Gossip Column: Kevin Rabichow Wins the RIO Legends Showdown & More

For over a month now, the Run It Once (RIO) Legends Showdown has kept us on edge. The finals turned out to be a tight contest between RIO poker coach Kevin Rabichow and Pauli Ayras, with the former eventually winning the bragging rights and the €40,000 cash prize.

In some fantastic news for the fans and family of Canadian poker pro Brad Booth reported missing since mid-July, his family confirmed that they have heard back from Booth. The high-stakes cash game player is apparently taking some alone time in an undisclosed location.

Poker coach, popular streamer, and player Jonathan Little is back in the headlines, and again it’s not for the right reasons. Little’s book ‘Excelling at NLHE’ is getting a lot of traction in the Twitter-based poll called the ’64 Book Heads-Up Tournament’. The poll-contest is being run by the ‘Chasing Poker Greatness’ podcast. Several players have raised suspicions of manipulation in voting as Little’s book weirdly keeps getting 100 votes in sudden spurts.

The Postlegate scandal involving the main accused Mike Postle, alongside Stones Gambling Hall and Justin Kuraitis, has become one of the most significant controversies of recent times. However, the saga seems to be on its final stretch. The class-action $30 Million civil litigation that ensued had 60 out of the 88 plaintiffs in Nevada accepting a settlement offer by Stones and Kuraitis last week. In recently leaked documents, it was revealed that the group was paid a nominal $40,000 to settle, working out to about $600-plus per player.

Kevin Rabichow Wins RIO Legends Showdown

High stakes cash game pro Kevin Rabichow is not considered a phenom for no reason. The widely respected poker coach was named the champion in the RIO Legends Showdown after he defeated Pauli Ayras in a tight race in the finals. The duo played 2,250 hands over three sessions of €50/€100 stakes.

Surprisingly, Ayras and Holz didn’t play each other once in the challenge before the finals.

The RIO Legends Showdown had an illustrious lineup comprising GGPoker Ambassador Fedor Holz, Mikael Thuriz, and Bjorn Li.

Rabichow, the first poker coach at RIO Poker, booked his spot into the semi-finals after beating “Makeboifin” in the second week of the showdown. He sent Li packing out of the semi-finals to make it in the finals. Ayras had to ward off Holz to make the finals.

The Finals

The first session of the finals saw Rabichow and Ayras play 750 hands. For most of the first 500 hands of the match, the lead went back and forth before Rabichow collected a few sizeable pots towards the end to break into a sizable lead of €46,742.50.

RIO Poker even tweeted the update.

Session #1 of the Legends Showdown Finals is in the books. The action was back and forth for the first 500 hands, then we saw @KRabichow scoop up a few giant pots that helped him end the day with a €46,742.50 lead. We'll be back with another 750 hands tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/1p5zhfmDb3

— Run It Once Poker (@RunItOncePoker) September 15, 2020

Session 2 was held the next day, and Ayras got off to a good start. He went on to steadily close in on Rabichow before losing a massive pot to a cooler. It was certainly not a good day for Rabichow, who had a tough time at the felts. In the end, however, Ayras was able to come up ahead for €13,236.25. This cut down Rabichow`s lead to €33,506.25.

Tonight, we saw a back and forth battle between the Legends, but in the end, @Fiilismies08 was able to escape with a €13,236.25 win. Heading into the final 750 hands, @KRabichow still leads by €33,506.25. Friday is setting up to be an epic showdown for the crown! 👑 pic.twitter.com/1jLRZLG3Te

— Run It Once Poker (@RunItOncePoker) September 16, 2020

The duo was given a day off before resuming the final 750-hand session on Friday.

RIO Poker ran a Twitter poll asking the poker community on who they thought would emerge as champion. Unsurprisingly, 62.2% voted for Rabichow.

Who will be crowned Legends Showdown Champion? 🤔

— Run It Once Poker (@RunItOncePoker) September 18, 2020

Even though Rabichow was the overwhelming favorite for the Twitterati, the final session brought on a pack of surprises. Ayras made a dash in the first 250 hands, leaving Rabichow only €4,000 ahead!

