Poker Players Association Statement

PokerOK (GG Network) CEO mass shadow bans winning players, tells other GG skins will take same action

At the end of March, an event occurred in the post-Soviet poker community that players from all over the world should be aware of. By the decision of PokerOK (part of the GG network representing it in the post-Soviet space), more than 100 players had their accounts frozen "for personal details actualization," and after submitting documents, they were prohibited from making internal transfers within the network. The only withdrawal method left was to the debit card with a very low limit ($250/day), practically rendering it unusable. De facto, this is a "shadow ban" - creating conditions under which continuing to play is impossible because withdrawing any significant sum would take years. The room cannot completely ban these players as there is no evidence of them violating any network rules. The reasons for such actions were not explained to the players. An important detail is that about 50% of these players were students of a specific CFP team, "RSB."

On March 27, founder of RSB, Ilya pokanuktus, wrote a post on the largest post-Soviet poker forum describing the situation, where he talked about his attempts to get clarification from PokerOK about the reasons for the collective punishment of such a large group of players. He did not receive a direct answer, but soon, explanations were given on official PokerOK channels and by their ambassadors on streams, which shocked many - players were punished for allegedly being part of a poker school, receiving training and backing there, which, according to the room, "harms the poker ecology." Also, an official post was published on the PokerOK Telegram channel stating that all educational projects, schools, and backing funds engage in team play, ghosting, use data mining, and violate all possible room rules.

It should be emphasized that not a single specific example of investigation was provided, neither in general nor regarding players who were subjected to repressive measures. In other words, people were punished simply for belonging, according to poker room management, "to harmful elements." Naturally, such a statement caused a wave of indignation in the community towards the room and support for the unjustly punished individuals.

Later, CEO of PokerOK, Ivan Bryksin, personally interacted with the public. Let's highlight several key theses:

English translation:

 

We ask the GGNetwork, represented by CEO Michael Kim, to clarify their position in a clear and adequate manner, without threats and blackmail, as the CEO of PokerOK, Ivan Bryksin, is currently doing. Based on his messages, one can conclude that the very idea of improving in poker with the aim of becoming a winning player falls into the category of "harmful activities." If this is true, then the poker room's management wants to turn poker into a variety of a casino game, where in the long run, all deposits are ultimately ground into the establishment's profit.

As representatives of the professional poker community in the post-Soviet space, we call on all players, professionals, and amateurs to unite efforts in the fight for a fair and transparent ecosystem that will contribute to the development of poker as a game of skill and a spectacular, attractive media product, which it has been for at least the last 20 years.

We fully support initiatives to prevent any methods of unfair play. And we want to emphasize that it is in the interest of the player community and the rooms themselves to clearly define the boundaries between fair and unfair play, without "gray areas" that are currently left to the discretion of the rooms, whose security services are struggling even with elementary problems.

It's important to consider that this is happening against the backdrop of the shocking story with the superuser on the GG network, Moneytaker69, whose existence was initially ignored by the room's security service and who was discovered with the help of poker coaches and analysts, as well as the network of bots on WPN. A paradoxical situation arises - with the involvement of CFP and poker analysts, real problems of the poker industry are revealed, but the very idea of coaching and poker analytics - under the guise of banning data mining, as part of unfair advantage - is attempted to be tabooed. And this applies not only to mining, but also to the transparency of data about tournament participants on GG (which banned Sharkscope from publishing full tournament results in September 2023). If this trend indeed exists and is a new vector of GG network policy towards winning regulars, then very soon difficult times may come for professional players all around the world.

Information about what is happening is already spreading in the international community (below we list a few examples).

We hope that this will help to change the situation. After all, if the fight against winning players is conducted under the banner of "ensuring the integrity of the game," then the story of the poker dream will come to a sad end - from Moneymaker to Moneytaker.


List of respected members of the community supporting the statement:

Aleksei Fiat Vandyshev - GG Team Champion https://www.ggpoker.com/ggteam/teamchampion-ha-kojlehu/
Aleksejs APonakov Ponakovs SHS reg
Alex Avrora Borovkov SHS reg
Ilya Legenden Anatski HS MTT regular
Nikolaj dyrdom1 Evdokimov HS cash regular
Almaz Alister307 Zhdanov HS MTT regular
Nikita ebaaa11 Kuznetsov SHS reg
Egor Prokop HS MTT regular
Aleks Shilko PSPC Champion, HS regular.
Yahor Dambrouski HS MTT regular
Ilya pokanuktus Pavlov https://www.pokernews.com/tours/ept/...t-high-roller/
Andrey TylerRM Streltsov one of the most active fighters for the ecology of poker
Fedor Lorem CDMX https://www.twitch.tv/loremcdmx top streamer
Dmitry spr3216 https://www.twitch.tv/spr_poker top streamer

List of most established CFP projects supporting the statement:

20evBB
AmigosBacking
A Team
Dreamteam
FiatLab
FireStorm
FunFarm
G.O.A.T
ITCPoker TEAM
JAWpokerteam
KOT
MaxEV
MooN
Poker Edge
RSB
StartME

The list will be updated.