[Cheating ring] Victor Ciubotaru (Romania) - confessed collusion on Chinese poker apps

Victor Ciubotaru. Source: his public Facebook coaching page (facebook.com/vexcoaching) and Poker Wisdom branding (pokerwisdom.club). Captured 13 May 2026.

WARNING - ACTIVELY CHEATING PUBLIC POKER COACH

Victor Ciubotaru, a Romanian poker coach who sells paid coaching publicly under the "VexVictor / Poker Wisdom" brand, admitted to me in writing on 25 March 2026 that he runs a 4-5 account collusion ring on Chinese poker apps and offered to deploy it on my behalf. He has since blocked me, deleted his messages, and locked down his personal social media.

This post is a warning to the poker community he sells coaching to, the agents who book players into his "team's" games, and the operators of Chinese poker apps where his ring operates. Anyone backing him, paying him for coaching, or sourcing players through him is dealing with a confessed cheater.

TL;DR

• Victor Ciubotaru - Romanian poker coach, public brand "VexVictor / Poker Wisdom", sells paid coaching at pokerwisdom.club - admitted in writing on 25 March 2026 to running a 4-5 account collusion ring on Chinese poker apps and offered to deploy it on my behalf to "clear" an old makeup balance from a prior staking arrangement.
  
• His exact words: "I HAVE A TEAM PLAYING CHINESE APPS WITH 4-5 ACCOUNTS ON SAME TABLE" (verbatim, see screenshot below).
  
• I declined. He has since blocked me on every channel, deleted his messages, and locked down every personal-facing social account he controls.
  
• I am NOT pursuing the makeup debt. I have formally waived it (13 May 2026 email, witnessed). This is a warning, not a debt collection.
  
• Coaching students, staking partners, agents, and operators of Chinese apps: keep reading.
  

IDENTITY MATRIX

Every identifier below is either self-disclosed by him in our chats or publicly set on his own profiles. All point to the same person.

[CODE]
Channel / source | Identifier | Source
--------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------
Real name | Victor Ciubotaru | self-disclosed; passport on file
Country / city | Romania / Iasi (Jassy) | Hendon Mob; Instagram; LinkedIn; Ziarul de Iasi
Age | 36 (born ~1990) | pokerwisdom.club/despre-noi/
Education | Faculty of Computer Science, Iasi | LinkedIn (self-disclosed)
Email used in our comms | [email protected] | chat exports + publicly listed on his YouTube "More info" panel (cross-verified)
Public business email | [email protected] | digitalgoal.ro; LinkedIn
Telegram | @VexVictor | chat exports
Instagram | @vexvictor | instagram.com/vexvictor/
LinkedIn | Head of Marketing @ digitalgoal.ro | linkedin.com/in/victorciubotaru/
Facebook (personal) | facebook.com/victor.ciubotaru | (his then-public profile; now private)
Facebook (coaching page) | "VexVictor Poker Coaching" (1,123 likes) | facebook.com/vexcoaching/
Facebook (school page) | "Poker Wisdom" | facebook.com/pokerwisdomclub/
Coaching website | "Poker Wisdom" (co-founded w/ C. Raducan) | pokerwisdom.club
Marketing agency | digitalgoal.ro (co-founder + Head of Mktg)| digitalgoal.ro; LinkedIn cross-reference
Holdem.ro coaching profile | VexVictor Coaching | holdem.ro/vexvictor-coaching/
YouTube channel | coaching channel | youtube.com/channel/UC-20MoZ5pIgPPO0-YvWjbjA
Hendon Mob | player ID 260033 ($10,619 lifetime) | pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?n=260033
Card Player | player ID 263597 | cardplayer.com/poker-players/263597-victor-ciubotaru
XPoker | VexVictor | self-stated in chat (Apr 2022)
PokerMaster / Pokio | Player3 (ID #JGWYD) | self-stated in chat (Apr 2023)
PokerMaster / Pokio | gg4362 (ID #7YK7J) | self-stated in chat (Apr 2023)
Other app | ClickNPray (id 176563) | self-stated in chat (Aug 2023)
[/CODE]

Wayback Machine snapshots of the public-state pages (captured 31 May 2026, to verify identity if any get further locked down or deleted):

• Poker Wisdom website: https://web.archive.org/web/202605310212...
  
