The earliest suspicion of Mike Postle's game can be traced back more than half a year. At that time, no accusations were levelled against him, but even then, some very interesting and unconventional games were already being played:
As will be seen later, hands like the one in the video are in the Mike Postle tradition - reraising with nothing but a great opportunity to throw the opponent out of the hand, value reraising marginal hands against a much stronger opponent's range (even though he has a weaker hand), and so on.
As time passed and the strength of the game continued to grow, Mike Postle began to be noticed by Stones Poker Live commentators and viewers alike. His exceptionally good play has earned him many nicknames: Mike Apostle, Mike "Get There" Postle, Mike "God" Postle and so on. Postle has attracted both many critics who are suspicious of his play and fans who consider him the best poker player in the world.
Of course, the critics' voices did not blame the player. The whole cheating scandal only came to a head after tweets by former Stones Gambling Hall employee Veronica Brill:
The player who names him is, of course, Mike Postle. These tweets came out quite unexpectedly, leading a number of players to defend Mike Postle, but at the same time, the accusations were taken seriously and the internet started to gather evidence one way or the other. Just a few days after the tweets appeared, Stones Gambling Hall announced that they had investigated and found that no cheating had taken place in poker games. Of course, the online poker community did not give up so easily and the members of the Two Plus Two forum launched their own investigation. Members of the forum set up a separate See to collect evidence. Suspicions and potential evidence soon began to mount. It was noted that since July, Mike Postle very rarely played Cash games that were not livestreamed. At the same time, a closer analysis of his game began. For this purpose, a Google document was even created, which included all the video material. Each day's video footage was examined by volunteers, who suggested whether the session should be labelled as "God Mode" (i.e. Mike Postle plays with almost no mistakes). This document can be found at Here.
The document is full of suspiciously played hands. One of the most interesting is this:
Mike Postle: 
open until $6
Robert: 
3bet to $26
Mike Postle: Call
Flop 
Mike Postle: Check
Robert: Any $20 to $58
Mike Postle: Call
Turn 
Up to this point, the gameplay seems pretty standard for regular players. Perhaps the sizing could be a bit different, but so far nothing is striking.
Mike Postle: Check
Robert: Any $50 to $98
Mike Postle: Fold
This is an incredible play, given that Mike is a highly profitable player. We should ask ourselves what cards Mr Postle must have expected if he had decided to fold top pair on the turn to a small raise. This is not the kind of play you can expect from any good player, especially when any sizing is only ½ pot.
Of course, suspicions are not only strengthened by the many hands played in a similar way. Other unusual behaviour has been observed from Mike Postle. For example, if the RFID did not read the cards, Mike would almost always ask the player to re-place the cards on the sensor. Normally, the poker player at the table is neither aware that the RFID has not scanned the cards, nor does he pay attention to it. Another aspect of the unusual behaviour is the constant looking down. Members of the Two Plus Two forum speculate that Mike Postle was holding his phone at his feet (this can sometimes be seen if you watch the video footage closely). The suspicions were only strengthened by the observation that Mike Postle never missed an opportunity to look down, where he was probably holding his phone, before making important decisions or playing particularly unusual games.
Finally, members of the Two Plus Two forum started to follow Mike Postle's achievements, researching his BB/100 based on available information and hourly earnings. There are all sorts of statistical calculations, but all of them claim that Mike Postle is over 100 BB/100 and has ~65% VPIP. This VPIP, by the way, includes UTG+2 42o and similar open, so 65% may not be the ceiling in the days when Mike Postle was playing divine. For any regular Cash player, such stats should raise suspicions:
I heard little defence from Mike Postle himself. He assures everyone that his wins and winrate are not that high. To explain certain hands, the player claims that RFID misread his hand, so that some bluffs were in fact the strongest hand and vice versa. Of course, the internet quickly turned up people who showed that RFID is very rarely wrong. In the cases where they are wrong, the cards are never replaced in the middle of the hand:
Numerous examples of fraud allegations have been collected on the internet, mainly on Two Plus Two forums. The main theory of the fraud method is that it is information from within the person. Members of the Two Plus Two forum speculate that Mike Postle received information about the hands from the person who handled the livestream graphics (i.e. saw the hands through the computer). This would explain why Mike Postle only plays during the livestream, is constantly looking at his phone and has several sessions where he plays in a completely different way to what viewers are used to seeing.
Finally, on 8 October, Veronica Brill, several employees of Stones Gambling Hall and players of the games sued Mike Postle and several others potentially linked to him. So far, the story stands at this threshold. So far, all we know is Mike Postle's lawyer's response to the lawsuit: "When I play poker, I lose almost every hand, so this kind of win should be possible."
It is still not entirely clear how the court case will turn out, as it can be difficult for judges to explain the intricacies of poker. The document submitted to the court describes in great detail the rules of poker and how Mike Postle may have cheated, so we can only hope that the process goes smoothly.
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