Amarillo Slim? restorativejustice? yeah he was a scum bag and (allegedly) child molestation was his game...stiffing ppl is a little more relevant for scummy poker behavior than Amarillo's style...

0.05% of people will even understand this atrocious joke and 100% of those will think it doesn't even work as a joke. Haywainker.

There's far more comedy in the name Elton Tsang.
Work with that instead.

I'm Still Tstanding

I am 0.05% Bid. (you may have to Google what that means)

Are you confusing 0.05% with 5%? Quite a difference between 1 in 20 and 1 in 2000 people.
So you've either made a mistake with your mathematical expression or with your judgement of probabilities.

Either way you have it wrong. Well played.

100% you are trolling me, like you have done on previous threads.

Well I think in most situations, people dont want to immediately go and "out" someone(and ruin their chances of ever getting repaid). But its not always about the money, whether it was 3million euro or 7.5k, it seems like the deciding factor is how the perp attempts to resolve the situation.

Just like the Dwight Pilgrim & Aaron Massey situation...it seems the victims don't enjoy being victimized *again* with vague threats of gang/mafia ties and blatant attempts at intimidation. especially when they have gone out of their way to play nice and settle matters privately.

I think poker is a sub culture that attracts a lot of shady people. So in that sense you are right. But there are also quite a few people on the other side of the spectrum. And as for now I always considered (and more or less still do) Igor Kurganov as one of the good guys.

Don't get me wrong, I am not expecting them to settle Leon's debt. Or to take responsibility for any of it. I want to hear their side of the story. It is entirely possible that everyone in the nose bleed community knew they were being backed by Tsoukernik and they just assumed Tsang knew. I would still think it's a sketchy thing to do, but then it doesn't seem to me like Tsang was lured into a trap. With the limited knowledge we have now, it kinda looks like Tsoukernik set a trap for Tsang.

In Holland we have this saying: Trust comes by foot and leaves by horse.

He doesn't need to give his side of the story for me. He doesn't give a **** about me, nor should he. But I think it is important for any man that aspires a level of integrity that I think Igor aspires, to have your name cleared of any wrongdoing. In this case I think it is reasonable to say that silence is suspect.

I'm also just annoyed at how the poker world is handling this in general. Constantly complaining about scammers and thieves, but not standing up to those same people once you have a vested interest. I hope I can expect more than that from a guy like Igor, that's all. Don't think that's very unreasonable.

good post....love the Dutch expression.

and i agree, its quite annoying to see how many people are almost complicit in these things and never say anything. Apparently its only a scam if it affects one's OWN wallet. I notice a lot of this murky stuff comes from the fact that so many people are owed money...sometimes its like these poker players will allow someone else(even a fellow friend) to be victimized/scammed if it means increasing their own chances of recovering a debt/money. or getting invited to a juicy high stakes game. not cool.

doesn't elton have even lesser chance of getting paid off now that he outed leon?

Leon has no intention to pay. Why would he if he doesn't have to?

Igor Kurganov's 50 k highroller win interview makes me cringe after reading what happened to Elliot: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/ne...e=1&p=52737786

Igor is telling that he wants players to tell who has shares of who to keep the game fair

you linked the wrong webpage.

a 3 on 1 or a 4 on 1 poker game is soooooo unfair, it's amazing he won.

So that 5% that goes to REG has a big Leon caveat.

Just would like to thank Calvin and Elton for the great read-appreciate the candor.

high stakes poker cash games are cancerrrrr

i never feel sorry for those stupid rich bastards.

I know I'm going to regret asking this but...why?

I’m going to attempt to answer this

*Disclaimer - My knowledge is based on a small sample size and is limited to the UK, I by no means am claiming my beliefs are true and accurate but merely an expression of my knowledge albeit limited*


In an ideal world, high stakes poker would be dominated by a few professionals and hundreds of million if not billionaires, although this does exist in some respects, for most part the ratio of professional to Million/billionaire is somewhat skewed and hugely disproportionate.

Which goes onto the next part a rising pyramid of liquidity from new small stakes players to the more dominate and winning professionals. Again in reality this is disproportionate and mostly only serves the horizontal members of the pyramid, with smaller stakes players winning and redistributing their new found wealth to the casino rake and maybe a new Hermes bag for their significant others.

Poker tournaments could possibly be a means of liquidity but unless the players are very lucky, the people who usually win poker tournaments are professionals, semi professionals and sometimes heavily backed so the amount they are putting into the high stakes industry is again limited.

So you have high stakes filled with “professionals” (used loosely) and a few well to do individuals.

The professionals are usually passing money around and then back to whichever individual or group of individuals that is backing them, so some of this money again leaves the high stakes scene.

So let’s talk about the well to do individuals, I am in the higher echelon of earners in the UK and also in my profession, I earn close to £14k a month and maybe another £80,000 a year in bonuses.

Could I feasibly sit in a high stakes £25/50 game and be comfortable with losing £10-20k? The answer is no, people may look at my earnings and consider them to be high, you also have to remember I have life and family commitments, I have 3 kids so schooling is a huge part of my monthly outgoings, I have a mortgage, car payments, clothing, holidays and food. So to sit in a 25/50 for me a recreational player would be financial suicide for me

If I played 3 times a month and lost the average of £3k per session and played 10 months a year taking out the months I am not in the UK that’s £90,000 which has eaten into my bonus and £10,000 into my monthly wage.

So a lot of people that play higher stakes and earn similar amounts to me have overstretched themselves and overtime stretched their personal and professional relationships to get more to feed into this habit that now consumes them, for a dream that will possibly allude them for their entire poker career.

From my experience and this is by no means a reflection of the whole professional poker playing industry, professionals value money a lot less then individuals with careers outside of poker, they don’t understand what it is to have a stable income not dictated by play or hours spent in a casino so are un-empathetic towards recreational players.

In comes people like Leon, who by all accounts is an out and out criminal, yes businessmen lose money go bankrupt and then start again. But most do this with ethics, even if their intentions are self serving and self indulgent they still serve society to some degree. Even a company like Primark in the UK who have employed child laborers in the past, still serve under privileged folk of the UK with cheap and fashionable clothing.

But someone like Leon only serves himself by stealing from poker players, he lacks compassion for poker players and this is why he has repeated this again and again and there are plenty of Leons in the industry and the industry will continue to breed these criminals unless something is done about it.

So high stakes poker in the UK is not a cancer but a unapologetic and empathetic industry that breeds criminals and welcomes then back with open arms.



TL;DR ---- Winter is coming and they have a dragon

When Justin Bonomo was not showing his hold cards to the camera at the super high roller bowl and Leon got upset i assumed Justin was in the wrong, now I have a feeling Justin knew the shadyness of Leon and took all measures to protect himself. Would like to hear what Justin has to say on the subject

That's just Justin being Justin. He's an *******. Justin was in the wrong as he has been in the past. Played with him alot and have 0 good things to say about the guy.

Was Jungleman playing Angry Birds during the game?

Bravo sir, fantastic post.
I only hope more people read it properly.

He doesn't have the attention span for Angry Birds.
Online poker seems to be his therapy.

If you've ever seen him play live you'd understand why I say this.

Theseth. amazing post! Thank you.

Thank you

So is your bonus tax free?

No