Bots Still on QQPK Site, Rui Cao Gives Up $14M & Berkey's Podcast is Back
GipsyTeam
Yesterday, 14:01
Rui Cao traded $14 million for an expensive handbag, avr0ra threatened to boycott Triton, Kalshi clients lost over $1B on express bets, and other news.
– QQPK Bots Update (October 20 – November 6 database)
Out of the 11,469 bots I reported on October 15, around 8,600 were still active during this period. They accounted for 2.9 million player hands out of a total of 4.2 million in the sample (69%). And that's just the previously identified bots — I haven't even tried looking for new accounts.
Some of the bots seem to be limping again (after a period when they had mostly stopped), but much less frequently than before.
Their limping range remains heavily focused on 99+, AQo+, and AJs+.
They now heavily favor 3x preflop opens. Roughly 70% of their opens are 3x, even under 20bb effective. The rest are 2x or 4x, extremely rarely anything else.
Their 3-bet sizings also seem to have changed. Especially OOP, they now go either very small (e.g. 2.5x 3-bets from the BB when deep-stacked) or very large (usually 11bb vs. a minraise or 16.5bb vs. a 3x open).
I got in touch with someone from QQPK's Risk Control team. (I had to reach out myself — apparently, nobody on their side thought it might be a good idea to contact the guy who identified all these bots.)
I was told they're still investigating, conducting thorough KYC checks, and that they can't simply ban players:
"based purely on statistical data anomalies without definitive backend proof".
We spoke with the author of the investigation into bots on QQPK and the room's response, and also translated his widely circulated post about banning auxiliary software on GG.
Alexey Borovkov, who is currently playing Triton One in Cyprus (QQPK is the main sponsor of the series), wrote a long post on this topic yesterday .
I personally contacted Jason Koon (as a representative of the RU community), wrote him a long post, and he relayed everything to Triton's management again, but unfortunately, they don't seem to be doing anything.
This is an absolutely shameful and very telling situation, and it's not a small matter at all (they scam in one place, and then scam in another).
This will most likely be my last Triton (if they don't do anything and just pretend everything is fine).
– A few years ago I won $14M off a friend at poker in one night.
Felt bad, told him to forget it and just buy my wife a bag.
He bought her a Hermès Himalaya.
A quick internet search suggests that it costs between $150,000 and $450,000
"Do you want to play me heads up for 14m?" Andrew Robl asked.
"Are you my friend?" Rui asked.
"Yes, but apparently not your best friend," joked Robl. "Whoever you let off on the 14m must be your best friend 😂😂😂😂"
"Rui, there a million better ways to be a good person, but ok, it's your life" Dan Cates said, impressed by the story.
"Sad part is I didnt want to be a good person," Rui admitted. Iit was just a bad feeling. I regret it :D"
After a year and a half off, the Only Friends podcast, hosted by Matt Berkey and his colleagues, has returned to the airwaves.
Matt revealed that the long break was due to a lawsuit with his now former friend, co-host and business co-owner Christian Sato.
So, long and short, uh the the studio that we were at was being sold.
So, that was, let’s say, the primary driver, because let’s be honest, this wasn’t easy to recreate. It was doable, but it didn’t happen in a weekend. You know, we could have just taken some time off and maybe come back for that World Series, and I think we even kicked that can down the road a little bit. But the secondary thing was that Solve for Why owned the rights to the Only Friends podcast, so it was under our larger company. The issue with that was that I had been in an equity dispute with Christian for the better part of a year at that point.
The long and short of that one was that I was of the impression we mutually went our separate ways, because he wanted to work for Hybrid Poker, which was MJ Gonzalez’s startup at the time.
And they were allegedly offering him a lot of money. I was like, "You should take it," because we’re a break-even company. Your equity is not going to be worth that amount of money anytime soon for sure. And I thought we had mutually parted ways and agreed upon that, until, you know, lawyers got involved three, four months later.
Then it became a negotiation for how much I would buy him out for. And I’m like, well, not buying out anything, because you’re breaching contract. You’re clearly competing. So we went back and forth. Eventually, we were offering some numbers to just be done with it.
So we went back and forth. We were discussing numbers for me to just absorb his equity and get him out of the company and everything else, but we were miles apart. Dutch Boyd was valuing the company at like $5 million.
So, I think the initial valuation was somewhere in the neighborhood of like 2.6 million or something like that.
Our revenue at the time was like 600k. It’s like, okay, we’re not a tech startup. We’re not going to 10x. I can assure you that. So we were miles apart.
Yeah, we were miles apart on the buyout, and it just kind of quelled for a bit. Then January of 2025, I think, must have been, because it wasn’t this past January, I just get sued. I get sued, the company gets sued. And all of it was off the precipice of I started a new LLC for my poker as a business, you know, so that I could expense appropriately rather than just being self-employed.
It doesn’t matter what you call LLCs. As long as the name is available, you just do it. So, like a dummy, I lazily just said Solve for Y LLC. Well, it doesn’t matter.
So our original company, Solve for Y LLC. I just called this one Solve for Y LLC. And it was just strictly going to be running anything that I do poker-wise through it. So they sued me for breach of contract, because they were claiming that I was competing against myself, basically.
