WPN ''Steals'' more than 50k in rewards

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

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19 November 2024 at 05:59 PM
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160 Replies

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by Bozemanite k

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

you'd still pay rake to play your "teammates". it doesnt make sense


by goose434 k

If this is the case and they are so spectacular, why would they grind so much time on 200b?

he's still young to the game, but he didnt play only 200b. 200b is the easiest way to make volume and to sustain a smooth grind. Pedro was 1.8bb/100 up before rakeback iirc, so making 2kk hands and receiving 3.5bb/1000 in rakeback (~65%) is more or less $200k a year. Is not easy to make this not even at 1kNL nowadays, there's a bunch of things you have to take into account when choosing limits/type of grinding.

but he played 400nl, 600nl, 1knl with 200b also. and when he was banned he started to play more GG with good table selection and played up to 10k before they made the games private. so i'd say that choice of making hard volume was a type of grind he wanted to do in that time, and you have a lot of different habilities in poker. We had several highstakes grinders but the guy who made the biggest money into a year was a midstake grinder who made 2kk hands per year 2 years straight. If you can sustain a very good a-game for several hours in a soft pool that can lead to biggest hourly that the vast majority of the highstakes grinders. when i say he's spectacular is not only his capacity of receive content and internalize it, but his capacity of grinding a lot, sustain A game, dont tilt, etc.


by zinhao k

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.

You’re misunderstanding my post. I’m asking a question - which is could it be in a “stable’s best interest” to soft play? This is basically what WPN is claiming. That somehow your player(s) are benefiting from soft playing each other. If the math says it can’t be in a stable’s best interest to soft play (aka having a non aggression agreement) - then WPNs accusations don’t make sense and stems from a lack of understanding on their part.

I’m not accusing anyone of wrongdoing. Personally I don’t see the benefit of stable members softplaying against each other, aside from using less mental “resources”.


by ten25 k

You’re misunderstanding my post. I’m asking a question - which is could it be in a “stable’s best interest” to soft play? This is basically what WPN is claiming. That somehow your player(s) are benefiting from soft playing each other. If the math says it can’t be in a stable’s best interest to soft play (aka having a non aggression agreement) - then WPNs accusations don’t make sense and stems from a lack of understanding on their part.

I’m no

yes exactly. sorry for missunderstanding. rake is higher than 0. there's no way to soft play and win money between 2 or more individuals if they are colluding. yes, its lack of understanding to say the least about them. we all know what it is: scam


by zinhao k
by goose434 k

If this is the case and they are so spectacular, why would they grind so much time on 200b?

he's still young to the game, but he didnt play only 200b. 200b is the easiest way to make volume and to sustain a smooth grind. Pedro was 1.8bb/100 up before rakeback iirc, so making 2kk hands and receiving 3.5bb/1000 in rakeback (~65%) is more or less $200k a year. Is not easy to make this not even at 1kNL nowadays, there's a bunch of things you have to take into account when choosing limits/type of grin

I see, makes sense thank you for explanation!


by zinhao k

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:

thank you for your response.


Any updates mate?


by angelar98 k

Any updates mate?

No. We are trying to spread the word in other ways, probably by participating in some podcast to clarify the subject.


by angelar98 k

Any updates mate?

Unfortunately ACR didn't even bother saying ****. It's a shame. This room is the worst. Anyway we still believe it will work out. We are going to start posting on twitter and other social medias. I ask for those who wants to help, to keep spreading the word as much as possible. Thanks !

BTW , did they answer you angelar ?


ya 2+2 should not have been the first place you came to if that's what you did. You have to complain on twitter these days to people with followers and hope one them have ethics and the energy to help you. maybe try to get on berkeys podcast they don't really have anything to talk about


by Nizza k

Unfortunately ACR didn't even bother saying ****. It's a shame. This room is the worst. Anyway we still believe it will work out. We are going to start posting on twitter and other social medias. I ask for those who wants to help, to keep spreading the word as much as possible. Thanks !

BTW , did they answer you angelar ?

No answer, but honestly at this point I don´t know what else I can do. If you get some kind of update would love to hear.

I have tried to reach out team pros like Ceegee or Weazel but they do not give a ****, I am really getting tired of this whole situation.

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