That's why my wife and I stopped going to the wsop the past few years. Place has gone way downhill, Jack Effel could care less about anyone except those '2005' stars from the early boom days(Luke is right about that). Jack is rude and mean and his gaggle of floorpeople are all the same. After reading this letter and what Luke posted on facebook I think I said wow at least 20 times. And the sad part is none of it surprises me in the least.

I don't blame Luke at all for not playing there again.

Super Dave !!! l love that screen name !!!! no, the main thing is that a player was being taunted continuously from the rail by the group of friends of another players at the table and bullied and intimidated by the WSOP management team.

Seeing a players hole cards from the rope when a milly is on the line is pretty amazing and can only lead to bad things down the road. Players are texting non-stop and I'm sure some people would use this as an angle if they could. Just amazed we could be that close to any WSOP final table that we could see their cards....

with all due respect, you need to drastically shrink that letter if you expect it to have any chance of being read by Jack

OP: When Effel responds by offering to discuss the matter with you over coffee, like he did to me in 2014 when I emailed him regarding lack of crowd control issues, just say NO because you're wasting your time as long as crowds (business/ $$) continue to grow.

Rails should not be that close to the table. I mean we had a guy on the Partouche Poker Tour used this stuff to cheat. It's pretty simple.

The various reactions to this are great. But for all the "he's loud too so *uck him" views, there's a fatal flaw to the argument - he's *in* the tournament. He paid to be there, the spectators didn't. What's more, the rules are pretty clear. There should be a pretty simple thought experiment - if Daniel (or anyone else on the WSOP schedule committee) was facing the same abuse would the floor act? If the answer is no, fine no harm. But really, we all know that's not the case.

lol this is pretty funny that it was Slayer he has been crying non stop on twitter about it, makes a post on facebook saying he's boycotting the wsop, now says he will probably play the Main Event, goes on & on about how its not about the money yet right after says i'm happy & thrilled with my 9th place i have $80,000 in my pocket like he's set for life again, dude has got to be 1 of the most mentally weak players at the poker table if he couldn't handle being chirped from some phat chick on the rail lmao
dudes been embarrassing himself more than anything showing how mentally unstable he is & 1 thing he is right about though is the WSOP don't give a **** about him

This makes Matt Affleck look pretty bad

His diet does a pretty good job of that already.

Isn't Vrabel the guy that pretended to be "Dana" (a hot chick) in order to get free MTT coaching from top MTT pros back in the day? That being said, no one should be getting bullied and harassed from the rail in any tourney, let alone one with a million dollars up top.

If it's true you could see a few players hole cards, did you at least give them a heads up to protect their cards a little better?

Let's not pretend Luke Vrabel is some nice "kid" when he's a 6'4 man in his 30s. Here's a few snapshots of his twitter feed from the last 3 days. Some of the tweets have been deleted and some are still up.

http://imgur.com/a/BRKc6

Stay Classy Luke!

Sorry mom(x100)

Regardless of who this happened to, I think if anyone else was in the same situation they would also be highly upset/angry with the whole situation. If other players rail are practically berating someone the floor should be on top of that instantly, At any other casino I feel like they wouldn't even be given a warning before getting tossed.

Luke stated that this wouldn't have happened if it was one of the 2005 superstars. He's right. However, he's also missing another crucial ingredient. This also wouldn't have happened to someone with a good reputation.

I'm not saying what happened to Luke was right, or even fair. I'm just saying, sometimes we reap what we sow, and it looks like a rogue tournament official (Jason) decided to make Luke's situation worse because he didn't like him. Again, it wasn't fair, but it goes to show that in life, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Luke admits that sometimes he acts like an ******* at the table, but now that big money was on the line, he wanted to be treated fairly. He deserved to be treated fairly, but didn't get that fair treatment because of his prior history as an *******. He can either learn from this harsh and expensive lesson, or continue with his rant about being a victim.

I know this is a slippery slope, and I see the arguments as to why this wasn't Luke's fault....but come on....If he were a sweetheart at the table, this wouldn't have happened.

Jack Effel really should make some sort of a statement about this. The incidents seem to get worse every year and the favoritism shown towards 'name' players by the floor is pretty bad, he's right when he says this would never happen to Negreanu/Ivey/etc if they spoke to the floor about being heckled from the rail.

There's something called etiquette in poker and the rail should have some degree of that too -- much like golf, bowling, chess, etc. Crowd stays silent and watches as move is being made and can cheer afterwards.

With what the WSOP tried to employ to keep the integrity of the game after Kassouf's stalling last year, this should higher on the priority list. Rail's obnoxiousness and harassment towards a particular person should not be tolerated regardless of the personality (need more logical staff on the floor instead of individuals who base decisions on emotions).

