ShareChristopher Battenfield has been accused of cheating during the 2023 WSOP Online after five of the spots he played showed up on GTO wizard’s new fair play tool. GTO Wizard is an online GTO solver tool which recently launched a fair play tool allowing players to check if a specific hand had been solved at the same time it was played.
Poker pro Mike Holtz recently played with Battenfield and discovered that no less than five of the hands he played in the event matched up with hands that had been solved on GTO Wizard at the exact time.
Holtz said that he watched Battenfield win a WSOP Circuit ring in August, defeating Jeff Platt heads-up, and became suspicious of his play.
All of the relevant information was sent to WSOP.com and Holtz said that Battenfield’s account was not active the following day. He also encouraged players to do more checking themselves to catch cheaters.
Terrible Preflop, Perfect Postflop
One of the giveaways of using a GTO solver during play is terrible preflop play and perfect postflop actions. This is exactly what happened, according to Mike Holtz. There was also strange play when ICM was a factor.
“Gto wiz will work with wsop to see if they can corrobate IP/location ect Im under the impression gto wiz doesn’t have any icm functions, or it’s harder to do icm In real time. His preflop play was not good at all, it was like he was using chipev charts pre and gto wiz post”
Jeff Platt responded to the news with gratitude, thanking Mike Holtz, GTO Wizard, and WSOP.com for their swift action.
We don’t know yet if anything has been found regarding the WSOP Circuit event that Platt might have been cheated out of but he didn’t seem that bothered, saying he wanted to go and earn it himself.
Could Players Get Framed?
The worry about how GTO solvers could negatively affect the online game is as old as the hills, but another concerning point was raised in the middle of this investigation: could players now get framed by those with an axe to grind?
Todd Witteles expressed concern about how much more of this is going on right now in the online game, and then raised the more worrying point of framing players.
“Imagine how many people use RTA in these online bracelet events. This is just one example. And that's separate from those who multiaccount and ghost. This is why online bracelets and real bracelets should be considered separate titles.”
Worryingly, Carter said that he knew for a fact that this has happened already.
“And before you say 'as if anyone would actually frame somebody else' - I actually know a player who tried to do exactly this to another one. Two high profile players too. For a multitude of 'it would probably ruin my life' reasons I can't share who it was.”
High stakes crushers Bryan Paris and Dominik Nitsche both sounded concerned about the possibility. Paris wrote how the only reason for doing this would be “core settling/personal animus” but as we know, this is more than enough reason for many in the poker community.
Nitsche pointed out that the tiny number of true high stakes professionals is so small that pushing any of them out of the game would provide a nice boost to everyone’s win rate.GTO Wizard should be applauded for playing ball with the poker community when other software providers refused to do so.
It stepped up when poker players all over the world voiced concerns about solvers being so efficient that they could soon be used throughout any tournament or cash game session. Others were more concerned with profit than the health of the game.
All of that said, this worry over framing is a reality that needs to be addressed. The fair play tool is an excellent idea but we just had an excellent lesson about its shortcomings. Let’s see where this discussion goes next.
