Editor
The use of analysis software during the World Series of Poker became a hot-button topic following last year’s Main Event final table, and the debate was rekindled this week thanks to a video of an online bracelet player posted to social media. Real-time analysis (RTA) during play is against against the rules, but using similar software to study hands after the fact is not. Between those extremes is a gray area that has sparked numerous ethical debates.
The video in question emerged on Sunday, showing an unidentified player appearing to play in one of the 30 online WSOP bracelet events. The video appears to be shot in the fountain area of the Venetian, which is just outside the poker room.
The player appears to be using analysis software in one window while having his WSOP.com table open next to it. This ignited a firestorm on social media.
One player interviewed by PokerScout (who did not want to be named) opined that it was unlikely that any cheating was happening, but that the optics were bad:
Doing it out in the open like that indicates to me that it wasn’t direct RTA because that would be pretty brazen if it was… but still it’s a bad look with all of the questions surrounding RTA with online poker these days.
The poker world is particularly prickly about this topic at the moment thanks as there have been a series of related scandals over the past year. The 2024 Main Event champion Jonathan Tamayo received assistance from friends using analysis software on the rail. Although he technically did nothing wrong, the pushback resulted in a change in WSOP policies on electronics.
More recent was the Nacho Barbero’s GTO wizard ACR controversy, which ultimately led to his release from ACR.
Does the Video Show RTA or Not?
The controversy surrounding the video in question stems around what type of software is being used. One user on X identified the software as HRC, short for Hold’em Resources Calculator.
This is an assistance tool often used for evaluating hand histories. Using HRC in between hands would constitute cheating because it is a study tool and not solving the current hand. That is different from using RTA (real time assistance), which would be a cheating violation because it would give you answers during live hands in play.
PokerScout cannot confirm the software the player was using, but the window in the video appears consistent with screenshots of HRC.
Nonetheless, there were more than a few players who believed it was egregious cheating out in the open. Ethan “Rampage” Yau hedged his opinions with the word “if,” but said he believes online cheating is rampant and that he does not play online nearly as much as he once did.
Most poker sites have some degree of security to catch cheating. However, the specifics of each site’s system are kept tightly secret, so it’s a matter of speculation how effective any particular site is at detecting RTA in practice.
