WPN ''Steals'' more than 50k in rewards
Hello my name is Frederico Nizzato da Silva, I have played poker professionally since 2018. Playing cash games since 2020, I have been active on zoom500 on stars for 2-3 years and on reg tables as well under the nickname fred_high. Nowadays I play for a stable called Metagame in wich I have done some coaching in the past. I decided to write this post seeking some help from the community about something that happened to me on WPN network this year.
Last year I was fallowing a regular from Portugal on Instagram that was doing the rake back challenge on WPN during 2023. He was playing 150-200k hands monthly on blitz200 to achieve the top rake back status on WPN. I really like that idea, since I was already playing high volume on other networks and always enjoyed playing zoom games. I then went further on studying their rake back system and noticed that I could make 144k +- (leaderboards+ revenue share + Rewards point system) yearly on rake back alone if break even at the tables. I showed this study to the stable I am part of and showed my desire to try doing that in 2024. They were on board. I also came to know that other regulars of the stable that were used to play high volume wanted to pursue the rake back status as well.
So at January 7, 2024, I started this challenge playing around 10k hands daily at blitz 200. Needless to say how stressful it was right away, even being used to play high volume, this was above my avg and was very demanding since the start . Also, I had to play on a tight schedule since the beginning, games started usually at 4pm BRT, and usually it takes at least 9 hours to finish the daily volume I had too. Besides that, I decided to move on expecting a very good reward at the end of the year.
After some time playing those games me and the other regulars of the stable that was doing the challenge (UrsoBranco Biluzin) noticed some suspicious players, playing very non intuitive lines constantly and playing high volume. Some of them were already on some lists here on two plus two being acused of being bots. One of them for example, acquition, was banned after making a deep run on The venom mtt , he played on a daily bases on blitz200 games. https://gyazo.com/c886802019cc04da3244d7...
There is a bunch of other nicknames I suspected some of them stop playing at some point but some were still active till the date I was playing there. Some examples CkaNNonBaLL , KimkardashFan , Impermanente , hamipuhyle. By this time, I had already played around 500k hands or more and decided to keep doing it since I was running close to 0ev bb at that point.
On the day 20 of July I received this e-mail. https://gyazo.com/96d01712875e73f289ad96...
I was surprised since I was clearly playing of unfair pool and they never banned some players. But I proceed to send all the files they asked for.
After this I sent all the videos, they asked for doing more than 1hour of gameplay going though all the though process behind the plays. I Also explained that I knew biluzin and urso branco , but didn’t have any type of collusion of profit share with them. I have been playing for the same stable for 4 years already and never had any profit share with any players this is also against the stable police. Here is the print Hero vs Vilan of biluzin vs all regs: https://gyazo.com/cba484e2e56900260c80a0...
Its looks almost like a joke ! The regular biluzin won the most money from Urso branco , winning almost double of the amount of the second reg. How Could be possible that we were soft playing this way? we have also sent lots of hand examples with insane bluffs one vs another and even crazier hero calls.
After that the investigation went on for more than 1 month with my acc being restricted. I could keep playing but couldn’t make any transfer or withdraw. Then on august 22 I received this final e-mail with their decision: https://gyazo.com/2c392fcbe1c32c7fc87ce8...
Note that the final argument for banning me was this : The accounts: NIZZA, URSOBRANCO and BILUZIN had been intentionally working together towards a common goal to reach the highest loyalty rewards possible while sharing nearly 50% of your blitz gameplay which we have deemed as soft play, Non-aggression external agreements, and bonus clearance fraud.
Now how come sharing 50% of the volume of the pool being illegal? Is kind of obvious that if you are trying to reach the highest rb status you would have to play almost every day and most of the time that those blitz200 games were running. Like I said in the beginning, most days the pool started at 4pm, so I had no choice of schedule. I had to start playing at that time if I want to have a somewhat decent sleep routine (remembering that counting breaks I would have to play for 9-10 hours straight). Also, the argument of working together to reach the max rb status makes no sense as well. That promotion is offered by the site, is almost like they let you start the promotion work almost the whole year for it and when they realized you would reach it, they find a way to take the promotion away. Besides that, RB is never more than 100% so even if we reach the highest rb status the room is making money from us still, and not the other way around.
