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
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
I believe the question comes down to this: can softplaying result in more EV for a stable (or players within the stable) than playing a GTO strategy (assumption being no outright cheating such as card sharing is happening)?
A player facing a 3Bet is already in a -EV situation with their range (compared to if they had already folded - not saying it's not +EV to continue) assuming nothing too out of the ordinary is happening with ranges. Each player in a stable in the long run should be equally as likely to be Player A or Player B in my scenario - can a benefit be derived for all the players within a stable by not 3Betting the 0 EV/lowest EV combos?
I think it's a tough question because on one hand - it's a 0 EV 3Bet for (Player B) but -EV for the opener (Player A) ... which with simple math adds up to a net negative for the stable. A 0EV 3Bet minus any EV at all is bad for the stable ... (except when the rakeback outweighs the lost EV) ... but the equilibrium changes so it really isn't that simple. Player A could open wider, 4bet tighter, call tighter, etc. if he isn't getting 3Bet as much.
Strangely it almost seems like softplaying would be more trouble than it's worth, but I also suspect there might be some way to profit from it.
Simply put, ACR's argument was "soft play amongst players". This is such a weak accusation and can be easily proven wrong, so if they don't allow Zinhao to prove his point, or THEY prove this happened for their benefit, they cannot sustain this thesis.
I'll just give you a small hint: they won't be able to sustain it. They will either keep this as an extremely dictatorial decision, or they'll say: "upon further review, we were wrong, here is your money."
For the safety of players and companies working with poker, this CANNOT possibly happen. The fact we are discussing something done within the site rules is slightly revolting and I'll finish by saying: this doesn't affect you, until it does. You don't wanna be the victim, but keep supporting these atrocities and eventually it's gonna happen to you.
I believe the question comes down to this: can softplaying result in more EV for a stable (or players within the stable) than playing a GTO strategy (assumption being no outright cheating such as card sharing is happening)?
A player facing a 3Bet is already in a -EV situation with their range (compared to if they had already folded - not saying it's not +EV to continue) assuming nothing too out of the ordinary is happening with ranges. Each player in a stable in the long run should be equally as
Seems you are arguing an academic point rather than answering what actually happened in this circumstance.
The fact that incentives exist to soft play does not amount to proof of soft play.
this doesn't affect you, until it does. You don't wanna be the victim, but keep supporting these atrocities and eventually it's gonna happen to you.
Exactly.
I’ve been on this forum about a decade and I’ve noticed two things in that time.
- 2p2/poker community universally agrees that poker site security/management sucks
- every ****ing time someone posts about how they were mistreated by a poker site, the thread devolves into victim blaming, finding reasons why the players were actually in the wrong and somehow deserved what came to them.
It’s mind boggling.
The other day I was chatting with a rep about making a new acc on a diff ACR skin for a RB deal.
Definitely probably won’t do that now because there is some chance ACR can claim I’m “abusing bonus system” (whatever the **** that means, what the **** is the point of offering rewards if not to incentivize volume) in the future.
Seems you are arguing an academic point rather than answering what actually happened in this circumstance.
The fact that incentives exist to soft play does not amount to proof of soft play.
That wasn’t my point at all, simply trying to figure out whether there is merit to Zinhao’s argument that soft playing in cash games is against a stable’s best interest. I think that argument is pretty close to the truth, maybe with some small exceptions. Just wondering if anyone has any proof (mathematically) one way or the other.
The reason people side with the site a lot of the time is that honestly almost every time someone ends up being allegedly "unfairly banned" by the site and complain on 2+2, they have been cheating, clearly broken the TOS or at the very least done something that the normal average player wouldnt. I.e played from a banned country under VPN, signed up with a second account after being banned prior (and then complaining "why wasnt my new account banned while I was losing???) etc. Or in this case, even where the case is murkier, the "stiffed" player would not have been treated the same way if he was a normal player who is not part of a stable - normal players understandably hate stables and can see the situation from the site's point of view when targeted by a stable who are playing on their site for the sole purpose of gaming the bonus.
The simple reality is that normal poker players very seldom get f'd over by the site (not counting shitty smaller scam off shore sites that routinely close down and take with them the players' deposits in the drain) in ways like this, because they dont do anything that the site can use as a reason to withhold big wins. If an honest player thinks "would I have done the same if I was playing on the site?" and the answer is "no", there is naturally little sympathy to be found.
It's hard to have sympathy for poker stables that are completely unethical sharing mass data, ghosting, and a complete drain on the poker economy. They should really be banned - would almost guarantee when a horse makes a deep run in a big MTT they are taking over/influencing decisions, and they have way more data to study from then the average player. The sites need to protect themselves against situations like this - greedy stables extract all the money out of the economy causing the weak/new players to leave, and ultimately games won't run at some point.
