero, I do believe both their stories that they did not have GTO Wizard open to cheat. Kenney was running a previously played spot, which checks out as the output caught on screen was for a different stack depth to what she was playing. Barbero was coaching horses on cash while playing tournaments.
I believe both of them, which brings me to my next reason why people self-own themselves in this way, they simply did not think they were doing anything wrong. It's very easy to let your guard down when you know you have the best of intentions. I still believe both should have lost their sponsorship, because as ambassadors they should be held to a higher standard.
We need better study hygine
There is an important lesson for all of us though, which is we should all be more vigiliant and frankly more paranoid when using solver technology.
CoinPoker recently went viral on Twitter when a player revealed he was not able to play on the site until he closed GTO Wizard, proving poker room technology can detect even browser based solvers. I have been told by people at other online poker rooms that their poker client can detect things like charts and solvers, even if they are just images.
In 2025 and beyond I think online poker players need to practice better hygine where this stuff is concerned. Have a more structured habit of closing down all your tools except the poker client itself.
Poker security is inevitably going to get more intrusive, as it probably should. In the future an entirely innocent mistake of leaving a solver open is going to be dealt with very strictly. It's good for all of us if we stop being so slack with our study tools.
What can all of us do to avoid this issue? Let us know in the comments:
