Scandals rumors and news of live poker

Long-playing conflict of Leon Tsoukernick and Matt Kirk

Back in summer this year Matt Kirk told poker community about his conflict with the owner of King’s Casino Leon Tsoukernik about the debt of $2,000,000 they’ve got after playing together in Aria on May, 27 2017. Matt filed a lawsuit but it was qualified by a judge as a “card debt with no legal force”, or - long story short - made guys figure this out himself. Certainly, the Australian wasn’t too happy about the decision so he insisted on the money back.

This month, Tsoukernik will have a strike back - with a lawsuit of $10,000,000. This is the amount he tries to sue Kirk for getting better of the situation (as Leon was very drunk and tires) and played for backers’ money without warning them - therefor his business reputation has suffered a huge loss. they actually had a deal that Tsoukernik has to pay only a million out of the lost three millions, and that seals the deal. In addition to that, Leon filed a lawsuit against Aria for getting him drunk deliberately and not preventing drunk player’s play at the tables, or even induce it towards it.

Later turned out that the deal was guaranteed by Rob Young (the owner of the British casino Dusk Till Down). According to his words, Leon took a million and gave it away as Kirk couldn’t have played for more. Moreover, Young told about his phone talk with the Australian who wanted to “destroy Tsoukernik” using this whole story.

Tsoukernik  wasn't giving too much information about this issue, but he is certain that Matt’s backer that day was Aria Casino.

In general, this “popcorn” story has more and more details with each time it comes up, and we can’t really tell how it is going to resolve. Currently it looks like a conspiracy of one of the biggest casinos in Vegas to bringing Tsoukernik and his casino down. At least, Leon want to present the story this way. As he was involved in a story like this - with the debt to Elton Tsang of three million dollars.

The main takeaway we are able to get from here is don’t drink-and-play-poker, especially in other people’s casino without having your own money with you.

 

Douglas Polk quitted drinking

The story was taken into account by Doug Polk, another fan of heavy drinking while playing expensive cash games.

In August, he was pretty drunk and managed to lose $300,000 in mere three hands.

Now Polk got himself a prohibition until the date of February, 10th. The worst thing that might happen he loses the money… well, he also could have winded up visiting “Bellagio” naked, like one man did recently.

Naked man tried to play poker in “Bellagio”

Doug was in the building at the time, and told that this character was trying to hide his nude body parts and registered to play poker. He went to the floor but security made him put the clothes on. WE can’t say you why the naked man did it.

Chris Ferguson became WSOP player of the year but Negreanu didn’t congratulate him

Except for those people who drink and get naked, one of the most hated guys in the community made the news - we are talking of Chris Ferguson. After WSOPE 2017 that took place in  Tsoukernik’s casino, Chris became WSOP Player of the Year. He was ITM 17 times in Vegas and 5 times in Czech Republic, and ended up winning a bracelet.

Being the face of FTP back in the days, he silente distanced himself of the room after schemes by the management of the room were found and got back to the highlights five years later.

Daniel Negreanu has written under the twit with congratulations to Ferguson from Phil Hellmuth:

“I am a generous man. Ferguson didn’t admit his role, nor apologized  for the harm he did in situation with FullTilt. He showed middle finger to all of us.”

Israeli rookie wins the tournament

Nadav Lipszyc from Israel, who works as a farm manager doesn’t own the casino, drink at the table, nor he was involved in shady stories with poker rooms. All he did was winning Battle of Malta Main Event with buy-in of €200,000. This is quite an ordinary fact in these circumstances, but one obstacle about it is special: he only played tournaments with buy-ins of 1-2 euros online and played at only two live tournaments - the Main Event and the satellite to it in his mother town. He won both tournaments.

Besides, after his win he told journalists lots of interesting stuff about him and his game:

“I believe Daniel Negreanu entered my body and played for me. I cannot believe I performed like that. all I did was following my instincts. I don’t read any books on poker, nor I study the game. I came to the tournament with empty pockets. I didn’t have enough money to have a breakfast even”.

After interviews like this one, all the attempts to present poker as a game of skill start to seem useless.

Tax service of Israel try to take winnings from players using tracking websites data

However, Nadav may have big problems with local tax services. They are described in the article of Ela Levi-Weinrib published in Israeli business edition Globes. According to the material, fiscal service workers got closely acquainted with poker websites - The Hendon Mob, PocketFives and HighStakesDatabase (HSDB). Based on their data, local players are required to pay taxes, disregarding the fact he lost some before or played on backers’ money. Fiscal workers make it look like this is going to be a 50%  tax rate!

As an example, we could list a story of a player. He played in merit Casino on Cyprus. The organizers made an agreement with him. In order to support an expensive tournament with the buy-in. The organisers of the tournament made an oral agreement with him. To support еру tournament with $25,000 buy-in, they paid for his participation on condition he would take 10% of the possible win after paying out buy-in and taxes. He won $250,000 but got back home with $1,500.