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.\”