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A viral video promoting a poker product called TrenirusGTO has reignited concerns over real-time assistance, or RTA, in online poker, and how little operators seem able — or willing — to do about it.
The Twitter account “Trenirus” published a five-minute video promoting its six-max poker product, TrenirusGTO, showing the software being used during play on ACR Poker.
Marketed on the surface as another AI-driven training tool, the video instead demonstrated the software feeding decisions to a player in real time — the practice of using outside software to gain an unfair edge during a hand, widely known as RTA. It’s the poker equivalent of having the answers to a test while taking it, a form of cheating that has grown alongside the rise of poker solvers.
The post was captioned: “How playing with Trenirus looks like. You can now try it yourself! Play like a PRO.”
Most online poker sites explicitly ban real-time assistance during live play, and violators typically face lifetime bans and forfeiture of their funds. When a user on X tagged ACR Poker and called for the account to be identified and banned, the account behind Trenirus dismissed the criticism, telling the user to stop being “a whiny, fruity little snitch” instead of improving their game.
ACR Poker confirms ban, refunds affected players
After the video spread across poker social media, ACR Poker confirmed RTA is strictly prohibited on its platform, then followed up with a second statement naming the account involved.
The account, registered under the username UGLYRETD, had been created in August, deposited $14.13, played 111 hands and finished with a net loss of $13.12. The account was permanently banned, and ACR said affected players would be refunded.
Winning Poker Network CEO Phil Nagy also addressed the incident directly on X, stating that ACR bans players caught using such tools and pointing to the site’s practice of showing hole cards face-up at final tables so the community can flag anything security might miss.
A pattern of slow, reactive enforcement
This is not the first time ACR’s RTA policy has come under fire. In January 2025, ACR ambassador Nacho Barbero posted an image on Instagram showing himself playing online with a GTO Wizard window open — a tool capable of providing real-time assistance, which is barred on ACR.
Barbero said he wasn’t using it for RTA but to coach other players, and that he rarely plays online tournaments himself. ACR’s initial response dismissed the incident, calling it “Nacho being a goofball” and noting he is “not a GTO-style player and likely never will be.”
According to Poker.org, the site later apologized for that response, opened an investigation, and — along with an independent review by British pro Patrick Leonard — found no wrongdoing.
Three months later, during a PokerGO stream, fellow pro Isaac Haxton pressed Barbero on how seriously ACR actually polices RTA, asking pointedly whether a player could simply have GTO Wizard open while playing.
The TrenirusGTO episode has revived that same question, with critics arguing operators are quick to issue statements but slow to build detection systems capable of catching RTA before it does damage, according to an article by Deadspin.
Poker community response grows louder
The TrenirusGTO video accumulated well over 100,000 views within its first day online, and viewership has grown substantially since.
In a Range Advantage post on Substack, prominent professionals — including Doug Polk, Patrick Leonard, Matt Berkey and Jesse Sylvia — amplified the footage, echoing a shared frustration: cheating tools are becoming easier to access, and enforcement continues to lag.
Many players argue that operators lack real financial incentive to aggressively police RTA, since banning rake-generating accounts costs money and building out security teams costs more.
Bot farms remain a recurring complaint
RTA is only one front in a broader fight over game integrity.
Earlier this year, Martin Zamani — since signing as an ACR Poker ambassador — posted video evidence of a large bot operation running on Ignition and Bovada, two sites long dogged by bot-farm allegations.
After Ignition challenged the footage as outdated, Zamani produced additional evidence dating it to February 2024.
Ignition has not issued a public response to the video, though it has since signed several poker personalities, including Xuan Liu, who has said her contract requires the site to make “a significant effort to improve things.” Complaints about bot activity on Ignition have nonetheless continued.
ACR Poker and the Winning Poker Network have faced similar scrutiny. In early 2024, posts on the Two Plus Two forum alleged a bot ring had siphoned nearly $10 million from the site over the course of a year.
ACR’s response — a $100,000 “challenge” inviting players to build and run undetected bots on its platform as a stress test — drew immediate backlash from the poker community, who argued it put real player funds at risk.
ACR ultimately changed the rules, declined to pay out, and acknowledged the challenge had been a mistake.
Enforcement still lags behind the problem
As poker software grows more accessible and more sophisticated, the gap between operators’ anti-RTA policies and their actual enforcement keeps drawing criticism.
The TrenirusGTO case took roughly 36 hours to resolve, even after widespread public pressure — a timeline players say illustrates a structural problem, not a one-off failure.
That, in turn, has fueled renewed calls for independent oversight of online poker operators rather than self-policing.
