Mike Postle played many suspicious hands during his numerous Stones Live sessions, but none more so than the hand you're about to see.
Postle was accused by Veronica Brill last year of cheating during the live-streamed poker show from 2018 to 2019. She and others claim he used some sort of electronic device — possibly his cell phone — to access his opponent's hole cards.
Brill and 87 other plaintiffs filed a $10 million lawsuit against him last October. That case was dismissed recently due to a lack of evidence and a California law that essentially prevents non-casinos from recovering gambling losses. Postle continues to deny any wrongdoing and is now suing Brill and numerous members of the poker media for libel and defamation.
Poker players such as Joey Ingram who have investigated Postle believe he cheated, and a big part of that reason is the strange way in which he played numerous hands, none more so evident than the following hand.
How does he do it?
Doug Polk, who is currently being sued by Postle, analyzed a handful of Postle hands last year on his YouTube channel. Perhaps the most intriguing one involved Postle hitting his hand but still folding.
The hand begins, as Polk explains, with a player named Robert opening it up to $26 (Polk purposely keeps his hand hidden at first) and Postle, with J-10 off-suit in the straddle, making the call. Both players see a flop of of 3-2-9, completely missing Postle's hand. Thus, he checks it back to Robert who continues betting for $20, only about 1/3 the size of the pot.
Despite completely missing the flop and being out of position, Postle makes the call and they see a Jack on the turn, giving Postle top-pair, which you'd think would be the exact card he was looking for when he decided to call the flop bet. But that doesn't turn out to be the case.
"The turn is a Jack and we now have a cleverly disguised top pair," Polk states in his video before describing the action on the turn.
The accused poker cheater opts to check it back again to Robert, who fires out a bet of $50, about half the size of the pot. Postle is in an obvious spot where he should pretty much always just call here. Folding and raising in this spot make very little sense, as any poker pro will tell you.
"I can't think of any poker players in the world who would float this flop and folding a Jack turn," Polk explained. "Except for one."
That "one" is Mike Postle, who did lay down his top pair on the turn despite getting 3-1 odds on his call.
"Now, why would Mike fold this turn after making this flop call?" Polk asked. "Could it be that he has a good read on his opponent? Could it be that he thinks he's beat? Or, could it be because his opponent has pocket nines?"
Robert did in fact have those pocket nines, for a flopped top set. Postle was drawing dead on the turn despite hitting top pair and he somehow, some way, was able to sniff it out and refrain from putting additional chips in the pot with no chance to win the hand.
Polk continued explaining his theory on why Postle made the call on the flop against a set, if he is in fact cheating. His explanation is that he figured Postle called to see if he could hit a runner-runner draw (straight or flush) and then win a massive pot against Robert's set of nines. But, as Polk suggests, when he hit top pair on the turn, he knew he was drawing dead.
As Polk also claims in his video, there aren't many other players in poker, if any, who would have folded the turn after hitting top pair. Only Mike Postle can pull that off, apparently.
Featured image source: YouTube/Doug Polk
