Brazilian Collusion or Prejudicial Conclusion?

On June 25th, 2024, Spanish poker player Soraya Estrada took to X (ex-Twitter) and shared a suspicious hand between two Brazilians in the $108 Speed Racer Bounty Closer on GGPoker.

Her post quickly snowballed to polarize community reactions, ranging from hate to support for the two Brazilians. Even though Estrada later deleted the tweet and made her accounts private, it was too late. The discussion was already under way.

In this article, PokerListings gives you all the details as well as poker Twitter opinions. We also invite you to consider one important matter: Is it fair to judge poker players for their flag?

The Spot in Question

Take a look at the screenshots below. They show the tournament lobby where the spot in question had taken place, the table with the showdown, and the text re-player of the suspicious spot. For a better view, feel free to click on the images.

As you can see, two players from Brazil were holding premium pocket pairs and played them against each other in a rather passive way. By itself, this seems strange on a relatively dry board.

These players are well known members of the poker community — Twitch poker streamer Luiz Fernando “Luizftorres14” Torres and grinder Renan “AyrtonSenn@” Aziz.

Soraya tagged GGPoker in her post to know whether this type of play was acceptable. When Fedor Holz saw the spot, he informed Soraya that both players had been reported, but did not share any details or outcome later on.

Community Reactions

The original (and now deleted) post from Soraya drew in more than a few agitated players with conflicting points of view. People actively began to discuss whether it was collusion or not. While some opted for factual evaluations, others relied on pure emotions.

The situation later expanded to Aaron Barone’s opinion post (you’ll find it later in this article). Here are a few comments on the matter.

Nagen: “But then you see them playing next week, when it shouldn’t even be the first time.”

Brandon Sheils: “Must have had a live read”

Collin Capone: “Definitely collusion in a speed racer bounty imo”.

Mustapha Kanit: “If this not collusion I have no clue what collusion is”.

Tom Parsons: “Two chip leaders and icm considerations could be an argument in really any format bar a hyper PKO at these stack depths for sure. Have to point to collusion particularly because of this format and the x back on the river, seems a clear value spot when sb slows down, maybe, me bad. Apologies, CO+BTN makes this even worse IMO, ranges so much more constrained than BVB which I misread previously.”

Patrick Leonard: “This doesn’t look like cheating to me. 99-JJ likely jamming pre on bubble, flatting pre vs KK/AA and rfi bluffs seems really standard. Flop+ turn seem wte, river were only getting called by some AKs (maybe jams pre) or some A7s/K7s or wte, doesn’t seem that ridiculous although likely not an equilibrium play still”.

Renan Aziz added these screenshots below Patrick’s tweet:

Charlie Carrel, who firstly accusec the two players of collusion, changed his opinion after that, even posting an apologetic tweet:

“I might have made a mistake here. I try not to accuse people without evidence. Seeing this hand, hearing they are pros from the same country, made me think that it is like 95%+ cheating. Patrick Leonard seems to say this hand could be normal? But almost everyone else says it is not. I cannot imagine how the QQ hand could be anything close to normal, but I respect Pads hugely so I can accept I am likely wrong.

I retract my accusation, but would suggest further investigation into this. I apologise to the players involved. It sucks being accused of cheating, if that’s not the case.”

Aaron Barone’s Discussion

888poker team member and Upswing coach Aaron “abarone68” Barone continued the discussion when he reposted a screenshot of the hand with an open vote. The vote seemed to show that an abundance of people were convinced this was a collusion:

https://x.com/abarone68/status/1805634732484378689

He shared a list of “explanations” people gave him about the Brazilians play below the pole:

• Colluders wouldn’t let it get to showdown
• Colluders wouldn’t make it so obvious
• Aziz played it perfectly because he’s the best
• Aziz played it terribly because he’s the worst
• They’re too rich to cheat
• Winning players don’t collude
• It’s too hard to collude at low stakes
• Xenophobia

After reading numerous raw conclusions, Barone decided to hold on his own until he had more information. A day later, he shared his final thoughts, ending them with vital questions for the poker community:

“Started out leaning towards collusion, now I’m in the “more likely it wasn’t” group based on what I’ve learned/read from Aziz and others.

Do think it’s vitally important we continue to monitor these sort of situations because as much as I’d love to believe all poker sites have our best interests in mind, I’m not naive enough to think that’s always the case.  Somewhat up to us, the players, to stick together and help keep the games as safe and secure as possible.  So for that reason, I’m glad this hand was reported by OP and escalated to security.

That being said, do think Aziz/Luiz deserve to be treated fairly and given the presumption of innocence.  Does seem that a large contingent of players are quick to attack Brazilians at a moment’s notice and blame the entire population for the actions of a few bad actors.  

Where do we go from here?  What do we do about collusion and other nefarious behavior in our games?  I don’t know the answers to those questions unfortunately but hopefully as a community we, along with the sites we play on, can figure them out together.”

Does the Brazilian Flag Cloud Minds?

A wide discussion around this play reminded the poker community how often Brazilian players can seem suspicious simply because of their flags.

It’s an interesting prejudice if you consider that the poker community has never unequivocally proven acase of systematic cheating by Brazilian players.

Exceptions trickle down to suspicious spots highlighted by professional players (9Tails stable from Fedor Holz in 2021) and a few cases of players being caught red-handed, like Rafael Caiaffa who was banned for cheating on the Brazilian Series of Poker in 2023.

https://x.com/CrownUpGuy/status/1474703546398482433

In fact, the majority of allegations towards Brazilians end up as hearsay, speculations, misunderstandings, or hasty verdicts taken out of context.

Even though various well-known players sometimes verbally confirm that Brazilian players are systematically breaking the rules of online poker rooms, even the toughest critics, like Patrcik Leonard remind us not to let prejudice cloud fair judgment towards Brazilian players:

https://x.com/padspoker/status/1805741162827072000

If you want  to check your own prejudice, try out this simple test. Imagine that the participants of the spot in question aren’t Brazilian. They’re playing under any other national flag. Then answer this for yourself: Would you judge them equally?

All this does not mean that players should stop reporting Brazilian poker players for potentially suspicious play.

Quite the opposite: we need to report, share, and discuss any suspicious play regardless of the participants’ nationality. This will help not only improve our poker ecosystem but also teach our community members about what suspicious spots look like.