Yeah. [laughter] And then there was a bunch of other... there were like six or seven things that they were suing for. I can’t remember. A bunch of them got dismissed. One or two of them stuck. It dragged out for like 18 months in court. But by April of 2025, it was just like, “Okay, well, I’m not going to keep busting my ass for this, running this company when I just have a game to play five days a week. That’s my primary source of income. This is just a passion project, and it’s all tied up in a legal battle now. I’m just going to wash my hands of it. You win. You won. Whatever happens happens, but I’m just done with this.
So eventually, 18 months later, we finally settled out of court. And now I own everything again, so we can have everything back.
"What happened to Dutch and Christian?" Brett Hanks (PokerGO CEO) asked. "Did they go their own ways?"
"They got a buyout," Matt started to explain. "Or not a buyout, a settlement of about..."
"You don’t have to say," Brett cautioned him.
"No," Matt said after a moment. "I won’t say the number, but it was a fraction of what I offered to pay for the equity two years prior, but two and a half years."
"Are you guys still friends?" Brett wondered.
Berkey, with a lot of enthusiasm, gave his response. "F**k no!"
Alec Torelli posted a hand from the Phenom Series of Poker, which will end on November 15.
Poker Hand of the Day!
Button opens 2.5BB, I raise to 8.5BB in SB, he calls.
Flop: 952r, I check, he bets 4.7BB, I raise to 12BB, he calls. Turn: Js, I check, he jams.
You like it? What does he have?
4.7
Phenom Poker is an independent cryptocurrency-based poker room launched in 2024, with a particular focus on mixed games and community ownership. Alongside Texas Hold’em and Omaha, it offers stud, draw, Open-Face Chinese Poker, and dozens of mixed-game formats, as well as regular tournaments. The platform uses dollar-backed CHIP for gameplay and the PHNM token for staking and player rewards. Phenom Poker supports Windows, macOS, browser play, and mobile devices, with cryptocurrency deposits and withdrawals and a loyalty program offering potential rakeback of up to 80%.
9 months into prediction markets and I am completely desensitized to the absurdity of the things I'm betting on.
The real loss is for the mention market guys, though. Would have been 🔥.
(Mention markets involve betting on whether a certain word will be used or whether someone will be mentioned in someone's speech ). That's where the real action is...
The prediction market is currently experiencing a real boom. In September 2025, Kalshi introduced the option to place accumulator bets.
InGame journalists found that during this period, customers lost a total of over $1 billion on them.
Over $1 BILLION lost by Kalshi combo buyers, according to InGame. Market makers have earned roughly $520 million after fees.
One detail deserves more scrutiny: persistent account IDs let market makers recognize repeat bettors and decide whether to quote them.
Kalshi says “we never limit customers for winning.”
What’s that worth if market makers can track your account and stop quoting you once they realize you’re not a fish?
You risk ending up with professional firms selling overpriced parlays to the customers who will be financially ruined by these products.
The prediction market industry calls this “price discovery.”
States call it gambling.
As someone who “gambled” for 20+ years, I can assure you it’s gambling. And a particularly insidious form when you obscure how predatory it is by rebranding parlays as “combos” and betting as “trading.”
Poker Reddit users shared stories about encounters with celebs.
Who is the most famous person you've played with?
Talking about at an actual table, not just "we were both in the Main Event but I never saw them."
For me, it was Don Cheadle at at 2/5 (or similar size) game at Hollywood Park about 15 years ago. Sat with him for about an hour. Bluffed him out of a small pot on a dry board, otherwise no crazy action. Really nice guy though.
— "Played with this super nice, super small kid from Detroit at Hollywood Park. As I’m always sociable, I asked him what he does and he said he was a singer and performer. Dime a dozen in LA so I said “oh, good for you” and left it at that. Few weeks later I’m watching the Grammys and the kid is onstage, absolutely tearing it up. It was Bruno Mars. Nice guy. Terrible poker player."
— "Alex Ovechkin in Vancouver. And we only have $1/$3 there most nights. 😆"
— "I was playing the WSOP main one year. Dude at my table was decked out in streetwear those clothes. The kind where it looks cheap unless you know it’s expensive. People were taking selfies with him at a ridiculous rate. I’ve played with Daniel and he gets it a lot but this was non-stop nearly every hand. I’ve played with Phelps and he doesn’t get anywhere near this much action.
So I take a pic of him and send it to me most pop culture knowledgeable friend (Roothlus) and said who is this people are taking a lot of selfies.
It was Neymar. I don't watch soccer."
— "I also played w Mr Cheadle at $10/$20 at Commerce more than a few times—also about 15 years ago. Nice guy, took the game very seriously."
— "Jaime Gold, before he win the WSOP, at a tournament at The Bike. He was am absolute asshole at the table. I remember telling him I was going to knock him out, and I did. Very satisfying."
— "Toby McGuire circa 2001. He wore shades and headphones. He looked like he was in the zone….someone on the table said he’s using his spidey sense lol"
— "Greg Raymer played in one of our local casino $400 buy ins. He got smoked."
As I get older, the more stories I hear, the clearer it becomes how finite the prime grind years are/ were.
Lot of uncertainty in the world rn, but my advice would always be to anyone in their 20s with an opportunity, lock in and make it count.
Blink and the years are gone.
"What does this mean? Once you hit 30, you're done?" Matt Marinelli asked.
"Once you have a kid/ health problems and you're trying to change your life and compete at highest level, becomes a lot harder – normally correlated with being 30 tho, yeah."
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