JNandez and PLOMastermind Reveal Damning Evidence on Bots at ACR
4 minutes
Last Updated: January 26, 2024
In the latest development on the ACR bot ring drama, Fednando “JNandez” Habegger shared his own insights on the entire situation.
The master PLO player, member of GGPoker Omaha Squad, and founder of PLOMastermind revealed the stats he was able to put together by examining the numbers for a number of accounts playing PLO games at ACR Poker over the course of 2023.
According to JNandez, 51 different ACR accounts were found to be potential bots, and those accounts alone won $116,415 (before rakeback) last year.
This new evidence, which is 100% based on data and statistics, further confirms earlier allegations made in a Two Plus Two post earlier this month.
Despite ACR representatives and even the company’s CEO Phil Nagy repeatedly denying they have a problem with bots, the numbers seem to indicate otherwise.
Keep reading and find out exactly what JNandez came up with and how these numbers might be the final proof needed against ACR bots.
Did PLO Bots Win Over $100k at ACR in 2023?
According to the findings JNandez made public via his X account, he and his colleagues from PLOMastermind delved deep into the stats of all regulars at ACR Pot Limit Omaha tables and found some inconsistencies.
The group compared common gameplay statistics for dozens of accounts, looking for any accounts that showed significant deviations from typical numbers human players usually end up with.
While the group decided not to say exactly which numbers they used, so as not to help the bot-makers make them better, they did use a set of 16 stats, and the results are astounding.
The accounts believed to be bots had unusually high or low numbers across most or all of the 16 stats in question and their game differed significantly from any type of real human player out there.
This, of course, is because the poker bots were playing a semblance of GTO poker that is not played by any real human players, while also taking into account specific exploits their makers found in the player pool.
A total of 51 accounts were found with such inconsistent stats, playing at stakes from PLO50 to PLO600, but not lower or higher.
The botting group won a total of $116,415 during the course of 2023, before any rakeback, and likely got plenty of rakeback paid into the accounts as well.
Overall, the bots won with a win rate of 4.5 EV bb/100 hands, which demonstrates that bots are not only present at ACR, but they are actually able to beat the games.
JNandez Asks the Important Questions
In his post on X, JNandez shared the numbers in plenty of detail and demonstrated that the bots had played over a million hands of PLO in 2023, winning the most at $1/2 tables.
With the numbers and names on full display, the questions he asked of ACR included whether they intend to ban or at least inspect the accounts, and exactly how they plan to compensate the players who were robbed on the platform.
Of course, the allegations made by JNandez are all based on numbers and stats and perhaps aren’t enough to hold up in a court of law, but they are more than enough to be taken seriously in the court of public opinion.
ACR has a lot of questions to answer following yet another nearly indisputable set of evidence showing that bots represent a significant portion of cash game players on the platform.
What Can I Do?
If you played PLO at stakes between PLO50 and PLO600 over the last year, JNandez suggests you check out your database, isolate the accounts that are alleged bots, and find out just how much money you won/lost against them in 2023.
If you put in serious volume last year, it is likely these accounts stole at least some money from you, and emailing ACR about it is the best course of action.
However, it seems that PLO bots at ACR are beatable, as they are quite focused on particular exploits against the player population, which means you may also be able to beat them if you put in the work and study hard.
Yet, beatable or not, none of us really want to play against bots, so helping detect and ban bots from the platform is in your best interest.
At the end of the day, playing at an unlicensed platform like ACR is probably not the best idea either way, as plenty of licensed sites like PokerStars and GGPoker are offered where bots and other forms of cheating are a lot less common.
If you live in a jurisdiction where ACR is one of your only options to play online poker, make sure to be careful, look up JNandez’s database of known bots, and do your best to either avoid or beat the bots the next time you play.
What Will ACR Do Next?
Even as more and more allegations of botting at ACR accumulate, the platform itself continues to run and those in charge continue to claim they don’t have a real problem.
The presence of dozens of bots in the player pool most definitely represents a problem, however, and ACR’s next steps could determine the company's future.
Continuing to ignore the poker community and do little to actually remove bots will not fly for too long, as a large number of players have already stopped or limited their involvement with the platform.
It will be interesting to see if ACR actively reacts to this allegation or continues business as usual without any bans or seizures against the alleged bot accounts.
