I'll just leave this here for you to decide if he is scum or not. Several notable figures in the Albertan poker community have exposed Shak for the amoral, gutless scumbag that he is. He has also scammed several notable figures in other communities such as online and even European poker communities. I want the word to spread that Shak is vermin and needs to be scrutinized for his shameless practices.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/780P...6110927626766/

Kids an *******, every single dealing I have had with him he is just a complete dickbag, then he acts like a super nice guy if you are a named player trying to get himself cred so he can ride up the ladder to start taking advantage of people. He also heavily abuses the dealers and has been banned from local Calgary casinos many times for his behavior. Whenever he walks into a room the staff can't wait for him to gtfo.

He also got booted away from the reddit poker scene a couple years back due to scamming multiple people on there.

Stay away, far far away.

Thanks for the heads up! Almost made a deal to send this guy some BTC.

con artist (noun, informal)

The perpetrator of a confidence trick (or "con trick") is often referred to as a confidence (or "con") man, con-artist, or a "grifter".


anyways, besides the sad stories about scammed ppl, it seems that Galfonds Op-Ed really helped!

He came to wpt montreal and semi scammed
Me for a swap that I didn't think we did for 2 bullets. He then named a bunch of big named poker players that "he knew" and told me he would give me cdn for online. He tried convincing me to float him multiple times which I never do even to close friends. Told him either put money into my bank account or I'm not giving u ****. He then put 30k cdn into my bank account and I shipped him stars cash. What I didn't realize is that he had put in a check and after I sent him the cash it bounced. I msged him and got other ppl from mtl to msg him angrily and he took 2 weeks to pay me back after I threatnened to out him on 2+2 and or even fly to Calgary to find him. Once we were square he gave me a 10% "freeroll" of everything he played at ept Dublin which totalled 6k Canadian cuz he "felt badly" for taking so long to pay me back. He never showed up. The next part isn't confirmed 100% but I'm almost sure he was cooking up other scams asking me if I wanted action of his friends, saying to ship him the money for their action and he would sort me out later...he also confirmed buying action from a few ppl I know that are in Dublin for ept and never sent the money pre mtt, so was essentially free rolling them... Obv I was done doing business with him and told him to **** off.... Def a huge scammer ... Stay very clear

I'm beyond embarrassed but I fell for the exact same scam cswidler posted. On Tuesday morning Shak approached me for a money transfer on 'Stars. I asked that he deposits into my account first. He told me that he would send me a bank draft. This was done in 3 installments and he showed me 3 receipts showing deposits into my bank account #. I checked my online banking balance and it showed the amount he had sent on hold, which it typically is and I sent him the corresponding funds on 'Stars. I currently have $34,700 CAD not cleared in my account that will undoubtedly bounce soon.

Just hours after our transaction he was outed in the OP's link and stories began to flood in with the tactics he has used. I am now of the belief that he may have no money of his own and that he is perpetually afloat off of loans. Reports are just beginning to pile in but I think he's north of $300K in quantum.

It is my hope that the poker community comes forward more quickly in these cases. It's a misnomer that posting about it will halt you getting repaid. How are you to know you weren't just repaid with someone elses money?...

You should have googled his name before doing any business with him..... A simple search would have turned up this from over a year ago :

http://www.reddit.com/r/poker/commen...lert_trueshak/

so sad

tried to scam me.

real lucky to be friends with some players who are alot richer/better than me.

he promptly repaid me (likely because its a smart investment if he wants to scam people with more money)

How does anybody fall for this??? Good on calling him out though. I'll be in Calgary soon and hopefully will meet the guy for a nice chat.

wow just read the facebook posts what a POS this kid is, he is complete scum!!!

This isn't the same guy who created D2JSP is it?

I'm one of the people who posted who Shak owes money to. He owes me $1200 USD and $375 CAD from two separate transactions.

The $1200 never would've happened had I not been in Calgary for a tournament series. He asked me for $1577 CAD e-transfer for $1200 USD on 888. I knew it was for the main event that we were both playing in, and he had messaged me countless times trying to offload 888 money for stars in the past, which I had often declined. It seemed like he had a successful past year in MTTs and given that I would see him every day at the casino for the next several days, it seemed like it would be pretty bold of him to not send the money knowing he'd have to answer to me every day. Normally I always have him send first, and I'm still tilted about having a complete lapse in judgment and not having him send first here. He claimed a horse was going to send me money because he had been inactive on his 888 account lately and they wouldn't let him make transfers without playing more there. I approached him every day at the casino and he had an excuse every time as to why the money wasn't coming.

The $375 he owes was easier for him to get away with. I sold 25% of my main event action ($1500 BI) for 7.5% of his highroller ($5000 BI). I played the main first and busted on day 2 short of the money, and he did not enter the highroller.

I'm still hoping to get some money back, but as every new story gets posted it seems more and more clear that he's a pathological liar and owes much more than his assets. The amount he owes me is smaller than many in the thread, but that's my story. It's embarrassing to have a total lapse in judgment like I did with the $1200 and it's embarrassing to share the story, but it's important that word spreads fast so that no one ends up in a similar situation with this guy.

11-9-2014:

The problem with these posts/threads was that they were before he won like 500k in a 2 month span ( Sunday mill/Lapt Panama ). Gave everyone a false hope that his scamming days were over.

shak owes me ~$2100USD or 5bitcoins.

i sent first on stars around 1 hour before the OP of the facebook post was posted. I have done around 5 trades of similar or bigger size with him in the past, the biggest problem him being a few hours late to send. I thought he was pretty trusted etc.

settle up asap please shak

not you too baaf

I met shak at LAPT Peru last summer and I instinctively figured that this guy doesn't do well with bankroll management. He seemed like the guy that would either go huge in poker or go bust. That's a risky method to make it in this industry but it's his prerogative as long as it's his own money. Sad to see that he is willing to play that high variance game with other peoples money.

He's young and hopefully he will pay people back asap and learn that there's no long term future in this game for scammers.

never met him in person but have heard bad things about him for probably the last year in alberta , and on the facebook post first comment is him saying most isn`t true which is crazy considering how many people are against him

maybe this will end up with him trying to make things right, time will tell i suppose

https://gyazo.com/d6498889f6109063d16f91b5ec9aefee

He was using the funds he stole from me that morning/afternoon and probably other victims as well to pay off those debts. I was under the pretense that he was buying action and needed funds to play online.

To everyone showing a lack of empathy in this thread it's not designed to be a pity party. This is meant to educate and hopefully limit the amount of people scammed in the future. He utilized the same tactics through different poker circles. If Phil Galfond hadn't made his post on outing scammers I wonder how long this could have stayed silent and how many more victims there would be.

Don't think so

Ye, my bad just finished reading all the comments on the facebook post and what happened with you as well , definitely seems like his post was a means of hoping to stop it from blowing up more instead of a 'i want to get things right'.

He's often found playing HU PLO 2k on stars. He's an absolute whale there. Hope people get paid back

people never change, i was semi involved in unveiling shak's true nature awhile ago and urged the guy to out him on reddit. later he repaid everyone, and eventually he went on to bink the sunday milly and some other lapt, but i figured he would just be in the same position again.

degens gonna degen

pretty disgusting that none of these people ever end up facing any legal repercussions or any jail time. Scam and steal in the poker world, and it's always a freeroll..