The Absolute Poker scandal should have been enough. It remains unresolved, though most of the details of the cheating have been made clear, and the poker public still awaits the conclusion of the audit.

Back in early October, there was another mini-scandal on PokerStars. The winner of the WCOOP main event — the largest online poker tournament in history — was disqualified, and “TheV0id” was stripped of his title and $1,378,311 in winnings.

And we have another.

This time the allegations of nefarious online play revolve around Bluff Magazine’s managing editor Chris Vaughn. On 10/21, he took down the $1 Million Guarantee tournament on Full Tilt Poker for $197,984. The following Sunday, he won the Sunday Million tournament on PokerStars for $240,633. Well, it seems the first one didn’t stick.

According to the second place finisher in the Full Tilt event, Soren “Kongsgaard” Kongsgaard, he received an e-mail from FTP stating that Chris - screen name “BluffMagCV” - had been disqualified and “Kongsgaard” was awarded first place money.

Reportedly, though unconfirmed at this point, Chris’ backer, Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi, took over at some point in the tournament and played the remainder of it for him. Chris and Sorel have now been banned from Full Tilt. More details can be found on Sorel’s blog, though it’s not clear who is writing the posts.

Interestingly, Chris was just interviewed on 11/18 by Scott Huff and Haralabos Voulgaris on Big Poker Sundays, a radio show on PokerRoad.com. Haralabos asked him if he’s ever been accused of ghosting, where a person’s backer plays for them, and Chris said, “I’ve been accused of that. I think it’s going to come with the territory when someone relatively unknown wins two in a row… But as far as having someone take over, that’s ridiculous.”

It’s been a long time since I posted an online hand history, but if we can’t celebrate this one, then really … why are we here?

(Props to Robert Goldfarb on how I played it to maximize my return.)

More…

After catching up on the week’s Poker After Dark episodes, I want to jump out of a window.

This week featured Jamie Gold, Mike Sexton, Mike Matusow, Antonio Esfandiari, Paul Wasicka, and Alan Boston. For those who don’t know Boston, he is evidently a well-known seven-card stud player and college basketball handicapper.

Matusow is known for his self-deprecating talk at the tables, but he somehow balances it with some humor and friendly conversation. Never thought I’d say this, but he was pleasant to watch as compared to one of his competitors.

Boston’s constant negative yapping caused the other players to roll their eyes, laugh (at him), and seemingly restrain themselves from telling him to shut up. Time and time again, he lamented that he never got a hand, couldn’t figure out the hole card camera, didn’t have his chips in the right place, couldn’t drink what he wanted, and desperately wanted to go home. As a viewer, I wanted to turn off the TV but wanted more to see who would suck out on him to send him away.

And this guy is a Full Tilt pro? I bet he hates that, too.

I’m sure Boston is a nice guy in real life. Let’s keep him there and off my television.

Thoughts from anyone else?

ALT HED: Tom Don’t Read This

Paid endorsers recently added to the Team Full Tilt roster:

Amanda “Mandy B” Baker
Peter “Nordberg” Feldman
Julian Gardner
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby
Nikolaus “kaibuxxe” Jedlicka
Peter Jepson
Jon “PearlJammer” Turner

Hmm, I’ve actually heard of a few of these guys. Even would recognize one of them in second real-life.

This post is not for 99.997 percent of the readers out there.

But for the guys in the Batface home game … they might find it hardly surprising to know that on Sept. 12 — or right around that day — “sangy farha” started playing (for play money) on Full Tilt. That was the same day of the tournament on Absolute Poker that has since thrown the online poker world into a tizzy. The hand being played that sparked it all: Yep, you guessed it … 9-2 offsuit, aka The Sang, which we all know is kinda like the hammer, only a little bit more powerful.

Because of his connection to the scandal, Drinky Sang may or may not be making future appearances on Beyond the Table as our strategy and psychology correspondent. Click below to listen to Sang’s screen test, recorded on a drive home from The Lodge in a pouring rainstorm.

[display_podcast]

You’ll hear him talk a little final table strategy, discount his monster play-money bankroll online, threaten to kill people, lose his online chat priveliges, question the presence of Tom Schneider’s genitalia, threaten to kill the guys at Ante Up, and fall in love with a wet puppy.

So be sure to tune in to current and future episodes.

Didn’t see this one coming … wonder what’s behind the move. Perhaps Brunson just learned about superaccounts?

Excerpts from an email sent by the Doyle’s Room Affilliate and Sales Director:

It gives me great pleasure to inform you that DoylesRoom.com is back in the USA Market. Commencing October 19, 2007, all US-players are welcomed to enjoy our redesigned, faster and better poker tables.