1.5.7 Permanent ban allowing to withdraw their funds: This penalty describes a termination of an account where WPN determines in its sole discretion the right of the offending player to withdraw his or her remaining funds excluding unclaimed promotions, bonuses or loyalty rewards, plus provided that any affected players have been compensated in the amounts determined by WPN.
We will proceed with manually withdrawing any remaining balance from your account. Please provide a valid BTC address for this transaction.
This final sanction is a clear sign of their bad faith in the matter. Why they let me withdraw my funds but not the rewards ? When they banned. I had all the rewards that I had accumulated over the year still there, I wasn’t withdrawing it before because the way their loyalty system works if u accumulate your points till u reach last level you get better odds when exchanging those points. I had at that point more than 50k USD accumulated on rewards (part of the rewards were automatically withdrawn in the form of leaderboards + revenue share). So in my view is super clear their intention to ``steal`` my rewards accumulated there since the beginning of the year.
So that’s even nastier by their side. They have a loyalty system that incentivizes accumulating points. And then they ban you when you are close to reaching that goal claiming only that part of the money back.
I try to answer that e-mail saying exposing my arguments with no success. Here is their answer: https://gyazo.com/fb3a7ec7b3b5337cf723be...
Here are some hands, out of thousands, prints against Biluzin and Ursobranco : https://gyazo.com/601ddf179a2c911a20fbe6...
https://gyazo.com/19b4474efe353014209faa...
You might wonder why it took me so long to speak up about this situation. After the initial decision, the CEO of Metagame reached out directly to WPN, and we managed to get a response from their team. They requested a significant amount of information—most of which we had already provided—along with additional details specifically related to the stable we play for. We promptly gathered and submitted everything they asked for, but the entire process dragged on for over a month.
In the end, they started sending automated replies, stating that they do not discuss their decisions with third parties and would only communicate directly with the players involved. This response is ironic since they had been requesting all the information from the stable throughout the process.
Given this situation, we decided the best course of action was to go public and share our story.
Any help would be great to make this thread reach max number of players. So everybody can know WPN is super shady with their players and polices. And hopefully they reevaluate my situation. I don't even mind if they keep me aways from their games, I don't plan to play there anymore anyway. Getting my money back would be great already
bit of a detail here but since your eyeballs are on this thread i was wondering:
- 1. Are you combining hand histories at Metagame for the purposes of MDA?
- 2. Have you had access to the “100 Million+” hand database that is alleged to exist in Brazil?
- 3. Do you know of any collusion occurring in online final tables between Brazilian players?
Im zinhao, co-founder of Metagame with my partner Saulo Costa.
with all due respect to all the students I had, including Max Lacerda (maxlljr), Luis Tirelli, Felipe Tomanari (felipepalme), Alex Ribeiro (verdao2011), Arthur Oliveira (arthurect10), Rodrigo Motoki (rodckz) among others, but Pedro (biluzin/pe123dro) is the most spectacular player that I and the metagame have ever trained imho, and we must have trained more than 30 players who at least got to play high stakes. th.
with love, zinhao
If this is the case and they are so spectacular, why would they grind so much time on 200b?
They thought it was the best option? highstakes is pretty grim these days. They even went over it. Some of us have access to good games. they do not. (they clearly made a poor decision tho)
Im zinhao, co-founder of Metagame with my partner Saulo Costa.
How exactly do you think they or we abused rakeback system while rakeback isnt more than 100%? If there are only them in the pool and hipotetically they were doing what you’re saying, they keep paying rake, doesnt matter how much. It doesnt make sense, its a -EV investment.
