Gossip Column: Galfond to Investigate Postle’s Play on Livestream, Nagy Challenges Polk to HU Match & More

Gossip Column
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  • Attreyee Khasnabis September 22, 2020
  • 5 Minutes Read

Just as we thought that we had seen the last of the Mike Postle scandal, Justin Kuraitis‘s big mouth could lead to yet another wave of investigations. Run It Once (RIO) founder and well-known poker coach Phil Galfond has decided to take on the burden of investigating Postle’s suspicious play during the live stream.

Coming out of the blue, Americas Cardroom (ACR) CEO Phillip Nagy has challenged three-time WSOP champion, Doug Polk, to a heads-up match ahead of his grudge match against six-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu.

Yet another multiple bracelet winner Shaun Deeb has also made the news. Unlike Galfond and Polk, Deeb made the headlines for getting hospitalized in Mexico after testing positive for COVID-19.

In other news, two high stakes poker pros, ‘Grazvydas’ and James Romero, were scammed out of $20,000. At the same time, WSOP.com has temporarily banned poker pro Tim Burt for playing on the site using the moniker ‘Trump2024’ citing violation of its new username permissions.

 

Phil Galfond Decides to Investigate the Mike Postle Scandal

We had really thought that the Postlegate saga involving Mike Postle, Stones Live production manager Justin Kuraitis, and King’s Casino (parent company to Stones Gambling Hall) was finally over after 60 of the 88 plaintiffs had accepted an undisclosed settlement on September 9. Oh, how wrong we were!

Mike Postle
Mike Postle

 

For now, the scandal has taken a new turn, with three-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Galfond announcing that he will be investigating the hands played by Postle on the Stones live stream.

Phil Galfond
Phil Galfond

 

On September 15, Kuraitis had taken to Twitter to gloat about the allegations being dropped against him. He also called out members of the poker community who, according to Kuraitis, have continued to spread a narrative that does not reflect video evidence available on the corresponding live streams.

 

Well, that was the personification of the phrase, ‘putting your foot in your mouth’. The tweet not only failed to get any empathy from the poker community. Instead, it instigated some of the industry’s top names to throw their hat in the ring to carry out their own investigations into the case.

Former high stakes poker player Haralobos Voulgaris responded to Kuraitis’ Twitter post by suggesting the parties involved “commission several people or auditors to independently go through all the videos” — a process that co-plaintiff and ‘Solve For Why Academy’ instructor Matt Berkey says can be partially automated via proper code.

RIO founder Galfond specifically took issue with the tone of Kuraitis’ post-settlement tweet — informing social media followers that he will submit a “detailed report” for public consideration once and if the Postle hand histories are appropriately exported into a spreadsheet file.

 

Galfond’s initiative was applauded by many others from the poker fraternity, with others coming together to make suggestions on how the investigation can be conducted appropriately.

Galfond even shut down those who raised the question of whether this investigation was necessary since the case had already been settled.

Galfond updated the poker community on how he planned to analyze the hands and drafted a total of 17 rules to follow.

However, the poker community remains utterly perplexed by the hostile attitude of Kuraitis on Twitter, who is still adamant that no wrongdoing took place.

In fact, ‘Crush Live Poker’ administrator Bart Hanson has also compiled what according to him are the 20 most incriminating hands against Postle in this case. You can check it out below:

 

 

ACR Founder Phillip Nagy Challenges Doug Polk to HU Match

Americas Cardroom (ACR) CEO Phillip Nagy, who was in the news two weeks ago for banning poker pro and coach Jonathan Little from the online poke site, is back in the spotlight again. This time around, he has challenged retired poker pro Doug Polk to a heads-up (HU) match.

Phillip Nagy & Doug Polk
Phillip Nagy & Doug Polk

 

Polk is presently preparing for his grudge match against his arch-nemesis Daniel Negreanu. With the 2020 WSOP Online series done and dusted, Negreanu is on his way back to the US. We can all start looking forward to his grudge match with Polk getting underway sometime soon, even though the exact details are yet to be disclosed.

To get in a bit of practice ahead of his game, Polk has been issuing a series of low stakes challenges. Initially, he was playing $1/$2 matches against fans and colleagues. But after that went poorly, he moved up in stakes to facilitate dumping cash faster.

He’s currently looking for opponents at $5/$10 and $10/$20.

This is perhaps what led to Nagy challenging him on Twitter.

WPN’s management has been pretty savvy in dealing with the Polk/Negreanu match. For example, ACR, one of WPN’s skins, has been giving Polk his training ground rake free.

As well as getting themselves some publicity from Polk as he trains, they’ve also positioned themselves as the most likely place for the big game to play out when it comes. Nagy’s personal involvement seems likely to be part of this push for publicity.