DoylesRoom.com US-players that moved to Full Tilt will be allowed to re-access their existing account. The affiliate referral code will remain the same and will continue to track their play.

This change will not affect our other projects with the Canada, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America markets, as we are committed to work closely with ALL our affiliates.

During the past 6 months our affiliates department has been working on new tools for the affiliates, including special promotions and a brand new member’s area. If you have not seen our new affiliate interface, we encourage you to login to your account. Also, we have been working to improve our poker client and we added new features and games for all your players.

The listeners have spoken, and it’s official:

16 percent of all poker podcast fans prefer Beyond the Table!*

Woot!

Click for the latest episode of the second-best poker podcast ever!

Or download via Door #2 here.

Extra-fun times this week:

• A show about nothing and where Tom puts his fingers.
• Sal the old man loads up his iPod.
• Dan on “What’s Goin’ On?” in the poker world — EPT London, Jose Canseco, and Absolute super-users.
• The BTT gang ventures back to the online felt.
• Monkey noises with Fake Hevad Khan; Fake Humberto Brenes loves Beyond the Table; and Tom goes hip-hop — calls for death in the name of etiquette.
• Karridy calls for more dead presidents on TV, fewer Full Tilt pros.
• No seat for Karridy in a big-little $5/$10 game.
• Bonus monkey noises from Tom.

* Poker podcast poll results

Congress is bucking up for a new legislative season — in a presidential election year, no less — and our representatives have to make calculated principled educated decisions about which bills to stand behind. On Monday, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) signed on to cosponsor HR 2610, aka the Wexler bill or Skill Game Protection Act, which would effectively remove poker (along with bridge, chess, backgammon, and mah jongg) from the aegis of the UIGEA.

Sessions is the second Republican to align himself with this bill, and he promises to lend more than just his signature to the poker cause. “If we decide to get in this thing, it’s not because we’re [just] gonna use my name,” Sessions explained, “we’re doin’ it to get it done. Otherwise it’s like a warm bucket of spit — it’s no good.”

* * * * * * *


Before saying yea or nay, he wanted to hear more about the issues behind the legislation from the people it affects. So with the help of Lavigne in Austin, a small group of concerned constituents — including pros Clonie Gowen and Robert Williamson — joined lobbyists from the Poker Players Alliance in Sessions’ Dallas office last month for a roundtable discussion about this bill and online poker in general.

This was a real opportunity to inform an influential congressman in greater detail about the horrors impact of the UIGEA and plea for emergency humanitarian aid a federal bailout sensible government intervention. It also provided a privileged glimpse into how our system really works and a chance to see the new leadership of the PPA in action … But yeesh, 9 am is a little early, no?!?

More…

The online poker world for American players continues to stay funky. What is and isn’t allowed seems to change with regularity, particularly when it comes to your deposit and withdrawal methods (in an unregulated, international jurisdiction environment).

As Michele pointed out, there’s a “crackdown” on players with more than one account. The Pokeratizen known as Como has gotten caught up in this sorta investigation on Full Tilt. He has two accounts — one from way long ago that he never uses with no money in it. Another one that he uses regularly with some relatively significant dough. As FTP sorts through it all, his account with no money in it is open, while his real account is closed and his kizzash essentially frozen.

Meanwhile, Sanbob writes in with some info about a new preferred status he has been given from PokerStars. It seems akin to getting special clearance to pass through airport security or something:

Hey Dan,

Logged onto Pokerstars last night and got a popup saying that I was one of the select few U.S. customers to be allowed to use echecks again. I went to the cashier and used my bank account to deposit funds. I do not know if they are allowing to cash out with this option yet but will let you know. When I deposited I received a email notification from a company named Dunfinance. I don’t know how I got selected to be on of the select few, maybe because I qualified for the main event thru them, but according to Pokerstars this option will soon be open to all U.S. customers.

Later,
Robert

LAS VEGAS–The WSOP dealers, as mentioned before, were wanting to see Jerry Yang win for the sake of a bigger tip. He couldn’t have had a reputation as a big tipper — because as a guy playing in his first WSOP and with no noted accomplishments high-stakes or otherwise, how could they know? Perhaps they saw him as a mark … an inexperienced player who had already committed 10 percent of his winnings to charity might be easily persuaded to “give a little back,” if you know what I’m sayin’.

Not sure what Yang’s intentions were as he walked into the payouts room … but Chris Ferguson reportedly joined him — not because he was invited, but because he was a Full Tilt guy looking after a Full Tilt player. When the payout ladies asked what he would like to leave for the dealers, Ferguson supposedly informed him that he had already given 2 percent. Nolan Dalla corrected him, saying, “Actually it’s 1.8 percent.” [Ed. Note: Inaccurate as originally reported. We regret/apologize for the error lazy journalism.]

