Poker Blog and Poker Gossip

Poker players are hated for a number of reasons, but chiefly, they are hated for being successful cheats. Occasionally, a player is hated simply for their behavior at the poker table.
A poker blog recently pin-pointed Russ Hamilton as the most hated poker player and put Mason Malmuth in at second place. Josh “JJProdigy” Fields was given the third place position for the most hated poker player.
Josh “JJProdigy” Fields was listed after he enraged the entire poker gaming community with his ability to multi account while Mason Malmuth is detested for his refusal to deal with any nonsense at the two plus two forums. Russ Hamilton is hated because he cheated hapless players of millions of dollars.
Josh “JJProdigy” Fields’ poker success astounded the entire poker gaming community till people discovered that he was multi-accounting at several poker rooms with the help of a loophole and gaining several entries into the same tournaments. Although Fields was not the only player held guilty of multi accounting, his failure to apologize and his refusal to give up his dirty habit enraged other poker players. Today, almost every poker room online has banned Fields; moreover, he enrages his opponents at live poker events too. Chad Holloway of PokerNews.com recently reported that Fields was verbally abused by Alex “AJKHoosiers1” at a live poker event.
Mason Malmuth, the administrator and owner of Two Plus Two, rules the forums with an iron hand and refuses to tolerate anybody who breaks the rules. Malmuth has had zillions of altercations with other members of the poker community. He has argued over petty issues with the poker media, professional poker players, and his own employees.
Champion of the World Series of Poker 1994 and founder of the Ultimate Blackjack Tour, Russ Hamilton was found guilty of using sophisticated methods of cheating Ultimate Bet players of millions of dollars. He had to later refund nearly $22,100,000. He was banned from Ultimate Bet, but poker players continued to loathe him so much that he was politely told not to participate in WSOP 2009.

Rumors are on that Phil Hellmuth is at loggerheads with UB.com, of which he has been part of for ages, because UB.com is unwilling to pay the sponsorship he demands to continue playing on its team. Mike Johnson of Pokercast.tv says in a thread he started in poker forum 2+2 that Phil Hellmuth has not worn the UB.com logo for several weeks.

Several poker experts feel that Hellmuth’s claim of being the world’s best player is something only he can believe. In spite of his conceited nature, Hellmuth is still among the most popular poker players in the world, which gives him a huge value in the online poker gaming industry.

Poker enthusiasts discussed the fate of Hellmuth after parting with UB.com in the popular 2+2 thread started by Mike Johnson. Many feel that Hellmuth might be accepted by Full Tilt Poker or PokerStars, while simultaneously wondering how Hellmuth would like sharing the poker limelight with the professional poker players who already form part of Team Full Tilt Poker and Team PokerStars.

Others feel that the best choice for Hellmuth is PartyPoker, provided it gets back to the US market because Hellmuth can be number one only at PartyPoker, which does not have a number one in its team. Poker fans also speculate that Hellmuth might establish a poker room of his own although few European players would want to sign up at the poker site of a person who once called European poker players “idiots from Northern Europe.” However, one can know what Hellmuth intends to do after parting ways with UB.com only after UB.com confirms his departure.

Some poker enthusiasts would like to bet that Hellmuth will retire from professional poker or integrate into Party Gaming as the brand is making all preparations to enter US the following year.

The Two Plus Two Poker Forum has a lot to say about poker pro Phil Ivey this week and none of it involves poker. According to reports on the form, Ivey apparently threw quite the tantrum at the craps table at the Las Vegas Wynn casino. He also threatened to never return to the casino and walked off.

Several posters at the Two Plus Two Poker Forum have commented on the issue and many players have claimed seeing him play there. For instance, a poster ‘Check Check Lay’ claims to have spotted Phil Ivey at a craps table in the casino. The poster also reported that Ivey and the floor supervisor the got into a heated altercation over a craps ruling that over just would not agree to.
Check Check Lay reports: “Apparently, the dice rested on the back wall and was called against Ivey. He proceded to yell that hes been playing dice for a long time and has never seen anything that ridiculous. He drops a few F Bombs and strengthens his argument by saying he will never play there ever again. He closes by looking at the supervisor and says “If you see me playing dice here again I’ll Suck your D$@K” then points to another supervisor and says “Your’s too”.

Although, not everyone believes that Ivey would say something like this over a craps ruling, other posters claim to have seen Iveyas well. Josecuervos stated that “it was around 11:00, he (Ivey) was wearing dark sweatpants, black jacket and black designer sneakers.”

Adam W, yet another poster at the forum was also at the venue and stated that he had seen the incident. “I got to play with him for about an hour and we had a huge roll netting him over 3 mill plus!! He was drunk and cool and having a blast high fiving me and others,” he said.

In her autobiography titled “My Life in Pictures”, Jerry Hall claimed that her ex-husband Mick Jagger, the noted singer of the Rolling Stones was a poker addict.