It's hard to have sympathy for poker stables that are completely unethical sharing mass data, ghosting, and a complete drain on the poker economy. They should really be banned - would almost guarantee when a horse makes a deep run in a big MTT they are taking over/influencing decisions, and they have way more data to study from then the average player. The sites need to protect themselves against situations like this - greedy stables extract all the money out of the economy causing the weak/new
Exactly! As a regular, I imagine myself in the place of the regulars playing blitz on ACR(or open sitting normal tables), who have to play with the same 3 players 24/7( they analyze the shared mass data as a group, starting at the same time, same stable/funds).
Yes they worked hard for the stolen rewards, not getting that money is unfair. But is it suprising that the other regulars don't feel sympathy/support for their cause? I don't think so...
I just made 1000$ more in rakeback this month then rake paid am I cheating? No sometimes sites do things to win market shares they are free to change it in the future if they feel they got taken advantage of but they still have to pay it out. They can afford to take some losses because 90% of the people trying for it would fail. Its a drop in the bucket for them . Like any business you can choose to take short-term losses for market share
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.
If they play from the same bankroll, then yes. It clearly advantages both players and we have no way to differentiate between "accidental" and "planned" collusion.
First of all sorry that this has happened to you guys, I know these situation are stressful af and I would be upset too. Hopefully you find some sort of solution to get some back.
After reading "tripleberryjam's" post about you guys potentially receiving more than 100% rb if you would play the targeted volume, I think that's the reason wpn decided to step in. Because you guys are probably not doing anything wrong indivually (if you guys telling the truth about not softplaying eachother and things like that which I believe likely to be true) and are incentivized to play max ev vs eachother. But from a stable pov let multiple horses (playing with their bankroll) play infinite volume vs each other with more than 100% rb while they are almost freerolling is clearly just exploiting the rakeback system. And I don't think it's super out of line from wpn to step in, they can still decide who plays and doesn't play on their site. Just the part of you not getting your already required rakeback is kinda ****ed up tho, hope this gets resolved somehow
I wonder what others think about this
and if the actual rakeback is not more than 100% pls forget what I said 😃
a system where players, in any way shape or form, can get more than 100% rakeback is very flawed
a system where players, in any way shape or form, can get more than 100% rakeback is very flawed
why? If said player can play more hands then everyone else and drive the site action by keeping the games running that otherwise would not is he not worth 100% or more to them? What if that's available to everyone but only one person is willing to do it? They also said they received far less then 100% rb a couple times but its such a stupid argument sites dont care when you lose 100%.
Many sites have volumn promos with lb's that can give over 100% rb to the winner for a day . Its pretty normal but there's only one winner. Its the sites choosing to do these not the players. This one just happened to be for more money
They aren't being accused of botting/RTA, and it sounds like not even for colluding against other players
"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."
For $150-200k rake paid you're getting 124% plus leaderboards. Similar situation if you're at $250 on the leaderboards but very close to $500. Those
Sorry I'm not following here. Where does this imply that you're getting more than 100% rb?
It's hard to have sympathy for poker stables that are completely unethical sharing mass data, ghosting, and a complete drain on the poker economy. They should really be banned - would almost guarantee when a horse makes a deep run in a big MTT they are taking over/influencing decisions, and they have way more data to study from then the average player. The sites need to protect themselves against situations like this - greedy stables extract all the money out of the economy causing the weak/new
This is why we see mistakes in this type of topics. PPL like to generalize everything. Because some mtt stables do bad practices they think all stables do the same. I not asking for you be pro stables. But just have some empathy as a human being and grinder. For someone who has worked like crazy, a lot of volume. so in the end the site ban him with no rational argument
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.
If they play from the same bankroll, then yes. It clearly advantages both players and we have no way to differentiate between "accidental" and "planned" collusion.
this makes no sense sorry
First of all sorry that this has happened to you guys, I know these situation are stressful af and I would be upset too. Hopefully you find some sort of solution to get some back.
After reading "tripleberryjam's" post about you guys potentially receiving more than 100% rb if you would play the targeted volume, I think that's the reason wpn decided to step in. Because you guys are probably not doing anything wrong indivually (if you guys telling the truth about not softplaying eachother and things
Actual rakeback will never be more than 100%. If u reach the highest status u still getting 80% rb and this would start only next year. Right now we had 60-65% rb max. So even if we played 3 handed like crazy and splits the win;losses on the table ( wich we didin't, and never done since i join metagame stable 4 years ago) we would still lose money to the site.
Simply put, ACR's argument was "soft play amongst players". This is such a weak accusation and can be easily proven wrong, so if they don't allow Zinhao to prove his point, or THEY prove this happened for their benefit, they cannot sustain this thesis.
I'll just give you a small hint: they won't be able to sustain it. They will either keep this as an extremely dictatorial decision, or they'll say: "upon further review, we were wrong, here is your money."
For the safety of players and companies wor
Yes. When I was banned, I sent an email trying to show that what they were arguing didn't make sense and asking for proof of some kind of "softplay". However, they simply replied that they were not open to discussion and that the decision had already been made in a very authoritarian manner, as you yourself mentioned.
