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25.10.2024

WSOP bracelet winner has account blocked on suspicion of cheating

In recent days, the waters of controversy have once again been stirred in the poker world. The WSOP is to blame, having blocked a player's account after he won his first WSOP bracelet online. Players have accused him of cheating and have sent documents to the poker room that supposedly confirm his guilt.

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Just a few days ago, Kevin "GR4ND_THEFT" Ruscitti won his first WSOP bracelet during the WSOP Online, which is now underway in the US and open only to players from Michigan, New Jersey and Nevada. Kevin already has 7 WSOPC rings to his name and has finally added a bracelet to his collection, along with $38,483 in prize money. In the final heads-up, he defeated well-known American player Cherish Andrews.

It didn't take him long to enjoy the win

However, after winning this valuable piece of jewelry, Kevin Ruscitti (incidentally, the winner of the WSOP POY Michigan 2023) discovered that his account had been blocked. In fact, a larger group of professional players from Michigan accused him of using RTAs and they also submitted their accusations to the WSOP.

Ryan "MagicJohnson" Hiller of Michigan had already suspected that Kevin was using the RTA several months ago. Supposedly, Kevin himself had bragged to several Michigan players that he was using RTAs while playing. So Ryan started using the GTO Wizard Fair Play Check tool on Kevin, which allows you to see if solvers' outputs were searched during real-time situations, and found matches to Kevin's hands during the WSOP.

Hiller alerted several Michigan players after these findings, and together they began the months-long job of verifying that Kevin was indeed using RTAs in his play. Only when they had enough information did they contact the WSOP with their findings, and Mario Arribas also presented the findings on the X social network.

Matt Berkey also weighed in on the whole matter, stating that some of the images shared were not consistent with positive hits using the RTA and should not be used to publicly harass someone. He also noted that the Fair Play Check can also produce false positives and is therefore not evidence that Kevin cheated.

The accused, Kevin Ruscitti, also weighed in on the matter, stating that he is a wild player, but not a cheater, and does not use RTA or HUD. He stated that he has been playing poker 12 hours a day for the past 4 years, and that it is apparently hard for someone to accept that he may just be a good poker player. He is currently in the process of proving his innocence, and believes his account will be unblocked.

What does Cherish Andrews have to say about this?

Cherish Andrews, the loser, also gave a statement on the X network, stating that she didn't feel that Kevin cheated against her, but if it is proven that he did cheat, his prize money should be confiscated and split among the other players, moving everyone up a notch. Likewise, she stated that he should definitely not get a bracelet if he cheated, even just one hand.

This isn't the first case

There was a similar case a year ago when Mike Holtz accused Chris Battenfield of cheating and used Fair Play Check to prove his guilt at the time as well. Chris's account was also blocked and investigated at the time, but after a few weeks it was unblocked again and the cheating charges were dropped. This was because it turned out that the Fair Play Check showed false positives for RTA usage.

However, players who accused Kevin of cheating are disappointed with the WSOP's approach. They claim that the WSOP presented evidence weeks ago, but the WSOP waited until Kevin won the bracelet before taking action. How this case will play out is now in question, and we'll be sure to keep you posted on any news. However, we'll probably have to wait a few weeks for further action from the WSOP.

Source - pokernews, poker.org, X (twitter), facebook, wsop

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