Ren Lin is a successful high stakes poker pro from China. He has $16m in Hendon Mob cashes.

Many where shocked when Lin was banned before Day 2 at the WSOP Circuit $5300 Main Event in Cyprus.

Lin was not accused of any wrongdoing in that tournament, or in any other tournament in the Cyprus series. Instead, he was accused of giving a friend strategy advice during the final table of a GGPoker online event on October 14.

It was found that player "RealOA", who won that online event, had been sending screen shots to a chat with Ren and other poker pros, asking for real-time advice during the final table. Ren was one of the people supplying advice to RealOA. This sort of behavior is strictly against the terms of service on GGPoker, though it's not as bad as actual multi-accounting or ghosting.

One of the other players at the final table named "Buzzcut" also happened to be a member of that chat, so he screen shotted everything and reported it to GG. After winning the event, RealOA thanked Lin in the chat "for the coaching". Upon Lin learning that Buzzcut was witness to all of this, he apologized, which Buzzcut also sent to GG as more proof that Lin had substantially helped RealOA win.


The response to Lin's ban from the circuit event was mixed, but more negative than positive. Most people felt that banning him in the middle of an unrelated event was a step too far. I agree.

While I don't feel sorry for Lin, as there's way too much ghosting and coaching going on during these online final tables, it's horrible practice to ban people from unrelated events AFTER taking their money and allowing them to play. Had they banned Lin at the time of registration -- by simply refunding his money and sending him away -- I would be fine with that, and in fact would have been cheering it. They should not disqualify players CURRENTLY in a tournament, unless the player is credibly accused of cheating in that tournament or in another one in that same series.

I'm sure GGPoker would argue that this ban occurred just 4 days after his antics during GGPoker's online event, and since they run the series for both venues, this was timely and appropriate. But I still disagree. Once they let him register and play, he should be allowed to finish off that tournament, and then they can ban him after that.

Otherwise this could be used to freeroll against players that a tournament organizer doesn't like -- letting them register and pay, and then banning them if they seem to be doing well or running deep.


Here's a pretty good Pokernews article about the situation: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2025/...ment-49881.htm