I am not a cheater. Zenith Poker HU Scandal from Paint's POV

For anyone interested, I'm going to post my entire side of the story here and you can make of it what you will. I was under the impression Berkey would do a follow up pod after the coaching videos were released but it doesn't look like that's going to happen, so I'll just post it here. I've spent the last few weeks mulling over everything that happened; this has been by far the lowest point of my career. That said, I'm actually somewhat regretful I haven't defended myself adequately during this whole shitstorm. And I'm tired of this bullshit narrative that Brandon is some martyred saint who was nearly scammed by a malicious player who was out to get him, but luckily justice was served. He literally ****-talked me into a HU match, lost, then managed to freeroll the entire challenge via an absolutely braindead arbitration decision. I initially felt quite bad about denying the use of the database, so I gave in without a word, especially considering I had agreed to abide by arbitration, and I respected the members of the panel. But arbitration made a bad decision. And here's why.

My first encounter with Brandon happened over a year ago, when I got stream sniped for over $15,000 by Cole Halling and he was making fun of me for streaming hole-cards up High Stakes HU to three people in discord. Right off the bat that set the tone for our interactions moving forward, but I mostly ignored him.

That said, I frequently posted updates and results in my blog in the Overturn the Ban discord, which drew fire from Brandon as time progressed. He implied I was a fake and a fraud, with comments such as, "My graph and my dick are both smaller than yours, but at least mine are real."

He challenged me to HU4ROLLZ, but I initially declined due to the fact I was attempting to complete my bankroll goal for that year. Once the year had ended, however, and he was still publicly criticizing me, I chose to accept. I normally wouldn't give criticism much weight, but when a 5KNL player speaks, people listen, and I wanted to prove that I was the real deal to others as well as myself. I figured, this guy comes along, he was apparently very good, and highly respected, and he starts talking **** about me, and wants to play me in a format that I'm well versed in, then fine, we can throw down.

Once I had accepted the challenge, we chose Josh Lesser as arbiter, a mutual friend, that Brandon had met through Zenith and I had met in discords related to Zenith controversy. I asked Josh for a recommendation for a coach, and he suggested Thomas Pinnock. I was aware Thomas had prior dealings with Brandon, but I was under the impression they were in the sense of a partnership, rather than previous coaching. The idea that we were out to scam Brandon from Day 1 is total bullshit.

Arbitration was also aware of the timeline and chose to write in their statement that "Cole is disqualified for failing to disclose a material fact that would have changed Brandon’s decision to play the match." I seriously contest this point, as it's almost certain Brandon knew from Day 1, and chose to play on until he was down $48k.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IncVg0_fpo1I65P4fshCt6nls0jmiN9wBZlg-KiJENs/edit

Google Docs

Thomas DMs 1

Also note one of the arbs saying "Thomas Pinncock" in the twitch chat. It's possible that there was some bias at play in the decision.

A month went by where I mostly played on the PA ring fenced sites to free up liquidity for the challenge. At this point people were betting on me as a heavy underdog, which I felt was unwarranted, and I wanted to double down on myself. My first coaching session with Thomas happened February 5th, and I asked him if he had any information on Brandon, since I had not previously played any meaningful sample with Brandon. Thomas then pulled up hands that Brandon had played, that were given to him by Brandon for purposes of a database review nearly 2 years prior. We looked through them for about 20 minutes. It did not occur to me that we were doing anything wrong.

The idea that the database gave me an unfair edge in the challenge is incorrect. Well aware that the sample was under 6000 hands, the majority of which were played over 2 years prior, against players who we felt were likely recreational, and given the over 2 months of prep time before the challenge, we felt the sample was not going to be very useful to study, and instead we chose to primarily focus on studying GTO. We did see that he was using standard preflop sizes, and that he was maybe slightly passive, but we weren't able to acquire any strong reads that could influence our strategy in the challenge. We did decide to avoid the standard preflop open and 3bet sizes we saw him using in the database. It should also be noted that some of the reads we got from the database were incorrect, such as his ISO size being 5bb instead of 7bb, and the fact that at first glance he seemed to overfold in the old hands, but was actually quite stationy during the challenge, especially early on.

