MTT Cheaters Caught, Money is Returned.. But Not to Everyone

In mid-October, American online regular Kevin Ruscitti from Michigan won a WSOP Online bracelet (residents of Nevada, Michigan, and New Jersey can play in these tournaments) in a $500 tournament.

Kevin is a fairly well-known player by American online standards; in 2023, he won the WSOP Online Michigan series leaderboard by a large margin.

His results on WSOP.com:

A few days after the victory, GR4ND_THEFT's account was blocked. On the Team Michigan Poker Facebook group, Kevin gave his take:

– "My WSOP account has been temporarily frozen because retired micro stakes grinder Justin Pimpedly accused me of using RTA. Not only do I not use GTO Wizard I don’t even use a hud when I play on pokerstars. You don’t need GTO Wizard when you are a wizard. If you know me you know I’ve been stiffed for upwards of 30-40k in home games, now I’m being accused of cheating online, sometimes I feel like IT NEVER ENDS. Like I’ve been playing poker 12 hours a day every day for the past 4 years and for whatever reason it’s hard for some people to accept the fact that maybe I’m just a good player. I don’t need gto to win all I need are my notes and I’ll be crushing. Anyways once I’m proven innocent I’ll be back."

"Just so you know, Justin Pimpedly is not at all responsible for the investigation of alleged RTA use.," one of the group members responded. "There is a community of grinders that had been suspicious and have been investigating for a couple of months and forwarded those suspicions to WSOP.com personnel. Unsurprisingly, they have taken roughly six weeks to take any sort of action on the matter. To many of those reading along this thread, a frozen account doe not mean Kevin is found guilty by WSOP.com, it means that due to reasonable suspicions, his account is under investigation until all pertinent details are revealed to make an informed decision regarding the matter. It really sucks if Kevin is innocent and going through this, but hopefully this incident brings more proficient security measures for RTA'ing in the future for everyone."

One of the panelists used the GTO Wizard Fair Play Check feature:

– "Some of the fair play checks Kevin failed attached here. Also worth noting that Kevin casually admitted that he checked spots on GTO Wiz while playing to a close friend of mine during WSOP in Vegas this past summer."

Inconsistencies were quickly found in the screenshots.

– "Hey, I don't know anyone involved, just looking at the pics," – wrote Pwndidi.
"A48 the hand was played at 23:06:51 but the first gtoAI was at 23:01 and second at 23:04, both at 100bb+ and cash.
KTT Hand played at 00:06, GTOw search is at 00:02 and completely diff spot (LJ vs BTN, diff stacks)
So while I'm not saying he did not cheat, 2/3 spots presented appear unrelated to the incident. First spot not enough data provided to be able to tell."

Matt Berkey agreed :

– "Don't know much about this case aside from the fact that the account is currently under review... but these wiz checks showed here (image 2 & 3) ARE NOT consistent w/positive hits & shouldn't be used to publicly persecute someone. If someone is using GTO Wizard maliciously there should be no shortage of positive hits that align to the spot."

– "Agree completely," – Patrick Leonard stepped in to support. "GTO Wizard hits means close to nothing. If I was a small stakes player I would be watching European live and running all his hands in real time and comparing his lines vs the solvers. It would make him look guilty but he isn’t. It can’t be used to persecute."

– Berkey clarified, "I don't agree that they are useless; my understanding is that, at least for all sites that collab w/wiz, they can get ip info from the initial spot. So while they may only be an aid to the public to report suspicions, the sites themselves gain a lot from this process."

This isn't the first time players have had problems with the Fair Play Check feature. Last October, Mike Holtz accused fellow American regular Chris Battenfield of using a teller during a WSOP Online tournament. He spoke about playing Chris in a $2,000 bracelet event and running some of the hands later using GTO Wizards Fair Play Check feature. Mike discovered that the five hands he ran were flagged and this information was sent to WSOP.com. This tweet was later deleted.

After investigating and finding that the Fair Play Check results were false positives, Battenfield announced that he had been unbanned:

Mike Holtz has since deleted all tweets containing the accusations.

Around the same time, several regulars suspected that Simon "UrNighmare" Rudin was playing with a teller at PokerStars New Jersey. Fair Play Check showed 8 hits in one of his sessions. However, upon closer investigation, it turned out that 7 of them were false positives caused by flaws in the GTOWizard software.

In the midst of this scandal, GTOWizard released an update :

– "We've enhanced our Fair Play Check. You can now view the matched solution's exact seconds, stack depth, player positions, pot, and game format. Contact your poker room's integrity department if you find multiple matches for boards and play times. Provide the spot's ID and ask them to contact us at fairplay@gtowizard.com. Be aware of potential false positives and refrain from drawing conclusions until investigations are done. Some lookups might be from observers. After connecting with operators, we will assist in finalizing a decision."

