Solving Encryption Puzzles, Decoding Enigmatic Codes, Ciphers, Location Coordinates, and Confusing Captchas: My Path to Securing a NAPT Gold Pass
In late November 2022, PokerOrg launched a unique promotion called 'Runner, Runner', setting the stage for an intriguing treasure hunt that would captivate the poker community. The game involved a poker player hiding and leaving clues while playing poker in legal American poker rooms.
The game took a turn for the mysterious on October 8, when PokerOrg announced a 'CodeOrg'. A mysterious group had stolen the NAPT Pass, hacked into the PokerOrg site, and infiltrated the X accounts of its staff. The hunt was on to find the North American Poker Tour (NAPT) Pass, and the puzzle became known as Runner, Runner 2.0.
The game was filled with challenges, from cryptic clues and hidden messages to ciphers, coding conundrums, riddles, steganography, mazes, pictograms, brain-teasers, crossword puzzles, and virtual scavenger-hunting. Seven pieces of information had been collected over the prior fortnight, but one was still outstanding.
That outstanding piece of information turned out to be GPS coordinates. What followed was a 30-hour-long Alternate Reality Game (ARG) that tested the wits and determination of participants. Despite a captcha failsafe to prevent computer brute force, manually entering 100 numbers each took approximately two hours.
The incorrect number led to a search for five towns in the contiguous USA: Price, Utah; Livingstown, Montana; Evanston, Wyoming; Tucson, Arizona; Winslow, Arizona. Cross-referencing the towns with gathered clues resulted in potential red herrings or Macguffins.
In the end, one of the hints matched with one of the theories, narrowing the search to two configurations with 100 possibilities each. The outstanding piece of information, the GPS coordinates, was the key that unlocked the final puzzle.
The creator of this intricate ARG around the Runner, Runner 2.0 event remains unidentified in the available search results. However, on December 16, Jonathan 'Slow Poker' Rand, a YouTuber, unmasked himself in the Wynn Poker Room, confirming that he was the poker player who had been leaving clues throughout the game.
The new puzzle now facing the winners is figuring out how to get a last-minute flight from Malta to Vegas without blowing all of the spending money. The grand prize, a $10,000 Gold Pass to the NAPT Las Vegas Main Event on October 4, 2024, awaits the successful solvers. The designer of the poker teaser, a riddler, a comedian, a genius, and a total b*stard, has certainly left us with a challenge to remember.
