WPT Global has moved quickly to ban a player who displayed an Excel range chart on his stream while he was playing in a low-stakes tournament on the site.
Well-known poker pro Patrick Leonard tweeted about the incident this week and WPT Global acted almost immediately, putting out a tweet of its own to say, "We don't tolerate RTA. AlanFPoker has been banned with immediate effect."
In a follow-up tweet, WPT Global added, ‘Let’s keep the game alive, pls guys."
Leonard deleted his tweet shortly afterwards and posted afresh, saying, "I deleted the tweet, no need to destroy him publicly. WPT Global banned him within 30 minutes, so good job to them. Hopefully he learns from it."
When questioned about why he wanted to protect someone who had been caught cheating, he said, "Yeah, idk, I just had [an] anxious feeling I was putting this guy out to 100k+ views. His punishment of being banned should probably be enough."
Naming and shaming a step up in battle against RTA
While WPT Global only posted the player's screen name, the fact that he's a YouTube and Twitch streamer outed him more widely.
AlanFPoker is an Irish poker streamer who has 3.3K subscribers on YouTube and 2.7K followers on Twitch. He has not commented publicly since the incident.
As is evident in the image above, he had charts visible on his stream while he was playing. The charts were Excel spreadsheets and not from RTA software such as GTO Wizard.
One player responded to WPT Global, saying, "Having excel sheets open is not true RTA... Although Alan's situation is not great, it is worthy of a warning and not an outright ban."
WPT Global's 'Prohibited Activity List' states the following: "Using or attempting to use any third-party software add-ons, which includes without limitation:
- Using or attempting to use any tool, service, script, or software that automates or aids in decision-making of bet sizing or strategy.
- Referencing software, strategy charts or plots, range matrices, or any other aid that includes betting or strategy information."
Naming and shaming players is a step up, although one that has been asked for by many players. Most sites ban players without naming them, leaving any public outing to amateur sleuths on X. Naming a player opens them up to ongoing abuse on social media, as is evident by recent posts from the player.
AlanFPoker is the latest to fall foul of the ongoing war against RTA, after Nacho Barbero was let go by ACR Poker following a multi-part drama that saw him post an image of himself playing on the site with GTO Wizard open in the background.
Barbero was cleared of using this to cheat in real-time but made subsequent comments on stream about ACR Poker not really trying to weed out players who abused RTA.
