Fedor Kruse accused of cheating

German high stakes poker player Fedor Kruse, aka "GlitchSystem", has been reported to PokerStars and GGPoker for using RTA (Real Time Assistence) during play, with strong evidence in favor of the accusations. This ignites once more the argument about the use of RTA and its impact on poker. The way the industry responds to the use of such tools might be determinant for the future of online poker.

HS Player Fedor Kruse accused of cheating and the use of RTA in online poker

Fedor Kruse is a player and streamer that became successful in playing Call of Duty before coming to the world of poker. The accusations come from his two roommates and also poker players, Niklas and Manuel. According to them, after noticing a change of habits in Fedor like locking his door when he was grinding, they confronted him and he admitted to having been using an RTA software to "solve" the hands and calculate the "correct" play each time, giving him a massive upper hand over his human opponents. The accusations were posted on the Two Plus Two Poker Forum and sent to PokerStars and GGPoker, including pictures of Fedor's computer setup (using two sets of computers, keyboards, and mouses in order to fool the usual safety protocols of online poker rooms) and print screens of message apps.

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Why is this a big deal?

This might be just the tip of the iceberg. Other players at this moment, even more now that this case has gone public, might be using this setup or similar, which is something relatively simple and gives players an unfair advantage against players that only count on their human brains to play. And it is virtually undetectable, meaning cheaters might fly completely under the radar while really good players could be wrongly accused of cheating.

A similar program has caused the death of backgammon online gaming. At a certain point, most players were playing by the advice of such software and it became a game between machines, not humans. Those who played without it soon found themselves at disadvantage, disinterested in the game, and finally quit, causing online backgammon to virtually dying. Now there are some people who fear this might happen to online poker as well, especially in the high stakes where people do their best to make the most of their time and money and those who use such exploitative methods would probably choose to use it for high stakes.

Let's wait and see how poker sites and the industry as a whole respond to this as it is extremely relevant for the future of online poker.