Honour Among Poker Players

The last event of the World Poker Tour Five Diamond Poker Classic was a $1,500 + $90 game and since these sit ‘n’ go satellites are such nice value I played a couple of them.

The second one was very interesting indeed. For starters I moved all in with 10 big blinds with 9-7 a gentleman with QQ calls me and manages a smile when the board runs Q-7-7-8-7. Anyone who can take a beat like that and still enjoy the game is my hero.

Then it got really interesting. Three guys were cheating. No doubt about it. One of them was drunker than his two colluding companions and kinda made it obvious without giving enough evidence to call them out on it. Then it happened.

One guy limps under the gun with a decent stack for 400. His pal goes all in for 1,100 total and the under the gun cheater passes him the 400 chips he’s just dumped to him. I call the cheaters out. I ask for the floor manager twice which the dealer is too scared to call for. They quit their cheating game for the most part having realised they’ve been rumbled, but not before one of the cheaters silently mouths something vicious in my direction. Of course they deny it.

“I’ve never seen this guy in my life!” Then their other companion who had been knocked out earlier who had been talking to the “dumpee” all night gives it away some more by talking to the “dumper”. I felt one of them with a call of his pre flop all in with K-7 offsuit needing only 33 percent equity to make the call. He had Q-J and I very satisfyingly flop 2 pair.

We had a last longer bet going on (thankfully I was in charge of the $800) and there was me, another bloke and the last cheater remaining. The one mouthing something vicious wants a deal. I tell him no. He asks again. I refuse. Then the poker gods really smile upon the honourable amongst us by felting the scum bag with an A-A vs Q-Q cooler leaving me and the other non-cheater to collect the entries to the last game of the festival and split the last longer bet.

The three cheaters invested over $1300 to try and collect both top prizes and ended up walking away with nothing. Oh and the two guys who “had never seen each other before in their lives” walk away with their other friend talking amongst each other just to confirm they were lying.

In eight months of professional poker these are the only cheats I’ve came across. I have literally played with thousands of different players these past eight months. That’s a tiny, tiny percentage, which makes me proud to be a poker player.

We often get funny looks when we say we play poker or that we gamble, yet we are one of the most honest and respectful breeds of people that walk this earth. Back at the European Poker Tour Barcelona a gentleman to my right accidentally sees my hand.

He keeps quiet until we have both folded so as not to disturb play (he had already folded pre flop) and politely says to be more careful with my hand.

This was a €5,000 tournament and this gentleman refused to take an unfair advantage against the most dangerous player to him at the table (me being to his left having position on him all day). That’s who and what poker players are. Honourable.

We want that top prize and that trophy more than anything, but the true poker players do not cheat to get it. That fills me with pride.