Personally I have such high morals that I don't care if they're good for tv or not... Ban everyone equally who has a felony? /level

Bakes, MJ's "up in arms" comment aside, how do you feel about the EPL's decision?

Do you understand those in this thread who believe that they are applying different ethical standards to pros?

Do you believe that he should have been compensated fully for his seat, even if he was excluded from playing the ME?

They didn't have to pay ANY more money that they should have. All they had to do was pay Devita his 20K and tell him he is NOT welcome to play in the Main Event. period. How difficult is that for you to comprehend? It is the prize he won legitimately. He didn't cheat to win it. if the EPL decides that his past behavior is unacceptable for him to particiapte in the MAIN EVENT, that's a different story...as opposed to retroactively saying that he should not have even played in the satellite that is open to EVERYONE, including criminally convicted.

If you want to argue that I'm just as bad as Men the Master, you're entitled to that opinion. I don't chastise anyone that doesn't trust me. It's a perfectly reasonable viewpoint to not trust me.

That being said, I haven't done anything unethical in poker in many years, and can assure you the EPL does not have to worry about me doing anything. Of course no one has to take my word for that, and they are within their rights to exclude me if they like.

By the way, how does the league and Annie feel about Matusow's situation? is the league going to decide what is or is not a big enough criminal offense that has happened in the PAST? How do you guys feel about the league playing the role of the prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner without due process?

But they didn't exclude you.

Or Matesow.

Or Men the Master.

Or anyone else with a dubious past.

But they did exclude this guy (and see the above poster who dug up the statement that past behavior was not going to be a reason for exclusion).

But you call me to task for using the word hypocrisy?

I don't understand why you can't see how this is a blatant double standard. And then to top it off they essentially steal his prize; no one can point to anything that conclusively demonstrates he did or should have known that he wouldn't be allowed to play.

Their satellite promised 9 entries into the EPL. 20k in cash does not count as a seat. What you are suggesting is illegal. If it were legal, I would consider it ok. We're not disagreeing on principle here. We're disagreeing on logistics.

conveniently ignored this too?

Not to mention the last Pro-Am satellite had no extra money to win and plenty of overlay. To make matters worse they filmed that final table which lasted 45 minutes and essentially consisted of play money chips. From what I remember hearing, at some point one of players called off his chips in a three way pot with T2o. If they decide to televise it they're making a mockery out of poker and surely confusing the unaware viewer into thinking that top professionals would play a final table in that manner. I don't see how the EPL can portray the correct image by making the decisions concerning player eligibility that they have and televising meaningless FTs.

You have to argue that someone in the league has done something worse than rape a young boy to argue hypocrisy here. Otherwise they drew their line, and you're just disagreeing with where they drew it.

Or you can argue the CoC should be clearer, but that has nothing to do with hypocrisy.

Wow...that makes no sense whatsoever. Don't they have to PAY the casino or an EPL entity 20K to REGISTER the players who won a seat? The 20K doesn't come out of thin air. Of course it is legal to pay him 20K. This is now getting to be an absurd defense.

I am not saying that this post is wrong. But can you explain why that would be illegal? I honestly don't know.

Right. An EPL representative clearly stated in an interview that they wouldn't discipline him for his pre-league conduct. If he read this, why would he ever think that he would have the seat taken away from him, or not be allowed to play?

AGAIN, have they run a background check on EVERY player? did the players consent to this?

I never implied they are required to run a background check on anyone.

I hope this gets addressed

Not paying someone the prize they earned isn't illegal but paying that person in lieu of the prize and then not giving the prize to someone else is illegal? That fits your definition of illegal, I'm not sure why anyone else should respect that until you can demonstrate that it's the case.

And re. the $20K, yes if EPL decides now that they want to take the prize off someone, one way to deal with that is they end up wearing an extra $20K cost - but that's the price they pay for making that decision, it's not like it's a $20K problem that arrived out of nowhere that they have nothing to do with.

As I see it, these were their options:

1. Decide they have a problem with sex offenders and screen for them. Refuse Devito in the first place and don't accept his $1500 entry fee.

2. Take his $1500 and award him his $20K entry to play, which is at least consistent with their approach to other criminals, degens and cheats.

3. Discover he's a sex offender, decide they have a problem with this kind of ex-criminal (not other dubious types) and pay him the $20K he won and say to the 10th guy (assuming he even has a problem with this), 'we have paid Devito $20K in lieu of the 9th place...we awarded 9 places but he voluntarily sold the 9th place back to us'. According to you this is 'highly illegal', but I've yet to see a valid legal opinion on why this is 'highly illegal' but just taking Devito's prize is not.

4. Discover he's a sex offender, decide they have a problem with this kind of ex-criminal (not other dubious types) and pay him the $20K he won and say to the 10th guy (assuming he even has a problem with this), 'we have paid Devito $20K in lieu of the 9th place...we awarded 9 places but he voluntarily sold the 9th place back to us'. Additionally offer 10th place guy his $1500 back, same deal as Devito, because this deal is perfectly fair and reasonable according to you, when someone actually won the prize, let alone when they didn't win it...

5. Discover he's a sex offender, decide they have a problem with this kind of ex-criminal (not other dubious types) and pay him the $20K he won and give 10th place guy the place. They are out $20K because they decided to go this way.

6. Stiff Devito, because he's a sex offender.

So they have a ton of options, but strangely they went with option 6. Literally every other choice would sit better with me.

but you implied in your prior post that no other player has done anything worse than raping a kid.... how can you or EPL be sure if they havent' run a background check on all the players?

Link doesn't work, but I would assume you are taking this out of context, I.e he's talking about the Chino decision specifically.

If it were written anywhere official that pre-league conduct would be ignored in all circumstances, I would agree he should get to play.

But they didn't tell him or anybody where the line was drawn BEFORE the event! There's even a statement out there that past problems wouldn't be used as a basis for punishment!

You can't pass a law then retroactively punish someone for violating it. Their CoC and other statements in no way lead an objective observer to think this guy KNEW he would be excluded on the basis of his previous felony conviction.

I think at this point you're just being deliberately stubborn. Or you were paid to espouse this ridiculous line of defense. Either way, they don't have a leg to stand on.

They have different standards for different players and justify it by having an ambiguous CoC, backtrack on their own public statements that past behavior isn't grounds for punishment, steal from a player, and their ethical standards are a sham. Fun league.

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2011/0...tion-10880.htm

The tournament promised 9 seats. A seat is worth more than $20,000, because $20,000 is not enough to enter the tournament. In other words, the invitation has value.

By not providing 9 invitations, each accompanied with the $20,000 entry, they are shorting the prize pool. This would be illegal.

that's exactly what I asked earlier, It's different apparently

Before reading the interview with Pokernews I thought that the guy deserved the 20k but they were in their rights to refuse him to play in the league... Now it just seems like they had to let him even play the event. He got convicted 20 years ago so that should not matters. Maybe he harassed some woman 2 months ago at a poker table, so what? 2 months ago Chino Rheem was running around scamming people for huge sums of money and for me thats quite a big offense.

Anyway the EPC and Annie Duke managed to lost a lot of the small amount of respect the community had for them in just 2 events. Thanks for Mike, SGT RJ and all the others for expressing their (and my) thoughts in a clearer way than me.

Who was the 10th place finisher?