The challenge went well from my point of view. I worked very hard and I managed to beat Brandon for nearly $50k. I had heard through the grapevine that Brandon had become very paranoid about how the challenge had gone down. I was informed by Marcus, who at that point was part of the team who was coaching me, to expect a lot of accusations. In mid-April, I got a call from Josh on discord asking about the use of Brandon's database in my preparation. Recognizing it as an attempt to invalidate the results of the challenge, I chose to deny even knowing about it. I knew Brandon couldn't prove any of it, and he was trying to **** me over and weasel out of the challenge, so I figured, **** him, if he wants to push this BS he's going to have to prove everything himself, I'm not going to help him in any way. This was a mistake and I should have been honest with Josh immediately about the database and what it was used for.
Regardless, at this point Brandon obviously didn't have any proof or evidence given the fact that the database provided no significant edge and lacked nearly any impact on my strategy during the challenge. The only meaningful impact that it arguably had was the selection of sizes that we chose to split between preflop, although it's likely we would have chosen a similar course of action had we not had access to the database, and we would have split pre-flop sizes regardless.

Given that Brandon had provided no evidence to substantiate his claims, Josh chose to dismiss the case. Understanding that this was his one and only way to escape the challenge and save face, Brandon blew up on Josh and accused him of conflict of interest.

The conflict of interest argument holds no water and is laughable slander toward Josh. Zenith's stake in my action was 10%, that of a 1/2 game. Josh's stake in Zenith at the time was 9%, so his stake in my action was that of a game with an $0.18 big blind. Josh was also good friends with Brandon prior to the match. It should also be noted that this deal only applied after the reworking of a previous deal after prep and more than a week into the challenge, and at the start of the challenge Zenith actually had no stake in my action, and Thomas was coaching me on a personal basis. Brandon was aware of Josh's very small stake in Zenith as he had helped Josh negotiate it, but chose to publicly slander Josh anyway.

Under pressure from Brandon, Josh eventually stepped down as arbiter, leaving me and Brandon to assign a new one. I suggested we use a panel of arbiters, and Brandon agreed. I felt it was so obvious at this point that the entire case was contrived as to attempt to invalidate the results of the challenge, that any panel that we assembled would obviously side with me.

The statistical argument was fabricated during the arbitration process and after the initial allegations were levied, not before. When the allegations were first levied, Brandon had no evidence other than the fact that Thomas was my coach, which he almost certainly knew from day one of the challenge. The statistical evidence also included comparisons of my frequencies during the challenge to both GTO, as well as previously data-mined hands Brandon had on me.

The arbitration panel ruled that previously datamined hands were acceptable within the confines of the challenge, basing this ruling on the fact that I had initially proposed a specific rule against data mining with Brandon responding "Don't care about these things". Somehow this isn't considered cheating despite breaking TOS of PSPA and ACR. Neither was playing the entire challenge under an alt account, which is also a violation of TOS. But an old coaching database, yeah that should invalidate the challenge in its entirety.

When I first caught wind of the case against me, I went back to look for that interaction, and I noticed that Brandon's message had been deleted. In my forfeiture request that I presented to the panel, I made the argument that Brandon obviously didn't care about using hands that were played prior to the challenge until he was down almost $50k. I had screenshotted the deleted message and sent it to Thomas a few months prior to ask if I should pursue rules on limping or data mining, but he had assured me that it didn't really matter since my playstyle was likely to change before the challenge so that any hands Brandon would be able to mine would be of diminished usefulness, and I figured that even if he did data-mine hands on me it couldn't be proven anyway so it was a fairly useless rule. This is what provided me a record of the deleted message.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PXtvl8oB0GS7lj3CebnynEburX8t3fbF6Cl4vDQ0OUs/edit

Google Docs

Thomas DMs 2

Brandon then flipped this argument as evidence that data-mining was actually agreed upon as perfectly acceptable in the challenge, which was never the case. He then presented data-mined hands he had on me, which were far more current than any hands contained in the database Thomas had access to, as evidence I had deviated from my HU play from prior to the challenge. Because of course I did. Because I actually prepped for the challenge.

