Is determining one player's willful acceptance of an unfair gain from another player's willful attempt to lose to be collusion merely a technicality?

Sure, Seth Palansky did not make any poker ruling decisions or disciplinary decisions. The TD and / or people in authoritative positions did. He just spoke on their behalf (they collectively stand by what he said). And surely in saying so it was meant as universal across all WSOP sanctioned events. A pressured Jack Effel may very well come out to say 'we should have disqualified Doc Sands and Raj Amjeri'.

A poker hand is fair when each player has an equal opportunity to contest a pot while making acceptable risk/reward decisions from start to finish. Taking the hand in question - a point is reached where Sands no longer has an acceptably fair poker risk/reward decision, but instead has a decision whether to accept an unfair gain. That occurred when Amjeri deliberately revealed his hand to Sands and in doing so sent the message that he has nothing and made it clear his intent was to dump his chips. Sands was presented an offer to unfairly gain chips and he complied.

A tough spot yes. But the idea that there was nothing else he could do is blinded by poker results oriented thinking - He can't fold and forfeit his hand so he must call or raise to protect his equity, etc. Continuing to play out a hand this way and keeping it quiet is blatant disregard to fairness. Poker decision making conditions do not apply when the equity and pot size is by design created by unfairness.

Sands may have unknowingly intended to find himself in this place upon entering the pot, but his willingness to accept an unfair gain upon the revelation of it's nature and keeping it quiet makes him guilty of collusion.

If he really wasn't trying to hide it any get away with it, upon the completion of the hand (if not immediately when he learned of it), he could have stated 'I believe my opponent was trying to dump his chips to me. But I played my hand because I didn't know what else to do. This hand should be void. Here's what happened...'.

I'm calling him a cheater based on the hand alone excluding any circumstantial evidence.

If proof is needed - do you logically, rationally, and impartially believe Sands was unaware of what was happening during the hand? Common sense sufficiently serves as proof here.


Again, this of course is based on the accuracy of Barth's account.

Perhaps in a Pokercast, without insinuations, you could simply ask 'is there anyone else who witnessed this hand that could back up or deny Barth's story or any poker insider willing to step forward to speak on the matter.

Lester, any chance you could work on that JFK thing?

Didn't expect a NVG type immature response here.

I'd have settled for 'we're not interested in further pursuing the matter'.

Perhaps you subconsciously acknowledge it's too difficult a matter for you to handle and your attempt to ridicule is a defense mechanism.

Nah it's not difficult at all, I pretty much said how I feel about the whole thing during the 15 minutes we spent on it last show.

It was more of a comment on how much time you've spent thinking and writing about it for the last two weeks, but hey if that's your thing then knock yourself out I guess.

Gotcha, just a mocking comment. I'm not offended. I don't deny that I've taken to the issue with great passion and I have no shame in pressing what I feel is right.

Nice avatar. Did you have a high school crush on Erika or something?

Yes, and my life is in shambles because David Sands has her and I don't. That explains why I'm pressing for him to go down since that could be my only chance at having her and to have her is the only way to fix my ruined life. But it's David Sands' fault that I'm in this tough spot where there's nothing else I could do so I'm not doing anything wrong.

I suggest Luster Cluck as your next guest

I enjoyed this response

Sam Tricket please!

Tricky one for you.

I hate flipament lottery games on FT and now on stars. See these links - Calvin Ayre has it right - flipaments are poison to poker!

http://calvinayre.com/2013/07/31/pok...eldon-adelson/

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/2013/p...th-139924.html

Your sponsor will be promoting these farces. You need to have a view, I hope you come out as against.

I mentioned this to one A. Schwartz on Twitter a few weeks back...

As a diehard (and suffering) Canucks fan, I would love to hear you guys talk about the team (and/or hockey in general) for 10 minutes or so. Preface it so people can FF by it or whatever, but it would be great to hear some insight or just some bitching and moaning from some local fans.

Hey guys, could you please give a brief mention of the demise of ESPN in Africa? We've always been able to watch the WSOP programming on ESPN through a satellite TV provider called Multichoice. Now there is simply a message on the ESPN channel saying that ESPN has taken a "business decision" to close their channels in Africa, and that Europe and the Middle East will possibly be affected. How can we get hold of the WSOP programming now???? Will ESPN sell the content to another network?

Thanks!

Todd Anderson to discuss his new tv series poker night in America

uhm in 281 Nolan Dalla was on to talk abt this.

I don't think anyone has mentioned what I just noticed, on the iPad, with one of the recent updates to the PokerStars app, you can now listen to music in the background. That's the greatest! Huge bouquet! This needs a celebration. You could do a whole segment on what music you should be listening to while playing Zoom.

But "fold and watch" in Zoom is no longer working.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...2&postcount=19

I noticed that also on my phone.

Sent from my SGH-I747M using 2+2 Forums

im sure people have suggested him before but jared bleznick i'd love to hear from

he's harrington25 on 2p2 but doesnt post often

i dont think he has an aversion to talking so im sure discuss the multi accounting situation if he was asked. its a fascinating debate, and def not black and white

I think we should have a feature interview with Bunner. ... No seriously

Bleznick like what Ralph said, get him in get him on see what the guy has to say, get a debate going. This multi-accounting thing has to be dealt with, to do so we need to hear from the principles.

uh, youtube?

So this has definitely been mentioned before, but it was over 5 years ago, so worth mentioning again (even though it is a loooooong shot), for guests how about Matt Damon and/or Edward Norton. It would be great to hear about the experience doing Rounders and how they feel about how the movie has been immortalized by the poker community.

In a similar vein, how about Batman.... oh I mean Ben Affleck regarding the upcoming "Runner Runner" plus all his years of playing poker (not that the ball-n-chain lets him play anymore... although it's an awfully pretty ball-n-chain). Although if you're dumb enough to believe the title of this video, then perhaps he played in the Main Event as recently as 2011 (nope)

Like I said, WAY long shots, but worth a thought once every 5 years at least

IMO they have much better chances of getting on the directors/producers of those films. They'll usually happily go on a podcast to discuss films than major actors.

Building on Blair Hinkle speaking about his assessment of JB's strategy and what he (Blair) felt he had to do to counter it, I'd like to hear this line of discussion in future interviews with guests who recently had a big win. It's pretty rare to have the opportunity to hear the thought process of good players about a very timely event in their professional lives.

Yeah, that was great.