• digitalgoal.ro (his marketing agency): https://web.archive.org/web/202605310232...
  
• YouTube channel: https://web.archive.org/web/202605310231...
  
• Card Player profile (260033): https://web.archive.org/web/202605310232...
  
• Holdem.ro coaching profile: https://web.archive.org/web/201506181858...
  

Note on missing snapshots: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Hendon Mob systematically block the Internet Archive crawler. Live URLs in the IDENTITY MATRIX above remain accessible.

COACHING BUSINESS FOOTPRINT

He operates a public poker-coaching business under the brand "VexVictor / Poker Wisdom":

• pokerwisdom.club - his poker school, co-founded with mental coach Cristian Raducan
  
• facebook.com/pokerwisdomclub/ - the school's Facebook page
  
• facebook.com/vexcoaching/ - his personal coaching Facebook page (1,123 followers)
  
• holdem.ro/vexvictor-coaching/ - coaching profile on the largest Romanian poker portal
  

According to his own public bio on pokerwisdom.club/despre-noi/:

• ~16 years as a professional poker player
  
• 12+ years as a poker coach
  
• 300+ players coached online; ~50 individual students; 20+ coaching groups
  
• Ran a 2-year poker office in Iasi with 15 students
  
• Currently coaches 10NL-200NL
  

He also runs a separate digital-marketing agency digitalgoal.ro where his LinkedIn lists him as Head of Marketing. Confirms identity across two unrelated public businesses.

Independent press coverage:

• Holdem.ro interview, 07 December 2016 - full-length Romanian profile interview titled "Coaching-ul este 100% necesar la orice forma de poker"
  
• Ziarul de Iasi, 23 October 2017 - local-press feature "Meseria secreta in care iesenii exceleaza: pokerul profesionist"
  

He markets paid coaching to beginners and mid-stakes players. That is the public-facing brand of a man who, by his own written admission below, runs a 4-5-account collusion ring on Chinese poker apps. Students paying him to learn legitimate poker are paying a confessed cheater. They deserve to know.

PROFILE STATUS - A PATTERN

Since this conversation started in late March 2026, he has systematically reduced his personal-facing online visibility across every platform he controls:

[CODE]
Account | Lockdown action
----------------------------- | -----------------------------------
Facebook (personal) | Set to PRIVATE
Instagram @vexvictor | Set to PRIVATE (followers-only)
LinkedIn (victorciubotaru) | Profile photo removed; remains
| publicly viewable otherwise
[/CODE]

What remains public are his business-facing brands - VexVictor coaching FB, Poker Wisdom (FB + website), and his digital-marketing agency digitalgoal.ro - which need public visibility to operate. Plus third-party poker databases (Hendon Mob, Card Player) which he cannot control.

The chronology of this lockdown coincides with the period after he blocked me. Readers can draw their own conclusions.

THE CONFESSION

Telegram DM, 25 March 2026, 23:32 UTC+7:

Four minutes later, 23:36 UTC+7:

My response, 26 March 2026, 00:46 UTC+7:

I followed up on 9 April asking for a response. Silence. He blocked me across all channels shortly after and tried to delete the conversation. I had already saved it.

CONTEXT

Multi-year standard staking arrangement. Real names exchanged, ID documents on file with both parties, witnesses on both ends (another stable member kept the books).

During a heavy-loss period on WPT-ecosystem skins in 2023 he accumulated a five-figure USD makeup balance. He refused to grind legitimate lower stakes to clear it; insisted on high stakes only.

His own admission, 19 February 2025 in writing:

PATTERN: REPEATED GRIND OFFERS, ALL DECLINED

Good legitimate cash games are scarce; periods of fishy material come and go. I never had unlimited options to offer, but over the duration of the staking arrangement I pinged him whenever something good opened up:

• 21 Aug 2022 (Telegram): suggested NL cash + tournaments - no engagement.
  
• 21 Feb 2024 (Telegram): "Grinding bros ATM and is quite good" - no engagement.
  
