“If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be criminals.” That was profoundly stated to me by a Juvenile Probation Officer, years ago, as I sat in front of him with one of my sons. Over the years it’s jumped into my thoughts in completely ridiculous brain rants that are related to nothing. At this point, it is completely related to every thing that has been going on in poker forums and newsgroups and mainstream articles about cheating and the internet.

It is kind of strange how things escalate in one area and slide off the edge of the cliff into oblivion in another. Yes, I think the allegations in the Absolute Poker saga are horrific. And I find myself being more than a little tweaked out when a statement from the site ownership/control reads:

‘We are still investigating whether the consultant was acting alone or in concert with others, and it appears at this time that all account holders are innocent of collusion and were unaware of any wrong-doing by the consultant, who was immediately terminated.’

So that damn consultant was immediately terminated? Whoop-tee-la-tee-damn-do-dah! That’s really saving the world from a cheating thief.

But as all of the drama and news keeps the world tipping and rocking, I have other questions. What happened in the WCOOP Main Event thing where TheV0id was stripped of first place? I’ve searched high and low and only managed some snippets of info – mainly that ‘he’ is allegedly Mark Teltscher and had eight accounts playing that tournament. Sure, I understand that PokerStars handled it all completely differently than Absolute did, but there’s no finalization in that act of cheating and defrauding the players. Was TheV0id just hand slapped with ‘give us back the bracelet and the $$ you cashed out and we won’t have to kill you’? And of course the accounts were closed, but what ramifications do these thieves and cheaters face? Jail time? They should. They are defrauding and stealing and if they are simply terminated or their account is closed, what does that mean to the rest of us? Crime does pay. They will figure out other ways to do it in the future and not get caught. And it’s going on right now – somewhere.
But there’s yet another form of cheating going on and it seems to have been pushed over the edge of the cliff and it’s drifting out to sea never to be heard from again as the waves gently pull it away from Turks and Caicos. Any one of you that follows tournament reports and news must know that the WPT event in Turks, last month, was headlined as being guaranteed at $1M. When the dust settled and all the entrants were tallied, on day 1B there weren’t enough paid entrants. Sure, we all heard the news that Jack (the TD) took a vote on how the players wanted to go with the pay-out and apparently, the final choice made most of the players happy. But the part that we didn’t hear…

The organizers could either pony up the guarantee amount advertised and eat it, or they could pack the field with their own horses. From news I’ve heard, and remember this is all reported but not confirmed, the organizers filled the playing field with friends, relatives, and any/all local railbirds. The deal was the staked-in players were free rolling for 10% of the payoff.

That wasn’t the worst of it. During the tournament, when one of the organizer’s horses was a chip leader, they managed to lose their chips to the organizer. Umnhhh! Sure shit happens.

But then when the tournament was nine handed and only six would go on to the TV taping, one of the organizer’s horses was the chip leader with 40% of the chips. When the game got to six handed, the organizer was in third place. Some of the knowledgeable players were complaining of unusual plays. The organizer and winner of the first World Poker Tour Turks and Caicos Classic, Rhynie Campbell, is he to be congratulated? That’s a very tough call.

And for years, as Men ‘the master’ Nguyen threw cards at dealers and swore at them, it was always ‘said’ that he packed tournaments he played in with friends and family and they threw their chips off to him. I heard this from the lips of too many players, over the years, to not put some credence into it.
Cheating and stealing is always out there. Sometimes the creeps are caught, sometimes they are suspected and logged but never proven, and sometimes they happily skate down the road with ill gotten gain.

How do we stop it? We certainly can’t just slap their hands and send them out the door with a ‘closed account’. There has to be something more harmful and hateful to enforce the fact that we don’t want cheating in poker. While groups are being organized to set up world tournament rules and a variety of other issues pertaining to poker, perhaps we should have a set of Crime and Punishment Laws for those found guilty of committing the crime of cheating in poker, live or online.