This was threateningly close, and sure enough, with only 300 hands remaining, Ayras managed to get ahead by €3,000.

👀 @Fiilismies08 finds the perfect river in this 3-bet pot, where he overbet the flop and leads for 40% pot on the turn. Fiilimises is now up €3,000 with 300 hands remaining. https://t.co/VVpAfF0mLr pic.twitter.com/Feb4wlrg7U

— Run It Once Poker (@RunItOncePoker) September 18, 2020

Just when it started to look like Ayras would run away with the crown, Rabichow scooped a dramatic pot. It wasn’t easy for him, though. With only 150 hands remaining, Rabichow was hanging on to a slim €3,000 lead. Ayras tried to break into the top, but Rabichow kept his sails high and managed to wins the finals with a net profit of €10,796.25.

Congratulations to the Legend of all Legends, @KRabichow! 👑⚔️👑 Thanks for making the final day a massive sweat with the back and forth action. GG and WP to both you and @Fiilismies08! pic.twitter.com/629Er3hgnh

— Run It Once Poker (@RunItOncePoker) September 18, 2020

You can watch all the juicy highlights from the climactic finals below.

Missing Poker Pro Brad Booth Contacts Family

Many would remember how a month back, Canadian poker pro Brad Booth had been reported missing?! Many from the poker fraternity expressed concern on Booth’s disappearance, especially since the community was still coming to terms with the tragic murder of poker pro Susie Chao. The former high-stakes player had last been spotted leaving the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino in northern Nevada on July 13.

He’d reportedly told his roommate that he planned to go camping, but disappeared without much preparation for any camping trip. The question everyone was asking was, what happened to Booth?

According to recent updates, it looks like all is well with Booth, and he was just on a “self-isolation” break. Booth’s family recently confirmed that he had connected with them earlier this week, and he was taking a break.

Freelance journalist Jennifer Newell tweeted a note from Booth’s family.

Great news: Brad Booth is safe! A note from his family to the poker community: pic.twitter.com/aZgUnPfsEV

— Jennifer Newell (@WriterJen) September 17, 2020

Booth is well known in the high stakes cash game circuit and considered adept at deep-stacked cash games. The 43-year-old has been a poker regular for more than a decade now and boasts over $793,000 in live MTT winnings. He was also part of some of the biggest cash games in the mid to late 2000s, and famously bluffed Phil Ivey in one of the episodes of “High Stakes Poker.”

Even though Booth’s family has confirmed that he’s okay, they seem to have no further information on his current whereabouts.

We only hope this firebrand cash game player can live out his self-time in peace and safety!

Jonathan Little Charged of Voter Fraud in Chasing Poker Greatness’ Best Book Twitter Poll

Jonathan Little has been grabbing the eyeballs a lot these days. We had highlighted how the former WPT champion and coach had been banned by America’s Cardroom (ACR) last week.

This week, a Twitter-based poll titled ‘Best Poker Book’ has brought Little back in the news.

The ‘Chasing Poker Greatness’ podcast has been running an interesting poll – it’s called the ’64 Book Heads-Up Tournament’, where many poker books were considered over the past few weeks. Things have now drawn to a finale, and Little is one of the top contenders.

Among the other contenders, Maria Konnikova’s recent release, ‘The Biggest Bluff,’ has picked many votes in the poll. Still, Little’s book on NLHE titled ‘Excelling at NLHE’ has been doing well as well.

Erik Seidel pointed out in one of his tweets how Little’s book was doing well, but it was funny how he suddenly got 100 votes at one point to jump up the list.

A few mins ago JL was down 62/38% , then he picked up 100 straight votes. This has happened throughout the contest when he’s been behind https://t.co/fyvQCGftXO

— Erik Seidel (@Erik_Seidel) September 13, 2020

In fact, the voting patterns for Little’s book through the contest-poll have raised eyebrows.

