some things I've wanted to say
Dear poker community
I am happy to announce that 62 plaintiffs and their counsel Maurice VerStandig have agreed to dismiss all claims against me in the Veronica Brill vs. Mike Postle case. They have also confirmed they have found no evidence against myself or Stones and have concluded I was not involved in any cheating at Stones. While I am gratified that they now acknowledge the truth, the pain and unfairness of their allegations and the wrath of the social media mob and internet bullying lingers.
On the advice of counsel, I have remained silent and not commented on the parade of false accusations that have been leveled against me. Now that this is over, I want to move on and not spend the next 5 years in the muck. There are some things I need to say before I move on, because the process has been so disheartening and upsetting.
In the fall of 2019, I watched as the “poker community” and wanna-be “celebrity” commentators on Twitter/YouTube falsely accused me of being a knowing participant in what was allegedly the “biggest poker cheating scandal in history.”
The allegations against me were false. However, the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control still conducted an investigation with which I completely and voluntarily cooperated. Because of the investigation and then civil litigation, I was counseled to remain silent and let the process play out without making public com- ment. I did so, all the while wondering if the record would ever be set straight, if the poker community would ever take me back and if those that falsely accused me would ever apologize or if they would just go on to the next effort to collect clicks and follow- ers.
I watched in utter amazement as Joey Ingram devoted hour after hour to “PostleGate.” Some of the videos were entertaining and they certainly were great for increasing In- gram’s popularity, but as I watched them it became clear that Ingram was peddling false statistics, cherry-picking hands to fit his theories and ignoring data that did not fit his version of the story.
Suddenly facts ceased to be important anymore and it all became about who could come up with the most outlandish story. For example, Marle Cordeiro fanned the flames regarding me and seemed to imply on twitter that my car was purchased with money I obtained from the cheating scandal. In fact, I bought that car from an acquain- tance on December 4th 2017 which was more than 8 months before the alleged cheat- ing supposedly started. Doug Polk, Daniel Negreanu, Matt Berkey, Jason Somerville and many others not worth naming also jumped at the chance to be in the spotlight with numerous false claims.
The propaganda machine that these guys created was prolific but it was all a case of confirmation bias. Anything that fit in their narrative was trumpeted and the many things that contradicted their story were simply ignored.
I am ashamed to say that back in October 2019 after listening to so much propaganda, I even went through a period of time where I wondered if it was possible that Mike Pos- tle had cheated. I remember being so depressed with the thought that I could have missed something so “obvious.” The news spiraled out of control with PokerNews making ridiculous claims, countless op-eds mindlessly parroted and even some main- stream media attention by ESPN, Barstool Sports and Haralabos Voulgaris.
During this time, a Poker media company called Rounderlife emerged from the dark- ness and was the only one doing actual research. Even the suing parties were relying on the made up internet sleuth data. The “poker community” systematically shut out and ignored RounderLife magazine to make sure that their content did not go main- stream. Why wouldn’t they want it to go mainstream? Was it because RounderLife was putting out factual content that did not support their narrative? Was it easier for Brill and company to claim Rounderlife was biased than to actually address the facts pre- sented?
For example Rounderlife put out an article regarding me that accurately pointed out there were multiple instances where Postle wins big when I am verifiably out of town and loses big when I am verifiably at Stones Gambling Hall (My locations are verifiable by my social media post). This information was COMPLETELY IGNORED by the poker media and conspiracy theorists!
There’s another Rounderlife article which points out that Postle’s win rate was overly inflated by systematically leaving losing sessions off of the lawsuit. If you intentionally exclude losing sessions, guess how that affects the “win rate.” The irony is that multi- ple losing sessions were unknowingly included in the lawsuit too because the plaintiffs had bad data that said those session were wins when in fact, they were losing ses- sions. The videos are right there on YouTube and anyone that wants to spend the time to go through them can confirm the objective proof published by Rounderlife.
How would you accurately determine how much Postle won or lost? You would watch the YouTube videos and evaluate the amount of money Postle bet, then deduct it from the pots he won. This would provide his actual win/loss rate. Other than Rounderlife, not one internet outlet took the time to evaluate and compute the real Postle win rates.