Oh yea, train your dealers ahead of time too.

OP good on you for submitting your comments to Jack Effel for consideration, but if you really want him to read it you should cut out about 75% of your letter and stick to the salient points and skip the page(s) about how you so love the WSOP.

I have undeleted but locked the Vraebel thread so everyone can read his post on this topic:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...again-1670266/

Here is his post:

I have no clue who any pros are, follow none closely, and find none interesting, but from what I read here it sounds like this guy has some what of an abrasive or "bad boy" image he tries to promote through his social media feeds or poker table persona and if you do this sort of thing and can't take being chirped from the cheap seats you should just retire all your social media accounts or the image that is causing you to take all this flak. That being said, I do think the WSOP should remove any onlookers that are overly obnoxious, and also take into consideration anything the other remaining contestants say. Like, if I'm at a final table (which will never happen because I suck) and I see a scum bag like Chris Ferguson or Howard Lederer getting chirped, I'm going to argue to let the chirping and harassing go on because these two guys are getting what they deserved. If someone completely innocent is getting chirped I'm gonna be asking security to have the chirper be removed as well.

It's a shame the letter from OP is so wordy. You could have stated your thoughtful and correct position in two paragraphs and have eliminated your bona fides as someone who cleans out the gift shop when they visit the Rio.

Regardless of whether the player in question is a complete dick on social media, spectators should not be allowed to just start shouting insults at players making decisions for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Effel and his crew are supposed to be the grown-ups in the room but sound as if, again, they are not acting that way.

No. In this day and age there is a consequence for your actions on the internet and social media. If you run your mouth, expect to be chirped back at, if you want the "ship it holla balla" follow me online poker celeb status and "bad boy" is your brand, you can't cry when you get chirped whether you have 5bb or 100bb. You have now opened yourself up to having to master how to handle a rowdy crowd. But, I would agree that the rowdy crowd should not get to be five feet away from you. That's a little too up close and personal. Also, the floor should not be calling you an ******* either, if that happened that was also unprofessional.

Someone's social media persona is irrelevant.

There should be some kind of written (or unwritten) standard of behaviour from the rail. Lots of cheering, congratulating and celebrating is fine after a hand is complete, and to a lesser extent during a hand if all players in the hand cards have already been turned face up.

But if railers are actively damaging the integrity of the game by deliberately needling, berating or distracting a specific player or players during hands or persistently in between hands then they are being an unfair outside influence on the game.

I respect Luke for taking a stand and for those such as the OP that are backing him up.

Unfortunately most of the poker industry is to this day still run like the ol' Wild West, with very little proper regulation or recognised governing bodies so boycotting an organisation or complaining about them as an individual or as a small group is likely to have no effect on them and in fact will probbaly serve to if anything harden their stance.

Poker operators under all banners and brands are still to all intents and purposes running gambling dens of iniquity and with this the poker playing environment is inhabited by a not insignificant proportion of people, players and officials alike, who shall we say are not the best all around people in society.

Consequently in live poker one should expect to have to deal with all kinds of cr@p from many poker players, organisations and administrators that you would rarely come across in most other organised activities.

I'm sure Luke Vraebel is as aware of this as the next man, but it's also understandable that when he was confronted out of the blue with some unacceptable and unfair rail behaviour in such a massive ICM tournament situation for him that it caught him off guard.

If he'd had say 50+ BBs then it would have been much easier for him to stay totally tight lipped and shut the rail up by busting the player(s) they were supporting but with only shove/fold chips I can empathise with him that him requesting at least a reasonable amount of quiet was super important to him as being able to study his opponents' every tiny physical, emotional and verbal move was crucial when his next play would likely have an immediate ICM value swing of ~$100K to $150K for him.

Bricks and mortar poker floors favour the known/famous/reg players in virtually all venues, and it is wrong IMO wherever it happens, but at such a prestigious event as the official World Championship of poker, one would hope that all players playing in this great and iconic event would be treated evenly.

I also hope that Luke Vraebel and Jack Eiffel can make this up between them privately through correspondence so that Luke can play in the WSOP again and so that the WSOP themselves can make some small adjustments to improve the playing experience for all players.

I have never met Luke but from what I know he very much wears his heart on his sleeve, can be a hot head at times, but is also a nice person at the same time. Hopefully the WSOP will recognise this and shake hands with him so that he and the official can make up on all sides. It is probably also not always easy for officials to act perfectly in every situation but it would be easy for an official to offer an olive branch to a player who perhaps was on the wrong side of a situation or a ruling.

It's just a game folks, so not good when anyone walks away feeling unhappy or wronged.

I might have been a little more concerned for Luke after reading his post, but instead i just spent 20 minutes trying to find pictures of Matt Afflecks girlfriend.

Couldn't have happened to a better person.