Even David Lappin shared that the same thing happened when Little’s book was being polled against Tommy Angelo’s famous book, ‘Elements of Poker.’ Lappin pointed out that Little was lagging behind, but there was a sudden jump of 100 votes in Little’s favor. Lappin even shared screenshots to prove his point.

Hey @CPGPodcast – just a heads-up that something weird keeps happening to your votes! This is the third time that there has been a snap-deluge of votes in one direction. I actually caught it with screengrabs this time. Sad. #ActuallyRigged pic.twitter.com/SKmyaecoJs

— 🃏 David Lappin 🃏 (@dklappin) September 11, 2020

He investigated the voting patterns to share some more insight: “Well if this hasn’t been corrupted, it’s a mighty strange voting pattern with ‘Elements’ leading the way in 22 out of 24 1 hour blocks by ~57%/43% of the vote but then 2 blocks where ‘Excelling’ won 88%/12% where Elements 12% was roughly same # of votes as his 57% in other hours.”

Barry Carter, who has co-authored two books by Lappin’s Chip Race Podcast co-host Dara O’Kearney, pointed out how not only Little’s but all the D&B Publishing books were showing erratic voting patterns with 100 votes coming in suddenly in a barrage. “I’m not accusing anyone of anything, but myself and other authors have noticed this trend of exactly 100 votes coming in in under a minute throughout the contest. Not all J Little books btw, but all D&B publishing books. Only reason I mention it was it was always exactly 100.”

Seidel also sarcastically commented – “Contest was averaging 100 votes per hour, then JL picks up 100 straight in a few seconds. I’m sure it’s on the level.”

Little finally responded to the allegations saying he has an email list, and whenever he has been behind in the contest, he emailed his list of subscribers requesting them for votes.

I have an email list and I post on social media. As you can see, I posted on twitter about an hour ago (it is my pinned post). Whenever I do that, I pick up votes. I was behind Tommy yesterday, emailed my list of subscribers, and picked up a bunch of votes.

— Jonathan Little (@JonathanLittle) September 13, 2020

Little, who is a famous coach and streamer, added, “I am going to send out an email to my list soon tonight, and again tomorrow. Both times I will pick up votes. I will stream all day tomorrow and when I mention the contest, I will pick up votes. I see nothing wrong with asking people to vote.”

It all led to the host of the Chasing Poker Greatness podcast, Brad Wilson, to come out and issue an ultimatum.

My statement on the #PokerGOAT voting controversy.

(Including ultimatum) pic.twitter.com/npTUI4gMjJ

— Chasing Poker Greatness (@CPGPodcast) September 13, 2020

Leaked Postlegate Legal Documents Reveal Plaintiffs Were Paid $40K (total) to Settle

One of the biggest updates in the Postlegate saga and one many thought would be the last we would hear of the case was that the vast majority (60 out of 88) of the plaintiffs in Nevada had accepted a settlement in the civil lawsuit.

One of the other big headlines of that story was the prosecution lawyer, Mac VerStandig’s public admission that there was no forensic evidence to suggest that Stones Gambling Hall and Justin Kuraitis had any involvement in the alleged cheating.

Given the court’s view on the case, it was clear that any potential settlement would be modest. The suspense was finally cleared after PokerNews confirmed that it had a legal term sheet that confirmed that the plaintiffs had received $40,000 to settle. This works out to roughly $666 per player before attorney fees. This might sound less considering that they had pressed charges demanding $30 Million, but given the rulings so far in the case, it was clear that the most they could realistically hope to recover would be the rake collected in the streamed games.

The plaintiffs had listed 68 streams in their original complaint. According to calculations by other media outlets, if the game was raked at $5 per hand, and the games averaged at 22 hands an hour through these streams, the rake collected would have been $29,920.

The non-settling plaintiffs that include the original whistleblower Brill have been given until October 1 by the court to make relevant filings if they wish to further pursue the case.

Postle’s announcement that he plans to tell his story that “won’t just shock the poker and gambling industries, but the entire world,” via a documentary that`s going to be made by Dave Broome of 25/7 Productions has the entire poker community awaiting its release.