Polk is yet to respond to Nagy’s challenge.

 

Shaun Deeb Hospitalized After Testing Positive For COVID-19

Four-time WSOP bracelet winner Shaun Deeb tweeted that he is currently hospitalized with COVID-19 in Mexico.

Deeb has been on the grind at this year’s World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) on PokerStars. The American pro traveled to Mexico to play in these events, and even though a ninth WCOOP title eluded him, with 57 cashes through the series, Deeb raked up quite a lot of deep runs.

Shaun Deep
Shaun Deeb

 

Deeb broke the news of his hospitalization in a tweet on Sunday night. “So, I’ve been keeping this quiet last week and a half,” Deeb tweeted, “but I have COVID now and I think I’m going to need your guys help making a tweet or two go viral so I don’t have to get hospitalized in Mexico.”

Despite his hopes that he wouldn’t need to be hospitalized in Mexico, this is precisely what happened.

Since announcing the news, Deeb has provided his fans with frequent status updates on his Twitter page. Despite being hospitalized and the illness running him “into the ground,” Deeb appears to be in good spirits.

Though Deeb usually tries to make light of the situation, his tweet posted on September 21, truly drove home the seriousness of the situation.

Deeb stated that some of his best poker on the trip has come during his battle with COVID-19. As he continues to multi-table tournaments from his hospital bed in Mexico, more cashes may still be on the way.

 

 

Two High Stakes Poker Pros Lose $20K in Clever Scam

In times when cheating and scamming online has become commonplace, yet another such incident occurred when two high stakes poker pros got cheated out of $20,000.

The incident was shared by one of the victims, ‘Grazvydas,’ on Two Plus Two. It started when ‘Grazvydas’ was in a Skype chat group for poker players looking to swap funds on online poker sites. Specifically, he had PokerStars and Americas Cardroom (ACR) funds to trade, a minimum of $20,000 on Natural8. Another player, James Romero, had $60,000 and wanted to trade for at least $5,000 in bitcoins.

James Romero
James Romero

 

Unbeknownst to them, a scammer was lurking in the group. He created two Skype profiles to mimic both ‘Grazvydas’ and Romero. Using those accounts, he contacted each of the two players, pretending he was the other, to arrange a funds swap.

Neither player verified that who they were talking to was the genuine individual. Eventually, a deal was made for ‘Grazvydas’ to send Romero $20,000 on ACR in exchange for $20,000 in bitcoins. Both players made a deal with the scammer, except both of them thought they were really talking to the other person.

‘Grazvydas’ sent the money first, shooting the $20,000 over to Romero’s ACR account. As part of the negotiations, the scammer, posing as ‘Grazvydas,’ asked Romero which account the money should be sent to and thus gave that info to ‘Grazvydas,’ posing as Romero.

At this point, everything looked fine to both poker players. Romero had received $20,000 in his ACR account, as expected. It was now time for him to send ‘Grazvydas’ the bitcoins, but this time around, the bitcoins did not reach their intended mark. Instead, they were whisked away by the imposter. Thus, Grazvydas never received anything. In the meantime, the scammer made off with $20,000 in bitcoins.

‘Grazvydas’ eventually figured out what had happened and brought it up in the Skype group. Romero showed absolutely no sympathy, telling him that he should have done his due diligence and verified the identity of the person he was dealing with.

For a while, and even after ‘Grazvydas’ took the issue to the Two Plus Two forums, Romero refused to help out. But ‘Grazvydas’ was persistent, and many in the poker community came down hard on Romero for his attitude. All this led to Romero agreeing to slit the losses with Grazvydas. Each player ended up booking a $10,000 loss at the end.

 

WSOP.com Bans Tim Burt`s ‘Trump2024’ Moniker to Avoid Political Issues

Poker pro Tim Burt was recently banned provisionally for playing on WSOP.com with the online moniker ‘Trump2024.’ The site asked him to change his moniker or discontinue playing due to the site’s new prohibition on politically stimulating screen names.

Tim Burt
Tim Burt

 

The three-time WSOP ring winner Burt, who has nearly $1.3 Million in live tournament scores, publicized the matter on Twitter. In his tweet, he shared the news attaching the mail that was sent to him.

Later, the official twitter account of WSOP.com replied:

The vocal Trump supporter Burt stated that the site had offered the chance to submit three alternative screen names, and that via a subsequent message.

He also said that a WSOP.com representative had apologized for calling Burt’s ‘Trump2024’ username “offensive.” The site-rep further said that they were banning all political screen names, regardless of their political affiliation.

However, the controversy broke out on social media in an inevitable way. It seemed that WSOP.com wants politics to stay out of online poker. But on the other side, some supporters have interpreted this a nuisance.

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