This is going to be a semi-long post, but stay with me! It is worth it! It was sort of buried back in the day but I'd love to bring it back to life! It shows why it is very important to disclose backing relationships between players in small field high buyin tourneys as the Epic Poker League does.

So Hasan Habib Hendon Mob here, is quite an accomplished player as seen. He knows what he's doing!


Hell, he even made FT of the epic poker league which another person of questionable ethics, Chino Rheem. He recently tweeted about Tuan Le. Seen Here.


ChinoRheem David Rheem
Haha fashoooo! My win is his win!RT @brokemogul: I would just like to say "Congrats to Tuan Le"


Just reminded me of this old gem, that people that aren't old school poker players know about. I wonder if Tuan was backing Chino or something.

Anyways, on to the good stuff. The FT of the 25k WPT championship was HUGE! back in the day! Season 3 I believe!


3rd place-896k
2nd place- 1.7mill
1st-2.8 mill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFivxu9rFzw#t=5m38s

Tuan Le shoves 5 big blinds (2million at 200-400k on the button as the shortstack w/ QJo 3handed) Hassan Habib folds KJs. Takes some serious balls to blatantly collude/softplay with cameras recording the hole cards, I give him credit, he's as diehard a scumbag as they come.

Everyone with a brain knows that this is an easy call. (Stacks were 11.3 M, 9.3M, and 2M for Tuan Le) And the only reason why Hasan Habib would fold would be if he was actively colluding against Paul Maxfield!

Some basic old school analysis from OG Paul Phillips.
http://extempore.livejournal.com/91711.html

But wait, no, we have Daniel Negreanu vouching in his blog!
He Said

"Other notes: Tuan Le and Hasan Habib did not cheat at all. No chance, none at all. They informed everyone involved of their situation, and when the TV show airs you'll see Hasan (the chipleader) calling Tuan's raise with 5-3, and then check raising him on a flop of 8-8-9. We need to put that one to bed because if I know Hasan like I think I do, he would have given up ALL the money for the title. I truly, and genuinely believe that."

This is laughable and the situation was much different there. Hasan Habib would not have given up ALL the money for the title. In fact, he might have actually cost himself a title but blatantly softplaying his piece in a stage of the tourney where 2million dollars are on the line.

Note: Just because they told the table doesn't give them the right to collude. The table should know because they aren't going to be actively ATTACKING eachother by 3betting/4betting huge and **** because of subconcious thinking. However, folding to a 5bb shove with KJs is just blatant and utter collusion. Daniel Negreanu making that statement is absurd, but would expect nothing less from him. He was friends with Hasan and also rumored to have financial ties to the stable before/after.

Anyways, if you look at the videos. The hand before that hassan habib limped the button with 6s. Another odd play, but makes sense if he's trying to bleed the 3rd player of which he has no financial incentive of.

Then if you go to next part of video. They play hand very strangely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1hvE...eature=related

Tuan le limps, then bet/3bets a 36T flop....given stacks at that point....it was as if Tuan was thinking that Hasan would for sure want to dump to him and that would make sense with ICM....as Hasan had 12million...Tuan 6million..and Maxfield 4million as the graphic showed right before the hand. Tuan was obviously thinking that if Hasan was colluding perfectly....he'd make it 9million, 9million-4million thus maximizing his EV...which is why he 3bet the C/r. To Tuan's disapointment though.....Hasan had 2pair...and couldn't fold, or it would be obvious he was cheating for cameras. (Rough beat, lol make sure you read negreanus blog again and again in your head as you watch the hand play out)

The backed player can take such advantage of the staker in a situation like this if the staker doesn't play in his own best interest, which Hasan clearly wanted to just make the most money, but not obviously collude in front of cameras.

Even then! Hasan just called the turn instead of shoving (with a ridiculous 2million only behind after over 8million in middle. Probably hoping to be counterfeited or scare card so he could dump Tuan the pot.

Hand after that....he moves allin....while Tuan has two tens.....ok? Maybe more hands were played between that though, but could easily be him trying to double Tuan up as he needs it, as he knew Tuan was strong somehow. Who knows though, with such little blinds in turbo hard to prove anything, but KJs is obvious. I think after that Hasan might have realized he was helpless to collude and just lost his mind after losing AJo/maxfields KTo the next hand...

Hand after that Hasan tries to bust maxfield but maxfield doubles up and stacks are Hasan 9.5mill Maxfield-8mill-Tuan 5mill

Hand after that Hasan and Tuan are unlucky to be in another cooler situation, and get it allin A8s vs 77. You can argue that this hand is proof that they weren't cheating, but folding 77 would be so absurd/they didn't wanna make it so obvious...plus stacks were different....I think its just sloppy/not optimal collusion from people that didn't know better. I mean look at how they are talking...its obv soft play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1hvE...lated#t=13m20s I had no choice man I had no choice

Anyways, after that, Hasan was short....and obv it appears Tuan Le doesn't care about dumping to Habib as he is the backee in the backer, backee relationship...but Habib makes a crazy psyho limp shove over a 2.5x for 14bbs or w/e....and Tuan Le busts him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1pQK...eature=related

Funny, he knew to call KJo for that much more there, but Habib didn't know to call KJs for half the amount of chips

Anyways, the pair ran bad. If there cards didn't lineup as they did, they could have easily managed to work 1-2 better. Its ridiculous to think everything was on the up and up as Negreanu lied about!

