I've said this more than a few times, I'll say it again. Poker feuds are good for the marketability of poker. What we need to do is get live uproars like this on television and the guy being chirped needs to call this dude's girlfriend that was barking at him a fat pig and rip on Matt Affleck for doing nothing to stop it. Call him a b*tch. Escalate it to where the floor has to make a choice and remove the people. Make a scene. Then boom, walla, you got some must see TV the next time these two are in a tournament together and at the same table. Poker is full of degenerate scum bags and condescending math nerds who think they are special because they can separate the average idiot from their money. It would make for great entertainment to watch all these people go at it. Poker would actually be marketable if it had real heroes and villains. I don't see anything wrong at all with what happened besides the rail to a million dollar final table being only five feet away from the contestants. Even Claude Lemieux, one of the greatest agitators of all time, got to have the boards and glass separating him from the crazy hockey fans in each town that despised them. Hope to see more blow ups and arguments in the future. Good for the game in my opinion. Like imagine someone open hand slapping Jesus Ferguson, taking his stupid looking cowboy hat, and spiking it into the grown, like "What you going to do you scamming scum bag? Huh Huh Huh?" Boom. Instant legend. All over television. Poker is alive and relevant again and Jesus was even in on it because he was paid 10k behind the scene to let it go down without suing the smacker!

Not really buying this tbh. I don't know much about the guy besides seeing some stuff from him on twitter from time to time, but even just how he reacted from this situation it seems pretty odd to think he can be painted as a good person with a good heart. "this is just his personality" is not a good excuse for why someone is a douche. I feel bad for him in this situation as it clearly was not handled fairly. However, as other people have pointed out, if you are going to act like a douchebag a lot of the time you shouldn't be surprised when you don't have people running to support you the times you need support. He talked about thinking he and that ryan guy are unfairly profiled, but unfortunately the reality is that if you act a certain way enough of the time than you aren't going to get a lot of leeway in the future and that seems pretty fair tbh. Even just for example how he has spoken about afflecks gf since the incident. I believe him when he says she was being abrasive and horrible, and she deserves to have people know she acted that way, but there is no place for the type of insults he has thrown. And it's not about her being a woman, he shouldn't be attacking anyone that way. Ultimately he can act however he wants to act, but unfortunately stuff like this is one of the consequences.

The fact that you're right in that this would get a lot of publicity, and that a lot of people are going to agree with you that this would be "must see TV", says a lot more about society today than it does about what poker needs. Hopefully today's culture of instant celebrity for all the wrong reasons is just another fad that will eventually fade away. The sooner, the better.

Perhaps this has become an Internet meme like "moran", but if not - the word you're look for is voilà.

Never gonna happen.

#irony

http://imgur.com/a/9hh9y

Keep tweeting Luke, you've almost taken down the wsop with your cogent messages.

Interesting interview with Luke Vrabel from HighRollerRadioTV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8R2wD7xF1A

Probably shouldn't of happened but this guy seems like a tool who possibly brought on the aggravation by his toolish actions.

I think sometimes when a trend continues on a certain path for many years/decades, we lose perspective due to our short lifetimes (relative to human history), and this leads us to believe that the trend has always been in this direction.

That said, I'm not convinced you're wrong. I'm just hopeful that you are.

mcmatto = Matt Affleck ?

pics of his g/f please

Friggin fat cow

Was this streamed, or will we be seeing a YouTube video or anything?

Oh, me too, believe me.

Yeah, I was ready to get on board with his fight, then I read these and thought, eh, **** him then.

Would be curious to know if any of this was filmed.

Also curious to see Matt Affleck's girlfriend.

There seem to be many people who have corroborated the essential elements of Vrabel's side of the story. I've yet to see any of the taunters on the rail, the players the taunters were supporting, or the WSOP, offer an alternate version of what happened. The floorman in the charge of the tournament, Jason, should be fired.

As a longtime friend of Matt Affleck, I feel obliged to comment on the terrible way he and his girlfriend are being maligned.

