As the confetti is swept up from the New Year’s Eve celebrations, there are still some things to look back at from the past year. Something that always provides a bit of excitement around the poker world is the gossip that sometimes pops up; it can either run for a couple of days or throughout the year, but it is always a source of entertainment.
In January, Daniel Negreanu withdrew from the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championships. In an emotional video blog, he explained the reasons for his withdrawal, stating that he had made commitments to friends that he felt were more important than a poker tournament. That newfound balance in his professional and personal life seemed to work well for Negreanu as he went on to have one of his finest seasons as a poker pro, including winning two of the three major Player of the Year awards.
In February, the tournament poker world was rocked with scandal when a French reporter introduced allegations that two men, Jean-Paul Pasqualini and Cedric Rossi, allegedly relayed card information to each other during the 2009 Partouche Poker Main Event final table. Video of the event showed the two men using rudimentary hand signals that were good enough to allow them to finish 1-2 in the tournament. As a result of these allegations, the Global Poker Index suspended the two players from their international and French rankings.
February also brought the passing of a true friend of the poker world, Los Angeles Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss, following a long battle against cancer. Buss was an active poker player throughout his life, earning over $172,000 in tournaments and untold amounts in cash games. It wasn’t the money that made the difference to Buss, rather it was the love of the game of poker and the people he would meet at the tables. Both the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker honored Buss following his passing with special memorials during their events.
In March, two of poker’s former World Champions were under the spotlight, but not for good reasons. 2007 WSOP Championship Event winner Jerry Yang, facing hundreds of thousands in back taxes, saw his bracelet from that win seized by the Internal Revenue Service and auctioned off to pay said taxes. 2004 WSOP Championship Event winner Greg Raymer also ran afoul of authorities when he was swept up in a prostitution sting in North Carolina; in October, those charges were dropped after Raymer completed 75 hours of community service.
April brought a stunning admission of guilt in one of online poker’s biggest scandals. Former Full Tilt Poker executive Ray Bitar, citing health issues that might require him to have a heart transplant, pled guilty to felony charges in federal court. Exactly two years to the day following the “Black Friday” indictments, the plea deal was made because Bitar had Class IV heart failure, a condition that physicians stated would be terminal within 6-12 months without said transplant. Judge Loretta Preska accepted the plea deal and the sentencing agreements and Bitar left a free man, although everything he owned was taken from him as a part of the agreement.
April also brought the indictments of 34 people in what prosecutors called the “biggest international gambling ring” in history. Poker professionals such as Vadim Trincher, Bill Edler, Peter Feldman, Justin Smith and Abe Mosseri were indicted in the case, alongside art dealer Helly Nahmad, poker “arranger” Molly Bloom and international criminal mastermind Alimzhan Tokhakhounov. By the end of the year, Smith, Trincher, Nahmad and Bloom (among others) had reached plea deals in their cases.
May brought more gossip for the poker world to chew on. The April bombing at the Boston Marathon had WSOP officials considering security measures for the upcoming festivities in Las Vegas, including the banning or searching of backpacks and players as they entered the floor (the summertime event went off without a hitch). Audiotapes surfaced from the major players in the Ultimate Bet “Superuser” scandal that revealed a conspiracy by those in charge, including Russ Hamilton, Greg Pierson, Paul Leggett, Jim Ryan and others, to mitigate the damage. The former “faces” of Ultimate Bet, Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke, released statements indicating they had no idea of the depth of the conspiracy.
May wasn’t a good month for Phil Ivey and former World Champion Jamie Gold, either. Ivey brought a lawsuit against Crockfords, a popular London casino, for failure to pay him his £7.3 million punto banco winnings; as 2013 closed, the case was still ongoing. Gold, for reasons that weren’t given, also auctioned off his 2006 WSOP Championship Event bracelet, getting slightly more than $65,000 in August.
In June, Las Vegas Sands Corporation CEO Sheldon Adelson launched his war against online gaming. In an op/ed at Forbes.com, Adelson ripped online gaming and poker as a “plague” on society and his determination to see a federal ban on the activity. This would bring about a “boycott” of the Sands’ property in Las Vegas, the Venetian, which was marginally successful. Undaunted, Adelson would go on to create an anti-online gaming lobbying group, which voiced their opinion as part of Congressional hearings in December.
July brought closure to one of poker’s more shocking events. The 2011 Christmastime robbery of former World Champion Jonathan Duhamel dragged on into 2013, coming to a close when Duhamel’s ex-girlfriend, Bianca Rojas-Latraverse, was sentenced to 42 months in jail. Rojas-Latraverse, who had been in jail since her January 2012 arrest, is still in a Canadian jail at this time serving the rest of her sentence.
The courts were once again the scene in September for poker. In a case that dated back to 2011, three men were sentenced for their roles in a French cheating scandal. Using special contact lenses and marked cards, the three men took down over €90,000 before they were caught. They were sentenced to a total of eight years in prison between them and €250,000 in fines. In the United States, gambler Archie Karras was arrested at his home in Las Vegas for marking cards in a California card room; that case is still ongoing.
October brought the announcement from two poker pros that they would enter the political arena. Former WSOP Player of the Year Frank Kassela announced that he would run for the House of Representatives 3rd District seat in Nevada. Only a few weeks later, however, Kassela would withdraw his candidacy citing the time commitment to running for office. In Europe, poker pro Antanas “Tony G” Guoga stated that he was running for a seat on the European Union Parliament representing Lithuania; those elections are set for May 2014.
In November, cancer claimed another of poker’s “good guys.” East Coast pro Mike “Little Man” Sica passed away at the age of 69 after being diagnosed with the disease earlier in the year. His passing brought an outpouring of emotion from poker’s “old guard” as well as its “young guns” in remembering Sica’s life and his effect on them.
As the year came to a close, another poker professional saw his online sponsorship fall away. Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan and Full Tilt Poker parted ways after a yearlong partnership, with many trying to grasp why they weren’t renewing their deal. Dwan’s lack of success on the tournament circuit, his spotty online play and his fondness for high stakes live cash games were some of the reasons cited for the Dwan/FTP split.