At that point Ferguson pointed out what that came out to — $148,500 by my calculations, but not certain that’s the number he cited — and said, according to a mostly reliable source who was in the payouts room, “So I recommend zero.”

More…

LAS VEGAS–Remember how I was telling you that Full Tilt honchos henchmen weren’t too excited about the prospects of Jerry Yang winning? Well something must’ve changed by the time they got heads-up.

The players had just gone on break, and Jerry Yang had a 6:1 chip lead over Tuan Lam. An Asian guy in a suit grabbed Oliver Tse (who represents Yang for now, but is already trying to plan for the likelihood of bigger agencies wrestling his World Champion client away from him) and the two started walking away. Following not too far behind the was Yang, who was headed to the bathroom, with a small entourage following him.

That’s when the Full Tilt guys both, almost simultaneously, clapped their hands together and started rubbing their palms with wide eyes and grins on their faces. I let them go through the door in front of me, saying, “Please, you have serious business to attend to.”

“‘Wha…? I’ve just gotta go to the bathroom,” the smaller Full Tilt rep said.

“Like I said, serious business.”

They chuckled and kept walking briskly.

More…

LAS VEGAS–Raymond Rahme, the first ever African to make a main event final table, just went out (on a questionable play running a quasi-bluff with KK after an ace flopped) … so they’re heads-up now. “I made one mistake this whole tournament,” Rahme says.

The dealers are rooting for Jerry Yang. Not only is he apparently a very nice guy who reportedly plans to give a huge chunk of his winnings to the Make-a-Wish foundation, but also he is known as a very generous tipper. (Just confirmed — 10 percent of his winnings will go to three charities.)

A high-ranking source within Full Tilt, however, said (when Alex Kravchenko was still alive) that his people were pulling for Kravchenko over Yang, even though both signed on with Full Tilt upon making the final table. For starters, Yang has never before played online, and learned the game only two years ago. Not quite a “Play with the Pros” kinda guy. And as a family man who looks at pictures of his six kids throughout a hand and says prayers that praise the non-Chris Ferguson Jesus upon moving all-in … “Not exactly the style we’re looking for.”

NOTE: Rahme also has six kids. “Battle of the Brady Bunch x 2″ ESPN’s Howard David just dubbed it.

As for the people who have little stake in who wins between Tuan Lam and Jerry Yang, they are suddenly Yang fans just because that will lead to a quicker end.

Shame on them!

LAS VEGAS–”Have you seen a big black Navigator come back here?” asked Craig Abrahams, the official WSOP “new media” guru. My answer was no, with a joke about being a white navigator, which clearly didn’t amuse him. He was waiting for the money to arrive.

They’re down to six players in the 38th annual World Series of Poker. To follow along online live-blogging style, click here. Or for $20, you can watch the action on a one-minute delay — without hole cards — here.

Here’s how the final table started off:

Seat 1 - Raymond Rahme - 16.32 million
Seat 2 - Alex Kravchenko - 6.57 million
Seat 3 - Lee Childs - 13.24 million
Seat 4 - Jerry Yang - 8.45 million
Seat 5 - Lee Watkinson - 9.925 million
Seat 6 - Tuan Lam - 21.315 million
Seat 7 - Philip Hilm - 22.07 million
Seat 8 - Jon Kalmar - 20.32 million
Seat 9 - Hevad ‘Rain’ Khan - 9.205 million

And here’s where it all stands at 5 pm Vegas time, with five four players left, whereupon they have all crossed the millionaire’s line:

Jerry Yang - 69,790,000
Raymond Rahme - 29,890,000
Tuan Lam - 18,105,000
Alex Kravchenko - 9,700,000

FUNNY: Somewhere out there the ESPN live feed can be seen for free. Benjo informed us of this with his angry Frenchman’s smirk, and when ESPN’s Andrew Feldman, with great concern, asked for the link, Benjo responded [thick accent here], “I am note go-eeng to tell you!”

Anyhow, eventually Ty Stewart, the official WSOP marketing maestro, did drive up — in a white BMW SUV (not a black Navigator) and started unloading the metal money suitcases. (Properly branded with a Milwaukee’s Best Light logo.) He grabbed three of them out the back, at which point I joked vociferously, “That’s one million, two million, three million …” Not even a smile … but he did walk off into a tunnel while leaving the back of his SUV open, at which point I mustered up all the discipline possible not to grab a money suitcase to find out if they were fully loaded or not.