Luke Vrabel and I have some good history. We both had our first WSOP cashes in a 3k NLH at the 2007 World Series (he finished 10th). At the time, I was impressed with him. He was a young guy, he was focused, and he was having fun. He was someone for whom you wanted to root. I remain a committed amateur, but Luke has gone on to make a fine career as a poker player. I wish he had also done some more growing up. I recognize that this is a harsh assessment. So let me take a moment to explain.

At the end of the Colossus tournament, Luke went on a twitter tirade that has shown no signs of abating. He believes that the WSOP disrespected him, and it is his right to pursue his concerns. But, he has also used this moment to attack the character of a fellow player, Matt Affleck, along with the character of his girlfriend. This moves beyond professional behavior. He himself acknowledged in his interview on High Roller Radio that his crude comments about them are a sign of his immaturity. So why continue to make them? If he has legitimate concerns about tournament operations at the WSOP, he should remain focused on those. Threatening a fellow player over the exuberance of his rail has no place in the game that we love. And there is no question that Matt behaved with perfect decorum at the table. Making demeaning and false comments about a player’s partner has no place in civil society.

I’ve been on the rail for numerous WSOP final tables and near final tables. There is a lot of raucous fun to be had on the rail. For the most part, even the loudest cheers are both part of the game and part of the fun. Players realize that rails will cheer when their player wins a hand, and every hand has loser(s) as well as winners. Most players know that folks cheer and celebrate with the winners, and that this is not meant to demean or taunt the losers.

Luke Vrabel said that when he ran into Matt after they had both busted the final table, Luke told him “good game”. He also claimed on High Roller Radio that Matt walked past him in the hallway as if he did not exist. This is categorically untrue. I was walking alongside Matt and he clearly said “thanks, you too” to Luke. It is certainly possible that Luke did not hear this, but he has taken all of these events as an opportunity to malign another player, in this case Matt Affleck, who has been an upstanding young professional and an ambassador for the game.

This SHOULD stop. As a community, we cannot stand by while an individual uses social media platforms to engage in a relentlessly unfair assault on another player and their partner.

Jack Effel is a rank scumbag. You'll notice that a lot of the poker community will remain silent, some will murmur something like "well this sounds unfair but the WSOP has always treated me well and I've never had a problem with the staff," and very few will meaningfully defend Luke.

The poker community is awesome as a whole, but self-interest and subservience to power always dominate in a spot like this.

You were not there. taunting a player before, during and after almost every hand from the rail is wrong, no matter who the player is or what their history is. WSOP staff bullying, intimidating, and discriminating against any player is wrong.

10 seat clearly used a team approach to undermine 7 seat, and WSOP staff did nothing to stop it. Poker is not a team sport, and taunting is never allowed (unless its table talk between players in a hand, and that has its limits also)

If your on the rail, cheer all you want. NEVER TAUNT A PLAYER, EVER FROM THE RAIL

Can be no justification for either 10 seat, the gf, or WSOP staff here.

An excellent post in all particulars.

Even a broken clock...

I disagree. What comes around, goes around ... deal with it.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using 2+2 Forums

When ever someone writes "he is a good person and has a good heart" they're almost always a miserable jackoff.

I think its easy to say stuff about someone when you don't know them personally, however like I said before if this happened to anyone one of us or someone close to us I believe they would act in a very similar fashion. Being stripped of thousands / hundreds of thousands of dollars of equity would have anyone highly upset/angry. At the end of the day the WSOP needs to change/enforce the rail and crowd because I don't know any other casino that would let this happen even on a much smaller scale let alone playing for millions of dollars.

Which is why when Matt's friend defended him in this thread he focused on what happened after the tournament and used politician terms like "raucous fun" and "upstanding young professional."

Interesting. I suspect you are right. "Good" is just too nebulous of a word and implies innate value more than admirable behavior. If you said someone was kind, it would be more specific and imply a behavior from which we can judge character.

I can imagine a friend or relative saying, "he's a good person but he's done some bad things".

The "good person" thing sounds like a counter-point to something unsaid or something expected to be said.

(I'm not commenting on anyone's character and haven't read much of this thread. I'm just replying to this one post).

Someone didn't see the thread he started before it was deleted. He's a piece of ****.