Do you understand the concept of rake and rakeback? You just get a cut of what you already paied.
They pay 5bb of rake
If they hit the goal, they receive more or les
I believe this guy. He puts forward a very solid point and I think acr should pay him out if they grinded and didnt get all that they earned. (I am legend rank at acr for 5th yr in a row so clearly have some credibility on this topic).
It is not surprising that ACR would do anything they felt was in their financial benefit. The site has been the most unreliably shady platform in poker for the last 5-10 years. Ownership is not trustworthy, support is handcuffed, and there have been botting issues on the site for as long as it has existed. Find me an ACR headline on this forum that is positive. Any time they are mentioned, they have done something shady.
Quick question first.
The rake back on ACR, does it become the players once earned, like cash in your account, or is it just a reward until it is cashed in by the player?
Examples:
A) Is it like the interest earned at a bank when you invest in a CD. Where once the time period elapses that money is yours legally.
or
B) It it like credit card rewards points or casino comps where you don't have legal ownership of those rewards until you cash them in
I haven't read thru the terms at any of the poker rooms but I'd venture a guess they reserve the right to revoke bonuses or rewards at any time at their discretion. Wonder where rake back would fall in regards to a reward. Even in a regulated environment the only thing preventing a poker room from revoking rewards as a money grab is they don't want to lose customers or get a bad reputation, not because it would be illegal.
Seems like a lot of the players are referring to the rake back owed as "theirs." Maybe they just don't know any better? 99.9% of the time it would not be an issue. They might want to be a little more cautious if they are from a country that may be deemed undesirable, or if they are part of a stable as in this case, or maybe just playing in a manner the poker room does not desire where they could invoke their right to refuse paying a reward.
Even in a regulated environment you might not have any legal entitlement to the rake back. Usually the business will cave if enough pressure and bad press is created. I'd still be careful though, if they feel the only bad press would be among other pro's they might just do what they did in this case. Pay the balance owed, refuse any rewards and not worry if it causes other similar players to leave. The fact that it could be unregulated just makes it that much easier for them.
Im zinhao, co-founder of Metagame with my partner Saulo Costa.
…..
Again, without false modesty, we are not idiots. All of us Metageme partners are players who went from microstakes to highstakes and we have businesses and reputations to protect. What incentive would we have to expose ourselves in this way, bringing this matter to the public if we were not telling 100% the truth and had absolutely nothing to hide? It is about doing what is right and defending these people. ….
We are fr
50k in rewards x X number of players in stable qualifying for the bonus is the reason the matter was brought to public.
Im zinhao, co-founder of Metagame with my partner Saulo Costa.
How exactly do you think they or we abused rakeback system while rakeback isnt more than 100%? If there are only them in the pool and hipotetically they were doing what you’re saying, they keep paying rake, doesnt matter how much. It doesnt make sense, its a -EV investment.
Do you understand the concept of rake and rakeback? You just get a cut of what you already paied.
They pay 5bb of rake
If they hit the goal, they receive more
Hi zinhao,
Your stable is at the cutting edge of poker and it would be foolish to throw that away for 30K in rakeback at 200NL Blitz. I fully believe that you never meant for this to happen.
To expand briefly on my thoughts: If I was Nizza or Biluzin playing 200,000+ hands a month, I have one main challenge which is to remain fresh so that my poker skill does not get substantially worse over the massive volume. One of the easy ways to stay fresh is to fold more (less decisions = less decision fatigue). The best player to do this against is the one that I have least edge against (my stablemate) , so over time basically both players start to play a different tighter strategy against each other than the pool.
This tighter strategy saves rake paid (which is good when all matchups are -5bb/100) and also preserves mental acuity. This amounts to soft collusion, because another non-stable player has to fight for every pot with both of them, while they get to take the pots off between themselves.
Again, I do not think is metagame's intention, bu it is a consequence of heavy volume with a well-known player in a negative sum game.
