Any evidence?

Leah is admitting that he demanded as a condition of the deal that his opponent deliberate dump POY points to him. This is obvious collusion against everyone else in the POY race. He traded equity in the tournament to his opponent in exchange for equity in the POY race.

As I have stated before, I don't care how people distribute money amongst themselves in a tournament. But you shouldn't be allowed to collude over who wins a title when winning that title has meaningful equity impact on other players. And anyone who colludes to dump POY points should be disqualified from POY contention.

lots of lolz

#FreeMike

Do you want to implement a rule that forces people "to play to the best of their abilities" heads-up or post chop in tournaments?

I don't argue that it's kinda sh***y for things like a POY race, but you can't make players want to win or even keep playing.

FWIW, most times it's pretty obvious if players chopped HU or even earlier. Not by checking if HHs look weird or not, but by seeing how much time the hands take. If the average duration of a hand HU magically drops from 5 minutes to 1minute, something might have happend between the players..

POTD

Those who can't.....bribe.

if you want a say in what players do in a tournament, then put up the money. Until then, go home and cry, cheapskate. WPT seems to understand this.

I'd love to know the deal specifics, what their own ICM analysis determined.

Was Ryan given more than the stated 1st place money? If less than stated 1st place money, how much less?

Did Mike take less than stated 2nd place money? If more than stated 2nd place money, how much more?

What kind of deal would it take to convince a 2.3:1 chip leader to throw a title to your opponent?

I'd sure like to know specifics other than "we used ICM".

The money clearly meant nothing. I don’t know why people are questioning that.
Leah obviously felt this amazing record of winning 4 titles in 5 years surpasses all monetary value.
Fact is, he’s made himself look like a bit of plum and has taken poker back yet another step from ever being a legitimate sport (which it was never going to be)

If this happened in soccer, cricket or even hand egg, there would be a threat of jail time.

Imagine if there was a book open on that event. Look at how match fixing is treated in proper sports.

A couple of pubic hairs and a bloodstain.

Seriously, what sort of evidence are you expecting?
This isn’t a court of law. This is the court of public opinion. He’s admitted one offence already.
Once again, a poker player who had a great reputation has managed to blow it apart. Dick.

Mike stated in interviews how badly he wanted to win a WPT Title and how much it would mean to him.

Only question I have is by starting off with a 2.3:1 chip deficit and basically agreeing to a chip dump for the title, how can that possibly be fulfilling to him?

Wouldn't Mike rather actually win the title than get it through a chip dump agreement from a 2.3:1 deficit?

Can he really feel fulfilled like he "won" the title after a 2.3:1 deficit chip dump?

Does the WPT allow a chop that awards more money to one guy but the title to the other guy?
Even if they just finish and play for 1$ and the title, the title has value as an entry into the Champions event, among other things. So these guys probably agreed on a monetary value of the title, factored that into the chop, but are forced to continue a charade since there is no way WPT could say “Rue won 450k but Leah gets 400k and the title”

Thanks for making me do a google search, Limey

Robert,

The players can do whatever they want. As far as the WPT is concerned there was no chop.

Yeah I can't understand why you would want to win in this manner. It makes no sense to me. Definitely not something to be proud of.

I’ve read mikes response and it’s truly sad how delusional he is.

Basically he is trying to justify what he did.

If the title meant so much to him he should have played for it. I don’t know why you would want to win a title in that manner anyways.

As for deals. I think they are fine as long as they are done properly within the rules and the trophy is played for. (Like the recent Aussie millions main event) not chip dumping and throwing the match etc

It’s quite ironic that he wanted the title so bad but now basically eveything he has accomplished in the game is going to questionned and he will always be remembered for the wrong reasons.

If this happened in other sport/game he would be banned for a certain time and face jail time.

In the end it’s another blight on the game.

Thanks for playing, champ. Way to start off building a good reputation:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/2...t-you-1704214/

I still believe that since ...

1) Heads Up ("There was no collusion, No collusion" DJT )

2) MTTs are player funded and nothing like any other sport or sporting event that has been mentioned above.

3) WPT Final table was NOT being taped (if being taped, the way they handled the chop would have caused serious damage to WPT and Fallsview who both would have invested ALOT of money in production costs )


... they had every right to do anything they wanted with the prize pool, title, TOC seat and anything else. They also obviously felt they had this right given they were fully transparent.

Deals are agreed upon in MTTs everyday and everywhere that impact the eventual winner. Does anyone honestly believe this is the first time a final table deal has impacted POY boards for WPT, WSOP, WSOPc ? Whether you think this is right or wrong, you'd have to agree it is currently part of the game and normalized.

p.s. Entertaining write up on all of this

https://calvinayre.com/2018/02/15/poker/no-wpt-tragedy-king-leah-just-deals-chip-dumps-drama/

I don’t think anybody has a problem with the deal from the money point of view.

The issue is they didn’t play for the title. Whenever there is a deal facilitated by the organisers they always take an amount of the prizepool to play for.

Imagine some 50th ranked player is leading Federer 2 sets to 1 in a grand slam final. Then at the change of ends he says “hey Roger, you give me 1st place money and I’ll throw the match”

Then he proceeds to hit every ball into the net.

I understand it’s not exactly the same thing (tv ratings, spectators) etc but we are going down a slippery slope when people throw matches/comps.

Mike didn’t win this title. It was handed to him. He is a fraud!

As I posted on Facebook, the ICM equities would be:
$419,418 - Ryan
$352,820 - Mike.

Each time someone uses an example from a professional sport as an analogy to MTT then a little baby rabbit in a forest dies a horrible death.

Don't kill little baby rabbits.

If the PPT had not folded and we had sponsored pros playing in MTTs with sponsored prize pool then yeah. PPT didn't even last a year.

#FreeMike

If the people who think this is so bad are right, WPT is done right? Nobody would ever play one again because "OH MY GAWWWWD ZE TITEL IS WORTHLESS", correct? Since players put up their own money and aren't sponsored (except for Daniel Negreanu) they can let them know how bad this is by not putting up their money.

How do we all think the market is going to judge this? Are people going to unite and bring an end to THIS MADNESS or will numbers not even drop 0,1%?

By the way there is a distinction between thinking this is ok and not giving a damn. Do I think this is 100% ok? No. Do I care? Not one bit.

lol

So they make exact ICM deal, Ryan has 2:1 chiplead but also gives away the title for free?

Come on, nobody believes this. That doesn´t make zero sense at all!

It does, because he didn't give one flying **** about that title.

Mate of mine who has been at a couple of LAPT FTs (Stars events) said that when talk of a chop comes up, the staff will let the N players left know that if any modifications are done to prizepool at that point (or a chop occurs) then each player will get the "POY" points for Nth place. Was suggested up thread and probably a good idea for other leaderboards

Didn't think of that until you commented on it. Wonder how PokerShares would handle such a case!