In the middle of all of this, the “poker community” celebrates Veronica Brill for being the whistle blower and the hero of the story. For the record this story was entirely built on half-truths. Veronica did approach me in March 2019 and she did claim that Mike Postle was cheating. When I asked her if she had any basis for her claim or anything to support it, Veronica had nothing but her suspicion. Still she demanded that I pull Postle from the game right away. To be clear, Brill provided me with no numbers, no video of suspected hands, no charts and no evidence/facts whatsoever. She has since appar- ently claimed that she provided me with a collection of videos showing weird plays but that is false as well. Brill only presented to me her “belief” that Postle was cheating.
I told Veronica that I thought she was wrong but I also told her if she really thought Mike was doing something underhanded, she should stop inviting him to her “Veronica and Friends” game. That was her game. She decided who to invite (or not invite), not me, not anyone else at Stones. So what did Veronica do? The very next month, Veroni- ca texted her player list to me for her game and Mike Postle was on it. In fact, Veronica continued to invite Postle on every list that she sent me after that conversation. If Veronica thought Postle was cheating, why did she invite him to all of her games?
In any event, the fact that Veronica invited Postle to her game shortly after she made her comments to me seemed to confirm that this was just “Veronica being Veronica.” You see, Veronica has this penchant for making outrageous statements and frivolous claims about people. The irony is she has done this in the past to some of her co-plain- tiffs in this lawsuit, who now publicly claim to be her friends. She would often make these claims to me and after a while, it became a lot like “the boy who cried wolf.”
For those of you who think Veronica is a hero, do you think she told the other people she invited to the games that she thought Postle was cheating? What kind of hero in- vites her other friends to a game with someone she suspected of cheating?
In the last year I have seen a community that I considered family turn against me. Those close to me know that I would never stand for or be involved in anything close to what I was accused of. Many of the people that joined the lawsuit and spoke out against me were people that I once called friends. Some of them, I even considered family. I cared about these people, I put a lot of effort into creating events/programs for them and I cared deeply about my work and my integrity. I took it all very seriously. I put everything I had into it. I loved making my poker people happy.
Turns out this “community” did not care about right or wrong, fairness or a critical re- view of the actual facts. It was a rush to judgment with the twitter mob interested in saying outrageous things and jumping to unwarranted conclusions, all in an effort to get followers, clicks and likes. It is all ego driven. Even the ones that could have spo- ken out and knew this whole thing was all bullshit were silenced by their sponsors.
On another note, I am just so sad that so many of you soiled Kevin Racks’ name to fur- ther the hate and incite the Twitter mob. Kevin was an incredible person. I had the privi- lege of knowing him and becoming friends with him at the end of his life. Kevin should be remembered for all of the goodness within him and as a bright light in the poker community. The fact that he has been tied to this situation in such a manipulative and cynical way makes his loss that much more painful.
Lastly I want to publicly thank Rudy Robledo, Kirk Rexford and the countless local Sacramento poker players who had my back and circulated a petition to bring me back to Stones. This of course was never tweeted about or reported by PokerNews but by the time it happened, I was used to anything positive about me being ignored. It is in times like these that you find out who your real friends are and their character is re-
vealed. I found out that I don’t have nearly as many friends as I thought I did, but the ones that I do have are really incredible.
The Twitter mob is real, it is ugly, and it has real life consequences. I have never before experienced so much hatred, ignorance and even threats of violence. All this just be- cause of one person on Twitter and the mob of people who were willing to believe her without facts. It is pretty surreal to think about in retrospect. These social media influ- encers need to be held accountable for what they say against people and especially if they are accusing someone of illegal activity without evidence. Social media provided them with a platform to hide behind a computer while hurling false accusations at me. Right or wrong doesn’t seem to matter to them. It is the person with the loudest plat- form and the most followers that will get heard and ultimately believed and that is a dark commentary on the poker community that must be reconciled for the good of its own future.
Sincerely Justin Kuraitis
Artist/Author: Justin Kuraitis |
