Voice RTA: Poker’s Untraceable Evil

Fine Line Between Verbal Help, Advice and Voice RTA

There are three crucial differences between helping with your voice, directly advising someone, and giving a real time assistance:

1. Gaining an unfair advantage
2. Player’s freedom of choice
3. Mathematical accuracy

The healthiest example of verbal help you can see is on streams of blind poker player Steven “BlindGuy789” Iglesias, where his friend Daniel assists him by describing hands and action but never suggests what Steven needs to do.

With that said, sharing your thoughts with someone is not always as harmless as in the case of Steven and Daniel. There’s a fine line between just talking and advising someone. The difference lies on two pillars: the predominance of playing according to someone’s advice over your own decisions and the advantage you gain by doing this.

If the source of your decisions is someone else, someone just sharing their thoughts with you but you decide to follow it or not — it can be harmless.

However, if the source is a professional player, a solver from which someone reads or repeats solutions, or an AI voice assistant such as ChatGPT — then this is much more dangerous for the game.

One of the craziest exampleы to illustrate this was published and described by Mike Holtz on March 13th, 2025:

As Mike explained on X (ex-Twitter), the player from this photos “was watching his friend play GG, or perhaps it was someone else playing his account, he would say nothing except when the person he was watching had a decision, then he would talk into his microphone on headphones and the person would act, have pics/videos still. Posted in Vegas Regs chat last may (63ppl in the chat can confirm)”. So, that’s how a clear voice RTA looks like.

Of course, you are free to argue that AI as well as any player can be a bad adviser — after all, as of March 2025 ChatGPT is known for its misinformation on almost any subject as well as unbearable verbosity and lack of specificity in its answers.

This is true to some degree but unlike people, AI tools can’t have glitches. They continuously use renewing databases to learn and have the power to solve different tasks in relatively short time frames and with high mathematical accuracy.

So sure, for now poker is somewhat safe thanks to a lack of interest from AI developers to use their time and resources on calculating useful tips for poker players. However, a few poker developers, such as the GTO Wizard team, are already implementing AI into their apps. If one of these companies makes an AI poker voice tool that will solve and advise players in a matter of seconds, it could make the “Poker has two years left” meme our new reality.

Why Rooms Can’t Track and Properly Punish Voice RTA (Yet)

1. Inability to control all players’ devices: Even with access to the device used for playing via the poker room app, the room software still can’t gain access to any other tools that could be used for RTA.
2. Impossibility to detect voice RTA online: The only thing that points to RTA usage during online poker sessions (except running RTA at the same time as poker app) is a change of playing patterns towards ones that are more mathematically accurate and profitable long term. Even knowing this, you can only assume that some player uses RTA — you can’t point to voice advice without literally wiring the player’s device to listen to all audio exchanges. Poker rooms can’t do it in most countries due to legal reasons but also because listening to one device only slightly reduces the likelihood of voice assistance being used and does not guarantee that the player doesn’t use it through other devices.
3. Difficulty in proving unfair advantage: Even if a poker room has suspicions about someone advising another person during the game, it also needs to prove that this advice was worthy and mathematically accurate. They also need to prove that the suspected player followed this advice without acting on their terms own.

I Suspect Someone is Using Voice RTA: What to Do

First of all, your word is not enough. You need proof — video of someone taking verbal advice and following it, signs of a persistent change in playing patterns, posts or messages with confessions, etc.

You can try to take photos as Mike Holtz did, but be prepared for them not to be taken as proof right away. For example, without further details, Mike’s photos could be perceived as images of a person watching a screenshot of a call, VOD from Zoom, or a live Zoom call of another person playing as an educational activity during times when this player is waiting for the next spot.

So, when you have your proof, action depends on where you are playing:

• Live venues — call the floor, share your suspicions and proof. They should investigate it after that and inform you about the results.

• Online poker rooms — send your proof with explanations to the support team or report the player from the table directly if the app has tools for that. They investigate your data and inform you about the results later.

You can also share information on social media and on forums but be ready for polarized reactions from the community. Players, especially on X, tend to judge and blame each side no matter what evidence is presented, so it is in your best interest to share only facts and refrain from participating in any arguments beyond that.