ACR Pro Nacho Barbero in alleged RTA incident

He claims he was coaching horses at the same time as playing, while his sponsor responded to the situation poorly.

Triton regular and ACR pro-Nacho Barbero has been wrapped up in a potential RTA controversy over the weekend. 

He updated his Instagram to promote ACR's latest tournament series, showing himself playing four tables online. 

However, EPT Cyprus champion Gilles Simon noticed that a GTO Wizard solve was visible behind the screens. 

Yooo @ACR_POKER

Can we use GTOWizard while playing on your site? pic.twitter.com/HmzUbBslTJ

— Ghilley (@Ghilleyyy) January 31, 2025

Barbero responded by claiming he was in fact coaching his horses at the same time as playing. He claimed not to play online tournaments much (he said less than four a year which is not quite true, but his Sharkscope does confirm he rarely plays online MTTs). 

Not for the first time, ACR's PR response to a serious cheating allegation became the bigger story, as they attempted to brush off any concerns the poker public may have had. 

Nacho Barbero is a goofball and we love him. Anyone who’s played with, against or around him knows he’s not a GTO-style player and likely never will be.

We’re confident he was not using GTO Wizard to gain any advantage for himself @nacho_barbero.

— ACR Poker (@ACR_POKER) January 31, 2025

This naturally led to a huge backlash, causing ACR to backtrack. They confirmed they are now conducting a proper review with GTO Wizard on the matter:

We acknowledge that our initial response to the concerns surrounding @nacho_barbero’s play was in poor taste and did not convey the seriousness with which we take the situation.
We sincerely apologize for this.

We want to assure the poker community that we are conducting a…

— ACR Poker (@ACR_POKER) February 1, 2025

Many lept to Barbero's defence saying this is not like him, he does not play a GTO style and that they believed this was just an oversight. Indeed Barbero's story does look plausible, in no small part because he has quickly volunteered his hand histories and GTO Wizard activity to be reviewed. 

However, this is a terrible look for the game both from the potential RTA implications of it as well as the shoddy manner in which a major online poker room responded to allegations levelled at one of their ambassadors. 

How should this have been dealt with? Let us know in the comments: