Ricky is a poker expert and has written for some of the biggest poker cardrooms in the world, including PokerStars and PartyPoker. He helped launch PartyPoker Live in 2016 and has attended major international tournaments as both a player and reporter. He claims his favourite hand is king-nine suited, but it’s actually pocket aces. Obviously.
In addition to poker, Ricky has extensive experience in the broader gambling sector, working on casino and sports betting for companies such as SkyBet, Ladbrokes, Coral and more. And in 2020, Ricky won the Windsor Fringe Kenneth Branagh Award for New Drama Writing for his play ‘Only Human’.
A Bloomberg exposé has shined a light on a group known as the Bot Farm Corporation (BFC), which has been developing advanced poker bots since approximately 2004.
These bots are capable of making complex mathematical decisions and retaining historical data on opponents in a way no human ever could. And worse, there are accusations that some poker rooms have even been complicit in allowing these bots to run on their sites.
What is the BFC?
The BFC is an organization that develops sophisticated software which can be used at online poker rooms to create an unfair advantage.
It was started by a small group of students from Siberia around the beginning of the poker boom in 2003. Most of them studied math, physics and economics, and they also ran off-the-books game theory classes in the evenings.
Their poker bots were already winning when they joined up with rival factions to expand their operation. Interest spread, and the BFC were able to recruit professors and poker pros, like 2006 PartyPoker St. Petersburg Open champion Petr Vlasenko, according to the report.
Kit Chellel, who wrote about the BFC for Bloomberg, was able to meet with the founders, where he learnt more about their reach and intentions. One of the most worrying things to come out of the investigation was that some poker rooms reportedly embrace the liquidity that bots bring. Chellel stopped shy of naming names, but Jonathan Raab didn’t in his piece for PokerPro.
Even now, you can take a look at the BFC’s website, deeplay.io, and see them openly advertise their “robot animators for card games like poker.”
Poker bots beating pros
The discovery of poker bots is nothing new. In 2019, Meta (then known as Facebook) showed off their own Texas Hold’em poker bot, which averaged $1,000 profit per hour whilst up against five pros.
There are processes in place to prevent poker bots as much as possible. Most online poker sites will ban you for using prohibited software.
The best sites also have people dedicated to analyzing players’ behavior, watching out for trends and unusual activity. You may have even been on the receiving end of an investigation yourself if you’ve ever switched up your style in a dramatic way or hit a big win out of the blue.
However, a lot of bot accusations you’ll read on poker forums can come across like sour grapes. With no way to prove it, players often resort to calling a game rigged or bot-infested when things don’t go their way.
It turns out, some of those players were right.
But the nature of online poker makes it tough to prove. When you’re tucked away behind a screen, who’s to say whether you’re using a bot, having a professional whisper tips in your ear, or even getting somebody else to play for you?
Online poker safety
Players will quite rightfully be unsettled by this news, as the thought of running into a bot that was literally designed to beat you at poker is daunting.
One worry is that these bots are creating liquidity at poker rooms, and paying rake. It’s a legitimate concern that certain poker rooms might turn a blind eye, as long as they’re making money.
This isn’t likely to happen at the bigger online poker sites, though. Many teams, like PokerStars, have strong online security teams working tirelessly to investigate any suspicious activity at the tables.
But there’s no doubt bots also sneak into the bigger sites. ACR Poker recently made headlines for booting bots out of its $12.5 million Venom tournament on Day 2. At another site, would they have gone undetected?
What next?
The impact of this investigation remains to be seen, but it’s been a long time coming. The wider poker community has long known about the existence of bots, albeit with few concrete details.
As long as online poker exists, people will try to exploit it, and the onus rests on the poker rooms themselves to stamp it out. Now, the action’s on them.
The WSOP Main Event is the biggest live tournament in poker. Each year, thousands of poker players undergo the pilgrimage to Las Vegas, hoping to return with millions of dollars, the iconic WSOP Main Event bracelet, and permanent poker glory.
Though many of these players are dedicated professionals, others are fulfilling a lifelong bucket list dream. In the end, only one person can come out on top in fields that have recently exceeded 10,000 players.
But what do they do once it’s all over?
Here, we take a look at the current and former WSOP Main Event champions and find out what they did next.
Jonathan Tamayo (2024) – $10 million
Image: Instagram/wsop
Unbelievably, it wasn’t Tamayo’s first time making it to the final few tables of the WSOP Main Event, as he finished 21st in 2019. Five years later, up against a record-breaking field of 10,112 players, he went all the way – although not without controversy.
The Texas poker pro was chastised online for a multitude of reasons, first and foremost for being overly passive folding pocket queens pre-flop on the final table bubble. While that talk went away after he binked the Main Event, he took some major heat for continuously consulting his rail, who were accessing poker solvers, which he wouldn’t be legally able to access himself on the poker room floor.
While most people would completely change their lifestyle with $10 million, Tamayo had simpler plans. Speaking on the LOLz podcast, the fantasy sports enthusiast stated he would continue to play at the same stakes, stick with his current house and car, and even keep refereeing local high school football games. It shouldn’t come as a surprise – he does literally come from Humble, Texas.
Daniel Weinman (2023) – $12.1 million
Image: Instagram/wsop
2024 may have had a bigger field, but Daniel Weinman took down the biggest first-place prize of any WSOP Main Event in history, locking up over $12 million. It was probably made all the sweeter after he hit a two-outer for his tournament life against two opponents on Day 8. Sometimes, you just run good.
Since the big win, Weinman has been investing resources into his poker company, RF Labs, which tracks data in live games. He also bought a house and splashed out on a mega summer 2024 wedding (including an African safari honeymoon), while investing the majority into his portfolio. Oh, and he also squeezed in a round of golf with Donald Trump.
Espen Jørstad (2022) – $10 million
Image: Instagram/uhlenpoker
In 2022, Jørstad topped a field of 8,663 players to become the first Norwegian to win the WSOP Main Event. After calling his mum to share the news that he was now $10 million richer, the poker pro announced his intention to invest in crypto and hit the high roller scene by entering more $25,000 buy-in events.
This is exactly what most of us would probably imagine a WSOP champ would do with the cash. And he’s stuck to his word, racking up a number of fantastic scores, including:
$2,766,191 for 3rd place in the 2023 Triton London $212,000 8-Max Hold’em Event
$639,000 + bounties for 1st place in the 2023 Triton London $44,400 Mystery Bounty
$277,500 for 7th place in the 2023 Triton London $63,600 7-Max Hold’em Event
Koray Aldemir (2021) – $8 million
Image: Instagram/kooraay90
Everyone loves rooting for the amateur at the final table, and the truth is that most viewers were likely cheering for Koray Aldemir’s heads-up opponent, George Holmes, dubbed ‘Home Game Holmes’.
That didn’t faze Aldemir, who overcame Holmes’ sometimes unorthodox style to take home $8 million and the bracelet.
Aldemir revealed in 2024 that he’s not driven just by money but also “titles, rankings, and [becoming] Player of the Year”. Like a true pro, he was back and defending his title at the next World Series of Poker Main Event, making another deep run and finishing in 75th place. A valiant effort at the most unlikely of back-to-back triumphs.
Damian Salas (2020) – $2.55 million
Image: Instagram/wsop
The 2020 WSOP Main Event was a little different.
With world events shutting down everything from airports to lemonade stands, the iconic series was pushed back to the end of the year and largely played online. The international online leg was held on GG Poker, which Salas won, and the US leg took place over on WSOP.com, won by Joseph Herbert. They each netted about $1.5 million before the heads-up match, live in Las Vegas, for an extra $1 million.
Before winning the WSOP, Salas already had a successful career as a lawyer – but it was as early as 2008 when he realized he could make more money from poker. His $2.5 million in winnings was significantly lower than recent years, so perhaps it’s just as well that Salas had no real plans for the cash, as we revealed in 2021.
Hossein Ensan (2019) – $10 million
Image: Instagram/wsop
Not everybody has the luxury of time to play poker. Hossein Ensan had worked as a taxi driver, waiter, painter, you name it – anything to make ends meet. At the age of 39, he’d managed to set up a small business which gave him enough time to explore his passion for poker. And at 55, he won the WSOP Main Event for $10 million.
Ensan became the oldest champion since Noel Furlong in 1999, but he wasn’t done there. The Iranian-German has continually played tournaments with four- and five-figure buy-ins since his victory. He even enters some events at mega stakes, like the $125,000 buy-in Triton Main Event in May 2024, where he finished 22nd for $235,000.
But in his own words, poker only makes up 25% of his life. That life-changing win has afforded him plenty of time to focus on what’s most important – his wife, his daughter, and his trusty dog.
John Cynn (2018) – $8.8 million
Image: Instagram/wsop
After being eliminated 11th in 2016, just two spots shy of the final table, you’d forgive John Cynn for giving up on the World Series of Poker Main Event. Instead, he took the $650,000 he’d won and threw it back into poker buy-ins – and what a genius idea that turned out to be, as he won the 2018 WSOP for a prize 13 times bigger than his previous victory.
These days, you might catch Cynn on the odd Live At The Bike (LATB) YouTube stream, and he’ll still show up to late reg the Main Event now and then. However, he’s only cashed in a handful of live tourneys since his WSOP victory.
Instead, he’s living out his dream of traveling the world and focusing on high-stakes cash games. He’s also been working on that backpacker’s beard, too.
Scott Blumstein (2017) – $8.15 million
Image: Instagram/wsop
When Chris Moneymaker helped start the poker boom by turning an $86 satellite win into a $2.5 million windfall at the WSOP Main Event in 2003, it was like his story was pulled straight from a Hollywood script – right down to his job as an accountant. But he’s not the only one. Scott Blumstein also left the glamorous world of accounting behind after tying up more than $8.1 million in the 2017 Main Event.
Unlike Moneymaker, Blumstein already had a few big wins under his belt, including just under $200,000 in the 2016 $1 Million Deepstack Kick Off at the Borgata Summer Poker Open. He’s continued to play since his big win, with a range of three- to five-figure cashes.
Poker aside, he’s been living his best life – catching the Oakland A’s live, rubbing shoulders with celebs like the late, great Norm Macdonald, and embarking on a personal health journey where he’s shedded around 100lbs. Well played.
Qui Nguyen (2016) – $8 million
Image: Instagram/wsop
The Vietnamese-American poker pro claimed $8 million after taking down the 2016 Main Event with K♣️10♣️ against Gordon Vayo’s J♠️10♠️. Nguyen is the most common surname in Vietnam, so he shares no direct relation to other poker pros, like Men ‘The Master’ Nguyen. Or 1998 champion Scotty Nguyen, who famously won the final hand of the Main Event after confidently stating, “You call it’s gonna be all over, baby!” – beer in hand.
It was less beer and more books for this Nguyen, who teamed up with poker software engineer Steve Blay to publish his autobiography From Vietnam to Vegas! How I Won the World Series of Poker Main Event. He also wound down poker a little to spend more time with his son in the brand new house he’d bought them, complete with pool. After all, it’s Vegas, baby!
Joe McKeehen (2015) – $7.68 million
Image: Instagram/wsop
With a degree in mathematics from Arcadia University and a world championship in the board game Risk, this guy was designed to dominate poker. That’s exactly what the Pennsylvania native did in 2015, besting a field of 6,420 in the WSOP Main Event 2015 to walk away more than $7.6 million.
Most WSOP champs stick around to play more poker, but few have done so as successfully as McKeehen. Just months after taking down the Main, he finished 2nd for over $1.2 million in the $100,000 Super High Roller at the 2016 PCA. He also achieved a resounding five six-figure tournament cashes that calendar year.
He also entered the spotlight at the WSOP Main Event final table 2024, although perhaps not for the right reasons: McKeehen was one of the two poker pros on Tamayo’s rail feeding him information from solvers en route to his win. Guess there’s no substitute for experience.