The results of the investigation into Kevin Ruscitti's case are still unknown. In a conversation with PokerNews, he confirmed that he still cannot play, but emphasized that he was not banned, but only temporarily frozen his account during the investigation. He said that he is cooperating with the security service and once again denied all accusations.

In heads-up he beat Cherish Andrews, who was very unhappy with the situation :

– "I just found out that the guy I lost to heads up for bracelet few nights ago has been banned (as of today) and failed GTO fair play. Though I didn’t at the time think much of his play could be RTA, it really sucks to think that I (along w/ everyone else) could have been cheated."
– "WSOP has GOT to do better with this shit. Apparently he was reported multiple times. The fact that money isn’t also confiscated is WILD when there is proof of cheating. You have to make a point of people like this or else everyone will just think they can get away with it."

– "That really sucks I’m sorry," – wrote Patrick Leonard. – "Whilst poker is booming the players have outgrown sites ability to make sure games are secure and GTOw is a readily available weapon that criminals can use. The pressure shouldn’t be on WSOP (they won’t change) it has to be on GTO Wizard."

"The pressure should be on WSOP as well," Cherish disagreed. "When other regs have been contacting them for a while with proof that he’s cheating and they quite literally did zero until he won a bracelet is wild."

The WSOP only responded a week after Kevin Ruscitti's ban, releasing an official statement.

As is always the case in such cases, the statement does not mention the reasons for the ban or other details. The rooms traditionally keep the details of the investigation strictly confidential. Readers were reminded that the fairness of the game is the most important issue for both online poker players and rooms, and the security service is actively combating auto-seating scripts and prompters.

Players were also reminded of several really important rules:

– Only a human should be behind every player decision.

– Only one player is entitled to act.

– The player acting must be the individual vetted and cleared to play in the licensed gaming jurisdiction.

The only reference to Kevin Ruscitti in the entire statement is in the phrase "We also ask that players to not rush to judgment without complete information.."

Many players pointed out that there is another big problem at the WSOP – completely opaque refunds. This topic is not covered by the room at all.

"Incentive for catching cheaters should not be to line your pockets by taking the $$$ from the prizepool," Adam Hendricks wrote in the comments to the tweet with the statement. "Instead the money should be spread amongst the actual players that were affected in each event. Every other site is pretty clear on this and sends refunds when a player is banned. Even unregulated sites like ACR do this."
A more public forum for this would help as no one really knows who is part of your security everyone feels they are in the dark. This costs you plenty of entries especially in the higher stakes.

Matt Berkey said in a recent podcast that according to his information, regulated US poker rooms do not provide refunds to players at all – such are legal restrictions.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that there were no refund issues on the GGPoker network. On Monday, players received what was likely the largest payout in online poker history.

Alexey Borovkov ($2k), Alexander Zubov ($8k), and Nikita Kuznetsov ($18k) reported refunds in their Telegram channels.

– Some MTT high roller was banned and confiscated, – avr0ra reported. – They returned 2k to me, 7k to Barack, 43k to David Yan!!! I wonder who it was. It seems like EEweedm99 (Ed. – real name Sean Boyle, in September he won two GGMillion$ for $10k in a row ) was the most suspicious, but there may be someone else) In theory, it would be easier to figure out David Yan through final tables) over the last six months, he hasn't played them that much.

It quickly became clear that the biggest payouts went to the most expensive tournament of the recent WSOP Online series, the $25k Super High Roller. David Yang finished 10th (9th place payout was $35k more).

– The participants of the bracelet tournament received compensation for $25,000, which was won by an unknown ForzaItalia (Francesco Garofalo), – Dmitry Shakhov wrote in Telegram. – Chris Brewer received the most substantial amount, since he was second. By the way, I wonder if he will get a bracelet?

This was confirmed by Patrick Leonard, who took 4th place:

– "Wow just woke up to this. I think my biggest security refund previously was at most $2k.

It’s a beautiful day to have a beautiful day I guess!"

– "Massive massive props to GG for doing this refund," added Pads. "I assume they refunded $1.1m to everybody bumping everybody up 1 position. Hilariously guy who bubbled went to bed 2 hours before the bubble, he ended up mincashing after all!"

We are talking about Nikolay Voskoboinikov, who really did throw his stack (14bb) shortly before the prizes, simply because he wanted to sleep. As a result, he was eliminated in an auto-all-in right on the bubble.

"I got the difference between 2nd to 1st," Chris Brewer wrote. "But I don’t get the bracelet, quite happy either way."