Last week, ACR ambassador Nacho Barbero posted a screenshot of his online session on Instagram with the caption “Playing Venom on ACR today.” The screenshot clearly shows that he had GTO Wizard open along with the tables.

– "Can we use GTOWizard while playing on your site?" – Ghilleyyy asked a logical question to the official ACR account.

– Hey, I was coaching 4 of my horses on a discord call," Nacho quickly justified. "I don't play online, they don't have the GTO Wizard Pro, so I was looking at some spots for them. My bad. I emailed GTO Wizard Game Integrity and they gonna send all the spots I searched yesterday and gonna publish them."

– "Weirdly worded post in that case as it isnt clear if youre playing here or not. It also sets a very bad example for the many followers you have on socials to see ACR open with an active GTOWizard window. I'd make sure to be very careful with these softwares next time."

"Nacho, you know I love you," Jay Farber chimed in. "But you can't say "I don't play online." in response to a screenshot of you saying "I'm playing online."

“I say I play 2 /3 tourneys a year,” Nacho answered.

The comments immediately posted Nacho's statistics since the beginning of this year. You can't exactly classify him as a frantic grinder, but "a couple of times a year" is also not entirely true.

“If people are using 50-100bb sims of GTO Wizard for an MTT with 200b average stack, then please let them 😂,” Beriuzy treated the situation with humor.

Perhaps this would have been the end of it, but then the social media team ACR, famous for its ridiculous posts, came into play :

– "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."

Comments on the tweet were disabled, but this did not stop players from actively quoting it and accompanying it with caustic comments.

“Yes he was probably using gto wizard to find hot singles in his area or order pizza,” Max Silver suggested.

– I honestly thought that getting two players who have never played online cash in their LIVES to lecture us on the safety of their bot infested online cash games was un-toppable levels of s***-housery from the ACR public relations team but HERE WE F***IN ARE, – GazzyB pointed out plainly.

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Barry Carter also remembered that absurd situation and suggested organizing a contest “Who will write the best prompter” with a prize fund of $100k.

Dominik Nitsche supported ACR and Nacho in his own unique way :

– "The truth is that if people got banned for what nacho allegedly did there'd be 0 fish left on any site.

Fish love looking at gtowiz while donating at the tables.

Yes it's mainly the fish who cheat but they still suck."

Patrick Leonard gave his own version of how a normal room's response should look in such a situation:

– "We’re aware of serious allegations coming out yesterday after one of our ambassadors posted a photo of him playing the venom whilst having RTA in the background. Our initial feeling after starting the investigation is that it was innocent however we are working with the player and the RTA to provide a full report showing timestamps of his gameplay and his RTA history to ensure full innocence.

During this investigation Nacho will be temporarily suspended from playing tournaments on ACR but we plan to conclude the investigation promptly and have him back on the tables and with your confidence in the upcoming days/week.

We understand how big of an issue this is for the community and will treat this case with even more urgency and importance than the thousands of other cases our strong security team deals with on a monthly basis

Thanks for trusting us and hold tight."

Two days later, ACR listened to the sane people and released a new statement :

“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 thorough and objective investigation. Our game integrity and security team along with external investigations are carefully reviewing all relevant data, consulting GTO Wizard for analysis, and ensuring that any findings are addressed in full accordance with our Terms of Service.

If any infractions are identified, we will take appropriate action.

We understand the community’s concerns and will provide updates as soon as we have more information."

The independent expert turned out to be the same Patrick Leonard. He studied Nacho's hands all weekend :

– I’m doing a full investigation into whether Nacho cheated in the Venom on ACR.

I have every single hand he played and every single hand he has searched on GTOW with the exact timestamps. I’m going to look through all 1371 hands and publish my findings. FWIW I still think it’s very very wrong what he did and ACR should still take some action IMO as it sets a very bad precedent but I want to do a full investigation and give the community a clear YES or NO if he was cheating that day. If you would like to see anything else please let me know. I will also release the hand histories, GTOW history etc publicly. If anybody played a hand with him that isn’t visible in the hands I show I will offer a $1k freeroll. This will be done as professionally as possible and if poker goes bad for me then I’ll make a good poker security staff member I promise!"

It quickly became obvious to Patrick that Nacho had never even heard of any GTO:

– "Nacho plays more like a malfunctioned bot than a GTO guy checking hands."

Pads attached a hand to his post where Nacho opened from UTG with a 2BB raise with KJo, got 3-bet 3BB from the MP player, got cold-called by the button and folded without making 1 blind.

“Don't know if to be happy or to cry about this post,” Nacho replied.

Following their own investigation, ACR released a third statement , once again reminding that the room adheres to the highest standards of fair play and confirming that Barbero did not violate any rules:

– At ACR Poker, we are committed to maintaining the integrity of our games and upholding the highest standards of fair play. Recently, a screenshot surfaced showing one of our sponsored PROs, Nacho Barbero, with GTO Wizard open in the background while playing on our platform. We address these kinds of issues on a case-by-case basis, reviewing all available evidence.

Following a thorough internal investigation of all hands played in the tournaments Nacho participated in, we have concluded that at no point did he use real-time assistance (RTA) to aid his or any other player’s decision-making during live hands.

We understand that independent parties are conducting their own reviews, and we are confident that they will come to the same conclusion. We remain committed to transparency and fairness, and we will continue to work to earn the continued trust of our players and community.

Sam Greenwood is confident that the results of the investigations are of little importance :

"I believe Nacho’s defense, but I also dont think it matters. Rules are rules and when players aren’t punished for breaking them game integrity collapses. Benign intentions matter, but shouldn’t lead to absolution."

"By far the most reasonable reaction," Matt Berkey agreed.

Nacho also released a statement :

– Hey everyone,

I am very happy that the ACR investigation verifies what I have said previously: I did not cheat, and I have never cheated. I love this game too much to ever do anything that would compromise my integrity or my reputation.

I know that Patrick Leonard is reviewing the situation, and I'm sure he will find the same thing.

As someone who represents not just ACR Poker but the game itself, I should have been more aware of how my actions could be perceived. And I understand that some people will continue to question my actions during Venom. For that reason, I've decided to forfeit the rest of my play in the Venom and the two active stacks I still have in play.

I've built my career and my life around poker. My passion for this game has never wavered, and I would never do anything to jeopardize that. I'm going to let the facts and the evidence speak for themselves. My integrity is intact, and my love for the game remains as strong as ever.

I appreciate the support from those who know me, and I look forward to seeing you all on the felt soon.

– Nacho Barbero