Inside it’s another story. All about the money — but not necessarily the $8.25 million at stake for first place …

More…

UPDATE: Oops, Dario is out in 96th place — for $67,535. He’ll be back, of course. Hevad “Rain” Kahn (not to be confused with Jeff “Mr. Rain” Banghart) is still alive and well, slightly above the middle of the pack.

LAS VEGAS–Loyal readers have heard me yammer on and on for the better part of 2007 about how this is going to be the Year of the Europeans. So far I’ve been kinda right … while they haven’t dominated this WSOP, they have been a ubiquitous presence deep in just about every event. But the real “Year of” players this year have been the internet kids. Not internet people like Chris Moneymaker … but internet kids. Think about it. The poker boom exploded in 2003. And thus, in 2007, a lot of guys who got their start right around then have just turned 21 — making quite the impression on players at the tables and poker insiders off.

Throughout this World Series, friends and colleagues have been coming up to me saying things like, “You mean you don’t know who RamSquad64 is? Dude.” Or, “JohnnyVoltron, man, JohnnyVoltron!” OK, he sounds familiar. What has he done? But otherwise, sorry, I haven’t really been following the shenanigans on PocketFives. But it seems like soon we might have to. One of the most fascinating stories — Pokerati’s correspondent-on-loan Chris Hanel is all over this one — is a guy named Hevad “Rain” Kahn. This upstate New Yorker was supposedly banned from PokerStars because they thought he was a bot, playing up to 40 sit-n-gos at a time. Kahn then shot a YouTube video to show him playing 26 tables at a time and had his account re-opened. Wow, no? (For some reason I can’t find the vid on YouTube. If anyone else can, please post a link!)

But the kid everyone is really talking about is Dario Minieri (pictured).

More…

LAS VEGAS–It’s gettin’ kinda funky in here. As the intensity of the on-the-table action ramps up, everything else is dying down. They’re tearing down the tables in the tent and throughout the Amazon rooms, the cash games hearken back to a low-rent poker room (with just a few smallish stakes games going), the Lewis family is headed back to Houston … just a couple hours ago a guy from Pokerwire was being staked 60-40 for some online play by some online pro — I have no idea who, but he reportedly has had as much as 141k in his Full Tilt account.

“Don’t worry if you lose the first thousand,” he said. “I can keep giving it to you $1,000 at a time.”

Meanwhile, at “the crossroads” right outside the Amazon Room, Max Pescatori was talking to Jason from Full Tilt about a potential endorsement deal for an online phenom named Dario. (He’s the kid who bought a Porsche with his PokerStars points.) And we have new security guards on duty. One of them was advising (in a whisper) some Germans to go to “The Green Door” — a Las Vegas swingers club — and his replacement is talking WWII history to anyone who will listen.

Should be even more different as Day 5 moves on. Speaking of … with 112 players remaining, Josh Evans enters Day 5 with exactly 1,792,000 chips — enough to put him in the top 20. Everyone redrew for tables, and an exact map of who’s sitting where is forthcoming. But I looked at the bagged chips on his table, and while he’s not the chip leader, he should be relatively comfortable, with only three others in his chip vicinity.

OK, so maybe he isn’t the first amateur online qualifier, nor will he be the last … But he is the first Rounder Clubber to make accomplish such a feat, and that’s pretty cool. So big congrats to Chris Como, the most accomplished Lodge Amateur Poker graduate and Rounder Club alum. He invested $24+2 in a 336-player event on Full Tilt, where the top 25 qualified for a $200 event … where the top 9 out of 552 won a $12,000 main-event package.

(Sorry Como, can’t Google- hide your name any more … When you register for the WSOP, that becomes a matter of semi-public record.)

UPDATE: Numbers corrected above. Interestingly enough, the first tourney was the last super-satellite into the last WSOP-qualifying satellite on Full Tilt. Como played both events back-to-back, from about 6 pm to 1:30 am.

So out of however many hundreds of pros and thousands of amateurs in the main event, he is now someone whose progress Pokerati will be following — and we couldn’t be happier. Go Como! Make the final table and maybe we can get you a jersey.

In addition to him, below are other the players we care about might possibly be watching in a couple weeks:

More…

Just sitting at home doing a little blog-piddling — you know, because I’ve got a million important things to do — and I’ve got Day 4 coverage of The Colonial golf tournament on in the background. One of the ads — for tourism in Michigan — struck me as rather similar to a Full Tilt ad. Watch below and see for yourself …

Golf

Poker

Both are pretty good, no? Perhaps they were made by the same company? Either way, I gotta think one was inspired by the other — and it’s pretty cool if the golf biz (and a state intertwined with it) sees a similarity between the duffers and donkeys one might want to reach.