• 10 Jan 2025 (Teams): "got some new fish material atm" - no follow-up from his side.
  
• 19 Feb 2025 (Telegram): NL400/500 stakes proposal to chip the makeup down - declined; "im not gonna risk my money to get some MU made 2 years ago on different games".
  
• 23-25 Mar 2026 (Telegram): fresh legitimate Chinese-app games at appropriate stakes. Instead of declining cleanly, he volunteered the confession quoted above.
  

As I put it in the same March 2026 conversation: "good games are not growing on trees and takes long to have such again."

NOTICE GIVEN, RESPONSE WINDOW EXPIRED

He has had repeated opportunities to respond. Documented email chronology to his self-stated address [email protected]:

[CODE]
20 Apr 2026 | First written contact (earlier wording I have since formally
| withdrawn - see 13 May entry).
20 Apr 2026 | Victor replies, verbatim: "You want to post on 2+2 or any other
| site? That is perfectly fine, go ahead, I will also post my side
| of the story and we'll see who is the joke."
23 Apr 2026 | I reply: confirm the post is coming; offer to send him the full
| text for review before publication.
13 May 2026 | FORMAL WAIVER EMAIL (BCC'd to a witness):
| (a) any prior payment-linked language explicitly withdrawn;
| (b) the makeup debt waived in full - he owes nothing;
| (c) the full text of this post attached as PDF;
| (d) 7-day window for written response ending 20 May 2026.
20 May 2026 | Response window closes at 12:00 UTC. No reply.
[/CODE]

He explicitly invited me on 20 April to publish, he had the full draft in hand from 13 May, and he had twenty days after the response window closed before this went live. This post goes up as previously stated.

EVIDENCE CHECKLIST - WHAT IS AND ISN'T IN THIS POST

[CODE]
PUBLISHED HERE | WITHHELD (private, mods-only on request)
----------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------
- Real name + nationality + city | - Passport / state-issued ID
- Age (from his own bio) | - Phone numbers
- Direct quotes of his admissions | - Personal email beyond comms one
- My own messages and refusal | - Home address
- Public-profile identifiers | - Partner / family information
- Coaching business URLs + bio claims | - Bank / payment details
- Marketing agency URL + role title |
- Poker-platform aliases (self-stated) |
- Face photo (from his public coaching |
brand) |
- Wayback snapshots of public pages where |
platforms permit archival |
- Co-founder name (publicly listed on |
pokerwisdom.club) |
- Profile-lockdown chronology |
[/CODE]

WHO THIS IS A WARNING FOR

• If you play on Chinese poker apps (Pokio, PokerMaster, ClickNPray, XPoker): his ring is on these apps right now with 4-5 accounts coordinated at the same table. By his own admission, "playing long time chinese games... at 2/4/8 or 5/10/20."
  
• If you are paying Victor for poker coaching (he claims 300+ historical students; 1,123 followers on his coaching FB page; active 10NL-200NL coaching): you are paying a self-admitted cheater for advice on the same games he cheats in. Ask for a refund.
  
• If you are an agent or staker considering backing Victor, or were offered "players from his team" to back: those players are confirmed members of his self-admitted multi-account ring. Backing them is backing the ring.
  
• If you are an operator of a Chinese poker app (Pokio, PokerMaster, ClickNPray, XPoker, or affiliated club hosts): the aliases listed in the IDENTITY MATRIX above are his self-stated accounts. He has confirmed at least one operates on each platform plus 3-4 more per table for the ring.
  
• If you are in another business relationship with him - sponsorship, partnerships, the Poker Wisdom brand, his digitalgoal.ro marketing agency: decide whether you want that public association given his written admission.
  
• He blocked me to make this go away. It is not going away. The screenshots remain.
  

VERIFICATION AVAILABLE ON REQUEST

• Telegram chat exports across 4 group/private threads (1500+ messages, April 2022 - April 2026)
  
• Microsoft Teams chat history with him
  
• ID documents (provided to mods or trusted neutrals, not posted publicly)
  
• Witnesses to the staking arrangement and his identity
  
• Wayback Machine snapshots of his public-state pages (URLs listed in IDENTITY MATRIX section)