During the arbitration process, the allegations became public knowledge. I publicly denied ever knowing about the database, which to this day I deeply regret, as that wasn't truthful. That said, anyone who publicly questioned the usefulness of a 2-year-old database with <6000 hands of HU, or suggested it clearly isn't cheating, was bullied and harassed, and would even get DMs telling them to stop posting publicly. This presented a false public consensus to arbitration about the severity and usefulness of the database.

In the arguments Brandon presented to the arbitration panel, access to the database was compared to RTA and superusing, which is absurd. That said, I was never given the chance to respond to any of the arguments Brandon was making, or any of the "statistical evidence" he had drummed up out of thin air. Arbitration's interactions with me basically consisted of asking "Did you know Thomas had the database" and "Give us recordings of all your coaching sessions." I said I didn't know anything about the database, and I ultimately left it up to Thomas to decide what videos to send to arbitration.

The only thing the statistical evidence proved was that he hadn't managed to improve in the TWO YEARS since the database was given to Thomas, not that the database was used to exploit him. Thomas released all coaching sessions publicly on the Zenith Poker YouTube channel. They show what his database was used for, which was not much as well as where we got exploits from for the challenge. No "unfair advantage" was gained through its use. I didn't cheat. Brandon didn't lose because we had his database, he lost because he thought I was a fish and so didn't adequately prepare for the challenge. I still haven't apologized to Brandon, until now. Brandon, I'm sorry you suck at Heads-Up.

Prior to the panel's decision, Brandon and I both agreed to abide by the ruling. The ruling was unbelievably harsh. I had to pay back $44,800 to Brandon himself, as well as $25,000 in side bets. Most third party sidebets were a push, but given arbitration’s decision to disqualify me, certain bets that stipulated disqualification had to be paid out to people who bet on Brandon. I felt it was wrong for people who bet on me to be punished for the results of arbitration rather than the results of the challenge, and I felt personally responsible for their loss, so I chose to personally cover $19,500 in bets lost this way. This, coupled with the EV I lost as a result of arbitration's decision, resulted in me losing well over $100,000, making this one of the biggest downswings of my career.

After arbitration's decision, the public backlash of this episode came to a head. I was called a cheater, a scammer, and a scumbag more times than I can count. I've lost friendships over this. I've gotten banned from the discord where I had my blog that documented my two-year journey through the stakes. Multiple times while playing online, people have called me a cheater and a scammer, and I've been publicly humiliated. I've lost my reputation over this despite having no prior marks on it. I've apologized multiple times for my part in this, and I'm certainly somewhat culpable.

I don't claim to be a good person. The good/bad dichotomy is far too black and white in a world where everyone is gray, especially in gambling. I wanted to get revenge on Brandon for calling me a fraud. I wanted to make money off of this. I wanted to be recognized as a strong player by the community. I lied to Josh and arbitration about my knowledge of the database and its use, and even privately to some people I considered good friends.

That said, the punishment doesn't remotely fit the crime. Yes, when Thomas initially pulled up Brandon's old hands, I should have pressed him on where they came from and lectured him on the ethical dilemma of using a student's old database against him. Yes, I should have immediately come clean about the use of the database to Josh and arbitration. Everyone hates Thomas, everyone wants to punish Thomas, but you can't punish Thomas. Thomas didn't agree to arbitration, and any punishment you try to give him he's just going to tell you to **** off. Obviously. He wouldn't even give me a refund on coaching. So arbitration decided that it was the next best thing to max punish me. It was the wrong decision. And I'm not a cheater.