Anyways, it was years ago and nobody really cares now, but just shows you to be careful and its good that the EPL has rules to prevent this sort of thing from happening as its likely to happen as such a small field has many of the backed players and backers.

GOSSIP!
What is Tuan Le and Chino's connection?
Do you think that Tuan and Hassan should have been punished even though they told the table Hasan was backing Tuan?
What was Daniel Negreanu's motive to make him lie to try to help cover up the obvious softplay? "No Chance, None At All" Haha reminded me of the Girah thread.

We should learn from mistakes of the past and not let anything like this happen again! All tourneys should have rules like EPL and it should become standard.

LoL, now this is GOSSIP. Actually I remember watching that FT, but i dontknow all those stories behind it. But i kinda thought they were being to nice to eachother, also had to call man had to call etc

The problem with your idea is that all of the honest people will come forward with their staking arrangments, but the shady characters (who plan to collude) would just claim to have 100% of themselves.

I do think that you should have to declare your staking arrangment to a casino, but for a totally different reason. So that the backers themselves can be paid out directly from the casino, avoiding stakees having to be trusted.

thats not the only problem with his ideas

Do you really think he would flip over the KJ if he's trying to softplay?

wow what a NIT, ill high5 the dealer with KJ there and say gg tuaaan

seen the event when it aired, even the viewers knew of the backing arrangement. there was only 1 hand that you mentioned that was suspicious, the KJ off fold by HH. everything else was mostly speculation, like saying he only called because it would look too much like collusion. your argument would fail miserably in a court case.

here to help the "blowup" (aug/nc)

first of all, how old is this? they don't play anywhere near the same as they do today. second, hassan hassib has the rep of not being all that great. he certainly made some pretty terrible plays, and he still does from random updates i see. third, how long was this tourney? the kind of mistakes you're capable of making after playing for 7 days are just unknown.

fourth and most important of all, who gives a **** 6 years later?!?!?!?!?

Jew,

I was with you until that last hand (KJ vs Q8 aipf). Why would they do that?

I remember watching this back then and I knew not much about poker but still knew this was sketchy as hell.

hasan limp/shoved thinking tuan 2.5x'd to dump to him. tuan called becuz he was the backee, not the backer. i believe that was TBJ's point

LOL thats WHY he did it, so people would say/think what you did. Who did he really show anyway?

All TV viewers could already see, only people he showed were the people in the crowd and players....

I'm not really certain what your point is. Obviously you are saying that because of their backing arrangement, HH would like to see TL finish in 2nd rather than the 3rd player.

Let's take another example, what if a husband and wife make the final 3 of a large buy in tournament. What incentive do they have to knock each other out of the tournament? To be the champion? These are quirky situations I don't think there is a realistic way to deal with them in a truly fair manner.

In the HH and TL situation, IMO, as long as their backing relationship was out in the open, barring sharing information on their hands, it is actually imo rational and non unethical for him to fold KJs, b/c although it is a clear call in a normal situation if you have 50% + of the other guy it's a clear fold. I'm not really sure what a good way to police this is though.

Nice thread, what a couple of scumbags

It is funny you posted this. When I saw the final table names I googled "Hasan habib poker scam" but nothing came up. I thought I remembered some funny business with this guy.

cehck the limp shove by maxfield kt vs aj and how bubby buddy the other 2 are

I miss shana hiatt.

if they made it known that they one of them was being backed by the other when millions of dollars were on the line, this is understandable

Im pretty sure every poker player has soft played before when playing with buddies at the table. and imagine if you were backing someone, how much more you'd soft play. also if there were no backers there'd be no poker tournaments like there are today. jus sayin...

i'm not saying its right, just something that you know going in. there's always going to be softplaying. unethical, yes... as scummy as UB and Girah thing, no.

Is it just me or at the 9:50ish-10min mark of the 2nd youtube clip which started with the 63>76 hand...Some guy is doing a voice over and says BILL Ivey instead of Phil Ivey? Seems like a bigger story to me

i seen this final table few times and that kj fold is just so horrid bad. Some talks were that Hasan Habib had some ilness at that time and lost focus badly. Tuan did eliminate Hasan so iam not sure if something really fishy going on was. They were at least very good friends that was very obvious and with this money on line its not that strange maybe you do softball your buddy a little.

Stopped reading after this part

You missed out then.

Looking forward to watching the clips later, haven't seen this FT for
about 5 years. One thing I do remember was how out of place
Paul Maxfield was, and how avidly everyone was rooting against him.

nice thread, evidence seems fairly conclusive as posted