It is really revolting to see people here defending the site, because this could have happened to any other player and, as I said before, the consequences of this can even end a player's career. We have to put ourselves in other people's shoes and have a little empathy, because losing all the money from hard work, with a weak accusation like the one made by the WPN, it is unbelievable to have people defending this, because we are all in danger when a site does something like this. The security of your work is always at risk in this way.
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.
If they play from the same bankroll, then yes. It clearly advantages both players and we have no way to differentiate between "accidental" and "planned" collusion.
and if you are playing your local cardroom, make the final table of a tournament, and find that two of your opponents are a husband and wife, do you go to the cardroom director and report them for collusion because they are playing from a 'shared bankroll' and you have no way to differentiate between accidental and planned collusion?
and if you are playing your local cardroom, make the final table of a tournament, and find that two of your opponents are a husband and wife, do you go to the cardroom director and report them for collusion because they are playing from a 'shared bankroll' and you have no way to differentiate between accidental and planned collusion?
If they play a different strategy against each other than everyone else, then yes that's collusion. I think the tournament director has an awful scenario on his hands, because teams in poker are bad.
Maybe phrase this a different way if my 4 teammates and I sit down at a table with you. We "swear" we do not collude, but admit to one bankroll. Do you play this game?
This is why we see mistakes in this type of topics. PPL like to generalize everything. Because some mtt stables do bad practices they think all stables do the same. I not asking for you be pro stables. But just have some empathy as a human being and grinder. For someone who has worked like crazy, a lot of volume. so in the end the site ban him with no rational argument
Stables are a cancer on poker and no stable is ethical give me a break.
and if you are playing your local cardroom, make the final table of a tournament, and find that two of your opponents are a husband and wife, do you go to the cardroom director and report them for collusion because they are playing from a 'shared bankroll' and you have no way to differentiate between accidental and planned collusion?
If they play a different strategy against each other than everyone else, then yes that's collusion. I think the tournament director has an awful scenario on his hand
Anyone can be on a 'team' in poker, or have a 'shared bankroll' with someone else.
The standard to prove collusion needs to be focused on strategies taken like you said.
Instead, your argument amounts to 'they're in a stable, lock them up and throw away the key' and you're having trouble understanding why this is problematic?
They showed their databases to ACR so ACR could make a judgment based on their gameplay. Unfortunately ACR is hardly an objective party here.
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?
I understand where you're going with these questions and although I have very little hope that you have the will to understand, I'll try:
We don't need to, no one in the world needs to do this. If you go to hh***********, statname.net, ********.com, you can buy a database larger than any stable is capable of producing. This war on stables and public opinion against us is just a tool that the websites managed to shove down your throat so that you come up with these bizarre accusations or these maxims that don't make any sense like "the stables dried up the game" and other nonsense . Anyone who has worked with data seriously in any market would laugh at people who say this, as these accusations make no sense. That's not how MDA works.
Now about hand histories or mass data: any private company has the right to ban any player it wants, without prior notice or for any reason whatsoever. Now tell me: if I have a bank account and get a statement, can the bank prevent me from sharing my statement with someone else? This fear of mass data only exists for those who are ignorant on the subject and don't know how to do it or what it's for. So it is very simple for the site to say that it prohibits sharing a document that is no longer its own, to use people who do not understand what they are talking about as a scapegoat and to turn public opinion against the stables and sweep under the carpet the real problem that they can't combat: bots and rta.
Who do you think found GG's superuser? Who do you think finds bots and collusion? In any serious market, all types of data are made available and people have access.
answering your questions:
1- no, because we don't need it.
2- this is ridiculous, any of these sites have a much larger database than this.
3- ghosting is something that happened in MTT stables in the past and that no serious stable does anymore. The accusations against Brazilians are completely unfounded and the result of envy on the part of those who are beaten by them. But obviously I don't even need to say why ghost doesn't exist in cash, right? Or are they going to accuse us of that, too? lol
staking is the biggest proof of guts anyone can have. take that person, teach them and put your own money where your mouth is.
You didn't ask me but I can tell you: yes, there are Russian bot farms that combine bots with players' RTA and MDA. And it's not by getting a cute hand history that pokerstars puts out for you to download on your app. they take hand histories even from sites that boast of not providing them (like wpt global) and do what they want, while the masses of maneuverers here are here hating real people who grind 200 hours a month.
including the security of sites like pokerstars which have always been held up as an example are poor, Russian bots have killed midtakes, highstakes and nosebleeds for years, that's all I can say.
That wasn’t my point at all, simply trying to figure out whether there is merit to Zinhao’s argument that soft playing in cash games is against a stable’s best interest. I think that argument is pretty close to the truth, maybe with some small exceptions. Just wondering if anyone has any proof (mathematically) one way or the other.
you are not seeing the reality of how the situation works because you are too worried about hating stables without even understanding how they work: all players on our company have individual contracts, individual interests and individual deals, individual routines, lifes etc. there's no such thing as "stable's best interest", we didn't tell Rubens Barricello to stop the car so Schumacher could pass, they don't have common interests, we are not a pool.