Her autobiography has only been on the shelves for a while now, but has already stirred up quite a bit of controversy. This is because the once model and wife of star singer Jagger makes strong statements saying that her husband of many years and the father of her four children was addicted to both a poker and women. Jerry Hall, who got involved with Jagger in 1977 is noted as being very open about her feelings and opinions for and about her ex-husband in her book “My Life in Pictures.”

The book discusses Jagger’s long addiction with gambling and poker in particular. Hall discusses her ex-husband’s strong inclination to play poker and how it contributed to the end of his marriage. Hall also brings out her feelings on Jagger’s womanizing ways which she states brought their relationship to its end in1999. Hall also claims that Jagger’s poker addiction almost destroyed the singer’s life and that of his family.
“Although I loved him and he wore undying love for me, I felt very unsure of him. I had weaned him off drugs, but they had been replaced by sex,” she said.

Hall writes of how Jagger’s desire to play poker spun out of control when he began to sell things and make huge gambles. Reportedly, Jagger had wagered the family residence and the farm in his poker games, which he ended up losing. However, Jagger did not remain unaffected by this and was struck by his conscience for his gambling ways, at which point the star attempted suicide.

“He succeeded only in breaking almost every bone in his body and losing a kidney, leaving Mama with five children to raise, no home and a husband destined to spend a long time in hospital…“He detonated our entire existence,” wrote Hall.

Sorel Mizzi, a well known poker professional, seems to have got his name tangled up in yet another alleged poker cheating scandal. The source of this alleged plot is an IM chat between Sorel Mizzi and Steve “thorladen” Weinstein posted on the TwoPlusTwo forum, where Mizzi (if the chat is indeed his) appears to be urging Weinstein to use a sort of business software tool to cheat at multi-table tournaments.

The TwoPlusTwo forum details this chat and gives several posts on the issue as well. The idea of the supposed Mizzi scam is to use software to link computers via remote access and create multiple accounts. In the chat, Mizzi appears to suggest the use of a tool which he describes as “revolutionizes teaching/ghosting in poker (and) can also be used for multi-accounting,” to break the terms and conditions on online gaming sites. Mizzi also allegedly suggests involving other poker players like Chris Dombrowski and Aditya Agarwal in the scam.

According to the chat, Mizzi then goes on to explain how to use the tool. “Now there’s more than 1 way we can profit from this program…the most obvious is just watching and taking over for your stakes when they’re deep in a tournament. The beauty of it is ur not logging in from another IP, all you’re doing is controlling their mouse and keyboard and they can take it over again right away with the click of a mouse.”

Weinstein who seems to be uninformed about this makes this response: “while im certainly interested in whatever u thinking, if u want me in, but obviously I have to know who knows cuz I cant get busted… I have a lot of money online.”

The thread has spiked rumors about Sorel Mizzi and a cheating scandal, which led Mizzi to come right out and defend himself by posting a long reply in the same thread.

Mizzi also known as “Imper1um” claims that the chat is a fabrication of old conversations he has had. “The conversation in question contains bits and pieces of information from several conversations I’ve had with Thorladen and others over the course of about a year.” He also claimed that he had once been blackmailed by an extortionist who threatened to release the chat, which he did not take seriously.

After Daniel Negreanu called Annie Duke a “F**king C**t” in an interview, there has been a lot of backlash for Negreanu and support for Ms. Duke. The incident has been discussed by several poker news websites, podcasts and poker shows like This Week in Poker, all of whom agree that Negreanu had indeed overstepped the line when he used the most derogatory term and sexual reference to refer Annie Duke, a poker professional.

PokerStars however, does not seem to be taking a stand against Negreanu’s usage of the C word and made this statement: “Although Daniel Negreanu is a Team PokerStarsPro, he is an entity to himself and as such will always be encouraged to express his views and speak his mind as he would otherwise do so, PokerStars Pro or not.”

Duke took offense at PokerStars’ statement and their failing to condemn his use of the C word to refer to her and wrote them an open letter. “..This response condones its star player calling a female poker player a “f**king c**t” in public, she said.

In her letter, Duke questioned if PokerStars would have the same attitude and fail to denounce Negreanu’s behavior if Negreanu had made a derogatory racial remark against African Americans or an insulting anti-gay statement in an interview.

“This is not about his (Negreanu’s) views. It is about a particular word he chose to express those views. The word “c**t” is not an opinion, it is an abusive epithet, and PokerStars is completely ignoring the use of that term in their response,” Duke said.

PokerStars have only just created The Women’s Poker League and if the site fails to take a stand against the use of such language by one their prime endorsers, it may juts be possible that the poker community could end up thinking that the site shares Negreanu’s views on insulting women with the C word in public interviews. “PokerStars had an opportunity here to take a stand and express regret that Daniel would say such an offensive thing and failed to do so,” said Duke.

The only good thing that has come out from it is the resulting spike of publicity for both Duke and Negreanu, giving them good hits on all their sites and blogs.