I am on a similar situation, I really hope you guys are legit, it´s been 4 months sending mails nonstop and they do not care...
There is not always a hero in a story. It is possible for there to be two villains, an online poker site and a stable. It is possible to dislike both.
Unironically yes as low post count posters are more likely to be shills and/or people who have a personal connection to the topic they are replying to, and not organic posters on the site.
And you can question that “ they are seeking to just inform the poker community of the evil online provider” when they aren’t part of this community.
not cashing this rb out immediately is just foolish given acr's history
To expand briefly on my thoughts: If I was Nizza or Biluzin playing 200,000+ hands a month, I have one main challenge which is to remain fresh so that my poker skill does not get substantially worse over the massive volume. One of the easy ways to stay fresh is to fold more (less decisions = less decision fatigue). The best player to do this against is the one that I have least edge against (my stablemate) , so over time basically both players start to play a different tighter strategy again
So if two strong regs that play the same schedule 3bet each other a little less than other regs, that's soft collusion? Realistically every player is going to have some opponents/sessions/times of day where their aggression deviates from their own average/GTO/pool averages/whatever metric you want to use.
Hi zinhao,
Your stable is at the cutting edge of poker and it would be foolish to throw that away for 30K in rakeback at 200NL Blitz. I fully believe that you never meant for this to happen.
To expand briefly on my thoughts: If I was Nizza or Biluzin playing 200,000+ hands a month, I have one main challenge which is to remain fresh so that my poker skill does not get substantially worse over the massive volume. One of the easy ways to stay fresh is to fold more (less decisions = less decisi
Hey men this isn't true. All regs that started/play good volume at b200 were decent/strong regs. So i would vpip less vs all regs ? This would hurt my volume goal since i would have to play even more hands daily.
The situation you describe is the same if you sit to play vs any good reg on the limits you play. I don`t see your point.
If you have some update on their part please DM me. I have a very similar situation with even less potential causes of a red flag.
Ralph, you're taking a seat when it's half full of the same stable?
Nizza surely you don't share funds/strategy/databases with "all regs?"
Since we're talking stable let's talk entire farm. What's the crop of choice?
I see Bozemanite's point ... if the situation is marginal - is there a benefit to soft playing when you have a 0 EV hand? For example if Player A opens and Player B chooses not to 3Bet a "0 EV" combo - would that be to Player A's benefit?
Based on what I know, I am pretty certain it benefits Player A ... but I think if Player A realizes this softplay is happening, then the definition of what a "0 EV" combo is changes for Player B ... so Player A could defend tighter / 4bet tighter if he knows Player B is "softplaying" ... if Player B realizes Player A has adjusted then he can tighten or loosen based on what he thinks the more +EV response ... so on and so forth ... so maybe there is no benefit to soft playing here if the best option is to try and play close to GTO.
I see Bozemanite's point ... if the situation is marginal - is there a benefit to soft playing when you have a 0 EV hand? For example if Player A opens and Player B chooses not to 3Bet a "0 EV" combo - would that be to Player A's benefit?
Based on what I know, I am pretty certain it benefits Player A ... but I think if Player A realizes this softplay is happening, then the definition of what a "0 EV" combo is changes for Player B ... so Player A could defend tighter / 4bet tighter if he knows P
It absolutely benefits player A from a purely theoretical lens, player A in this scenario gets to over realise (frequency of getting 3bet decreases) and as you correctly pointed out would then shift both players strategies again and the "0 EV" combos to a new equilibrium. However these 0 EV combos are 0 EV for a reason, not taking the opportunity to 3bet/call those combos minutely swings theoretical ev, you can check this stuff out via preflop nodelocks.
A caveat to this is in wider range spots like 3betting preflop HU...not taking any 0EV 3bet is an obvious blunder for many reasons
This is a shame! I hope they solve the problem. I don't trust this site.