UPDATE: Oooh, try watching them at the same time — audio on and everything. Fun!

(Wonder if youwannapoker.com will even read this before they gank it.)

I had pretty much forgotten about the abundance of poker content thieves out there — was just gonna keep doing my thing and not let them bring me down. But then I read Gary Carson’s blog … and he reminded me that really, while maybe we can’t stop this practice outright, that doesn’t mean we should stand idly by as our “good friends” at Full Tilt continue to profit off the “work” of known internet thieves.

I’m being kinda serious: I think it might be time for a good-ole-fashioned lawsuit! Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Clonie Gowen, Ray Bitar, Michael Craig … so many others — just dropping a few names who might take note and have a concerned interest in this matter — are you listening?

(Ultimate Bet, we’re looking at you, too.)

More…

It just occurred to me that with all this serious poker news going down, it may seem like poker people never have any fun. That’s hardly the case, of course — just ask Shane about the runner-runner(s) I hit him with last week.

As usual, when I’m looking for a pokery pick-me-up, I see what Tuff_Fish has to say. Click here for one of his more enjoyable recent outings. And as is always cool with the internet, looking for one thing often helps you find something else. The latest entertaining discovery … Tuff_Bot:

Not sure if Tuff_Bot was part of the low-stakes bot ring allegedly running on Full Tilt according to some 2+2ers. But hey, bots are a reality in our online poker future, so we can only hope most of them are like the one above.

From a British gambling-info website:

Seven individuals and four companies are the latest to have been charged by the US Department of Justice for conspiring to violate the US’s ban on internet gambling in a $150 million credit card scam.

[...]

CurrenC Ltd, a payment processing firm based in the British Virgin Islands, BetUS, a Canadian-registered sports betting site, Gateway Technologies and Hill Financial Services, both from Utah, are the companies accused on charges of racketeering conspiracy, bank fraud, violations of the wire-wager act and money laundering.

[...]

If found guilty, those accused could face up to 30 years in jail.

Meanwhile, I have found it easier than ever to deposit money on Full Tilt, with my Chase-Visa debit card … and am really torn on whether or not I should be pimping the various online sites I may or may not still play on with a Pokerati affiliate code. Either I am totally missing the boat of getting a little sumpin’-sumpin’ from Pokerati readers’ rakes, or I am making sure we’ll still be afloat when the online poker shakedown fully shakes out.

ALT HED: Coin-flip Situation?

Happy 4/20 to all of you. On this day, three years ago, Pokerati was born. (Ouch, my back hurts.) The World Poker Tour is celebrating by hosting a big $25,000 buy-in tournament in Las Vegas this weekend. The WPT Championsomething.

Full Tilt also went live this week in 2004, which was the subject of my very first post. My how things have changed … or not.

Here is my blogroll on Opening Day:

Click below to see some other kinda sorta interesting stories that were catching our attention in the early days, right as poker was starting to catch on. And, so long as we’re rummaging through the deep and broken archives, might as well have a listen, too, to Pokerati’s first ever podcast … (before we knew what a podcast was.)

Am thinking of taking the day off, by the way. Perhaps celebrating with a few stiff drinks, like any three-year-old should.

More…

Hot Off The Press from CardPlayer for you Full Tilt Players…
“Full Tilt Poker Adds MyWebATM to Payment Options”
While it’s always nice to have more options, looks like this one comes with a price. Don’t forget to check with your local authorities to see if online gaming is legal in your state!

While talking with Brian Balsbaugh yesterday evening, we learned a couple interesting things. One is that Jeff Madsen may have not been my best fantasy pick ever … why? Because he’s still in school, focusing on finishing college more so than scoring points for Dan. Also learned, related to that, that Full Tilt Poker is paying for his tuition at Univ. of Calif. / Santa Barbara. Very cool of them — genuine as well, as the Full Tilt publicity whoring machine made no effort to publicize this gift.

The other piece of info that came to light was that 75 million American households watched the WSOP on ESPN during the third quarter of 2006.

Perhaps the best thing about the UIGEA will be the end to all those terrible PartyPoker ads (and that song!) on American TV … Check out these Full Tilt videos I just stumbled upon (via Bill Rini’s sitemeter), which tell you quite a bit about who online poker sites are marketing to these days.

click to view

Do you play so much poker that your wife is probably banging other dudes? Phil Ivey feels your pain.

Are you kinda socially awkward, a la John Juanda, but still fully entertained by great farting?

And gay or not, Erik Seidel speaks to probably half the Batfaces in some capacity or another.