The World Series of Poker is investigating the winner and runner-up in its $1,500 Millionaire Maker event that concluded on Wednesday in Las Vegas.
Going into heads-up play at Wednesday night’s final table of bracelet Event 53, James Carroll commandingly led Jesse Yaginuma with a 9-1 chip lead. Yaginuma completed the comeback to win the event, taking home $1.26 million. Carroll earned $1 million for second place.
A comeback of that kind isn’t out of the question, but the manner in which the chips exchanged hands raised questions. Many of the hands won by Yaginuma came in the form of raises or reraises that were continually not contested by Carroll. Viewers of the event’s livestream, including a number of professional poker players, began to speculate that Carroll was chip dumping to Yaginuma – intentionally losing hands to build up his opponent’s stack – so that the two could split some portion of the prize money. Unlike many other poker tournament series around the world where players can negotiate a deal between themselves, it is against the WSOP official rules to act in this manner.
Fueling the speculation was an independent promotion run by online poker service ClubWPT Gold, which entailed that players could cash in previously awarded tickets for an additional $1 million if they won a qualifying WSOP event. Yaginuma held one of those tickets by virtue of a contest he previously won, while Carroll did not.
They allegedly made a deal heads up. WSOP defines collusion as two or more parties conspiring to put other players at a disadvantage. There were no other players, thus no illegal collusion. The only people affected were spectators who bet on the outcome or prefer MMA to pro wrestling.
How exactly do you count or what you consider is two players?
I’m not in the cheating camp in this controversy. Given they were both on the final table with Lipstick cameras, no one would be that stupid. But then again, splitting $1 million can make people real stupid,
Of COURSE they were partners 2 get that extra $1,000,000.00 extra money…Now-no OTHER players were hurt and only a VERY rich company lost 1 million…Me, i could NEVER do anything like that as i took pride in playing sports (when younger) without cheating and in poker…i think they just should get a fine and short suspension…yep, i watched them play heads up and it was VERY oblivious they colluded…
This is simple math, Mr Troll. They were head to head at the final table. The bonus applied to only one of them. Every other player was already eliminated. Any agreement they allegedly reached was between them and them only.
What’s with the Mr Troll comment?
I was questioning your conclusion.
Regarding the definition of collusion, you defined it in your post and then you immediately contradict yourself like you’re ignoring it for some reason.
I don’t know if you’re a soccer fan, but a player can get a yellow card for accumulative fouls. You are constantly nitpicking at people’s arguments (not just mine) so yeah, Mr Troll.
As for ignoring the definition, did you see where I used the term illegal collusion? For it to be illegal, they have to be acting in concert against other players, of which there were none. So it wasn’t illegal by the written definition.
They couldn’t get the Extra 1M if James Carroll won first place, there was a promotion that only applied to Jesse Yaginuma that if he wins first place, he gets an additional 1M$ on top of the first place prize, if James Caroll, won it, they would only get the prize money (no extra Mil)
I have not watched the play, but this stood out to me
My 2 cents:
If this was a sports game and one participant, be it a team or otherwise, stood to win a significant Bonus prize and the other didnt. Then, during the match this particular team was losing badly, but was apparently handed the win by the other participant who had nothing to lose, except their name on a trophy,
Well, that would be suspicious, to me at least.
To put it into Replay context, and this has happened:
A player at the Heads Up stage of a Tournament says ‘Hey, I need the win to move up a few spots in the Leaderboard and get an extra million. Why dont we share those extra chips?’
Im not saying this took place in this live game, but, what if?
Oh, it’s almost certainly exactly what took place, the difference being they’re not dropping anyone else down the leaderboard.
Deals at final tables are extremely common, they just had to have the pretense of actually playing in this case because of the million coming from a third party.
My understanding is WPT don’t care, and why should they. The promotion is clearly for publicity, not to make some lucky player rich, and this will have been more publicity than they could have dreamed of.
(1) This is a Forum to express ideas through POLITE conversations. You have expressed your ideas, and I disagreed with parts of it and expressed mine. I don’t ever see a need to start calling another person names because of it.
Apparently, you think it’s always acceptable. As far as your sports reference goes you obviously have never understood what good sportsmanship means in and outside of sports.
(2) You need to understand the real meaning of collusion
You told Napkin_Holder that maybe we needed to track things but your memory was fine. If you don’t think that telling people you’re somehow better than they are opens the door to more personal banter, think again. Still, if you like, you can come back with the old playground rhyme, “I’m rubber, you’re glue…” I won’t be upset.
As for collusion, players chop up prize money all the time at casinos as long as everyone still involved agrees. That is collusion, but not the illegal kind. These two players did essentially the same thing (allegedly).
Exactly—i would be embarrassed 2 win a bracelet i did not deserve-----i guess everyone is different, money does not mean a lot 2 me-some ppl. it means EVERYTHING ( my older brother ). i could not sleep knowing i won that way:(.
