Supposedly he took off when he knew they were on to him. Reminds me of lusardi

Please link this to the thread about why the public has a low opinion of professional poker players.

I wouldn't call it "having balls" but rather being incredibly stupid to think he would get through with it.

Just want to reiterate that the ink is somewhat speculation and not confirmed. We know he was marking them somehow (maybe even as simple as the usual way people do) but there was just a lot of weird stuff going on with his sunglasses and hands etc that make us believe this could've been the case.

There is definitely some worry that he cottoned on to the fact that the WSOP was watching his every move but hopefully there was enough evidence collected at that point that something is done.

They should've done this plus put a hold on his cashout.

Isn't this the first year that the Italian card company Modiano is supplying the cards at the WSOP? The back of the cards are a new design.

sore losers imo

he probably cant cheat in cyprus cause he loses regularly at 25-50 tables. but he seems more successful at tournaments.
i played with coca in small tournaments in cyprus and monte negro did not see anything suspicious.

Hey guys,

I'm writer of that article on Czech site Pokerzive.cz, "Who is Valeriu Coca? Confirmed cheater from Prague casino's."

Coca is well-known cheater, he is banned from all major Prague poker rooms.
But, the point why we were writing that article is the fact, that he was crushing one of the events of European Poker Tour Monte Carlo finals.
We contacted staff @ EPT, but they did not found anything wrong with this Moldavian guy.

So I'm glad, that he is finally caught. Well, let's hope, that WSOP officials will do something ASAP.
And yes, in Prague he marked King's and Aces by bending corners. And I do believe, that he is doing same thing @ WSOP.

Feel free to ask me anything you want, as I'm in contact with the initial guy (ex-manager of Ambassador Casino), who busted him.

Martin Kucharik

Wow, sick story but makes for a great read.

Didn't this guy already go very deep in one of the early events or am I thinking of someone else? I thought I recognise his name as being friends with someone else who went very deep in the same event.

Seems to me it would be hard to prove anything though after the event.

Will be interesting to see if he's left Vegas already or is still around.

Yeah the bending would seem more doable - if the ink was all over his hands it would be tough to mark the cards in a way where he would then recognize them afterwards. Just seems like it would be tough for him to only touch certain cards, but wtf do I know.

I'm going to be really interested to see how this develops over the next few days.

Who in the media is going to cover it, and with what kind of journalistic due diligence? How are the WSOP going to handle this? How are the Nevada authorities going to handle it?
It's gonna be interesting, and I think we may be re-evaluating some reputations by the end of it.

Could be epic storyline if Coca has curly hair

WSOP deserve some credit for the draw that inadvertently caught him.

Gl hope you get an agreeable resolution.

Really sick story. Interested to hear the outcome of this.

I have Kaverman in a WSOP fantasy...was tilting anyway to see him get beat from a ~5/1 chip advantage against some clown Moldovan lower stakes grinder but this does answer a lot of questions why that happened. Interested to follow how this plays out

Seems pretty weird, I mean, I think it is more probable he did something (cheating) than he won those guys in that way

Assuming they switched decks in the middle of some matches, did he do the slow deliberate card-checking immediately upon a new deck being introduced?

The posts from his opponents ITT suggest he was only doing it at the beginning of matches, but if the WSOP was really swapping in new decks more frequently, he would have had to do it upon each new deck being introduced, no?

Isn't bending the corners of cards something that would be easily noticed by the dealer or the other player in the match?

Is there any footage of him re checking his cards multiple times? It doesn't strike me as that hard to mark the cards with ink on his fingers. All it would take is to have ink on his Index and middle fingers. He checks his cards with his ring finger, pinky and thumb and then marks them at an appropriate spot on the back by rechecking them again, this time using his index and middle finger to place a mark. He could also have a renewable supply of the ink in one of his pockets, something which should be looked for if there is footage to review.

I have Kaverman in a fantasy draft and very upset that he lost to this ****ing cheater. Hope the appropriate action is taken. What are the chances of the WSOP actually doing something? Surely they are going to want to keep this as quiet as possible?

Looks more mafia in his photo

I would think this would be easily picked up on. According to Drinan they alerted Effel well in advance, so they could also inspect the cards while out of orbit. My manies is on ink here. Can't see any other solution.

Was he wearing same glasses when he was Day 1A chip leader at the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event at EPT Grand Final?!

Was he also putting his fingers in or around his mouth? Could be a source of the ink.

Wow sounds like the movie shade with Sylvester Stallone. With regard to the invisible ink picked up by sunglasses. Sick if true and couldn't this become an epidemic if true? How to stop something like this if it was possible? Is it possible?

Thank you guys for reporting it to Jack and thanks to Jack for investigating it. In todays world I think we tend to jump on social media right away before we do it the "right way". I really do commend yall for taking a step back and discussing the odd behaviour with each as well because, like both of you stated, you both just lost a 10k HU and you could of been steaming. So once again, kudos. And this is the poker community policing itself.

Aren't all cards used in a game kept and stored for some amount of time? Seems evidence of marking should be easy to detect on those. Unless of course they aren't labeled as to which table used them.

Another possibility, especially if a new brand of cards is being used, is slight defects in the card backings. His early delays could have been when he was memorizing marks on the cards introduced during the manufacturing of the cards. Think Phil Ivey's edge sorting