Latest Online Poker Cheat, Natalie 'TheV0id' Teltscher, Confesses!

'TheV0id' Admits WCOOP Cheating

According to a press release by PokerStars, Natalie 'TheV0id' Teltscher confessed the cheating at the Main Event of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) and withdrew her claim against her disqualification.

In 2007, 'TheV0id' won the WCOOP Main Event. In the aftermath, PokerStars noticed irregularities in her account and decided after an internal inspection to disqualify the account and 'TheV0id'. The prize money of about $1.2M was stripped from her and handed over to the hitherto runner-up 'ka$ino'. All the other players were upgraded by one rank as well.

The Briton Natalie Teltscher went to court against this decision. There she had to admit though that she didn't play herself under the account 'TheV0id'. A not further named "agent" had used the account and supposedly used several other accounts during the tournament. At first it was assumed that Mark Teltscher is this agent, or at least involved in the case as he is the brother of the plaintiff and a poker pro himself. A confirmation of this assumption failed to materialise though.

Below the press report:

"PokerStars™ are pleased to announce that Natalie Teltscher has recently withdrawn her claim in the Isle of Man Courts against PokerStars.

Furthermore, in discontinuing her claim, she has agreed to contribute a sum towards the legal costs incurred by PokerStars in this matter.

Ms Teltscher brought her claim against PokerStars because she was disqualified from first place of the 2007 WCOOP Main Event after PokerStars internal investigations demonstrated beyond doubt that she had not played on the account. On her disqualification all other players were moved one place higher in the prize table and the money confiscated from her account, TheV0id, was redistributed in full, according to the amended tournament placings.

Ms Teltscher initially claimed that she had played the account. However, when faced with the results from PokerStars' investigation she eventually admitted she hadn't played.

The decision of Ms Teltscher to withdraw her claim fully vindicates
PokerStars' decision to disqualify her from the tournament and subsequently defend the claim, actions which were taken in order to protect the integrity of the games on offer at PokerStars."

Let The WSOP Cheating, Scheming and Scamming Begin!

Well, there are 114 days left until play begins at the final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker Championship and already I’m getting dozens of e-mails not only asking for my opinion on the prospects for cheating and colluding but also detailed cheating scenarios that people out there are concocting for those nine players lucky enough to be part of this long delay, which will eventually lead down the yellow brick road to a pot of poker millions. In previous blog posts I have spoken about cheat possibilities as well as ESPN’s and WSOP organizers’ and sponsors’ obvious motives to milk out as much publicity and exposure as they can, which is the sole reason for the drastic change in WSOP format. All this is reminiscent of Fox Sports Net’s attempt to run with the giant ball that was supposed to be a six-player winner-take-all freeze-out for a $100 million in 2006 that never came off, mainly because the whole thing was going to be a fraud in the first place, which I exposed in my book “Dirty Poker.”

Getting back to this year’s WSOP Championship, I must say that the way the final table stands right now is very conducive to collusion. This is because there is no dominant chip-leader the way there was back in 2006 when Jamie Gold, the eventual winner and accused “deal renegger,” had a commanding chip lead going into the final table that he turned into a championship and $12 million in his pocket (minus whatever amount he finally gave his backer that he tried to stiff). With nearly all the nine players very much in the hunt and only one short stack, the collusion cheating opportunities are endless. In fact, one e-mailer pointed out to me that if you take all the possibilities and combinations of any or all of the nine players entering into prearranged prize-money-sharing, there are more than a million different ways to cut up the giant cake! In other words, there could be cheating twosomes, threesomes, foursomes, fivesomes, sixsomes, sevensomes, eightsomes…and even ninesomes, although I doubt the first eight players would bother to involve the ninth player in many deals with such a short stack, but who knows?

Do I really think there will be pre-final table deal-making or cheating? Well, since both are one in the same, you can bet your sweet ass there will be! No way are 114 days going to pass without conspiring, scheming, planning and everything else that leads to cheating. Just think of all that time that these nine players—okay, let’s even include the poor guy in ninth place with the tiny stack—are going to have to communicate. How will they communicate? Well, it might start with simple e-mails, then step up to instant messaging, then phone calls and then…well, why not a pre-final table final table? No, it’s not a typo! And it’s not some kind of actual poker play on a final table either. What I’m talking about is a meeting of all nine players around an oval table in a cozy restaurant or lounge, maybe like the Peppermill on the Las Vegas Strip, the same cozy lounge that I often used with my cheating buddies to map out our strategies for hitting the casinos on the Strip. There the “lucky nine” could sip champagne while relishing in thoughts of the money they KNOW they will be receiving on that glorious November day to come…okay, well…maybe the lucky nine won’t be brazen enough to meet in a public place like that but they could rent a suite at the Bellagio and sneak up to it unnoticed and have the champagne sent up by room service. However they choose to do so, 114 days is lots and lots of time to plan and scheme.

And if you think for one minute that this will not happen, then you probably spend half your life watching ESPN!

Annie Duke Speaks Out Again on Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet Cheating Scandals

The cheating scandals surrounding online poker sites UltimateBet.com and its sister Absolute Poker.com continue to make waves in both the mainstream and industry media and in the player community, and the latest element in what seems to be a concerted damage control initiative by the owners is a Poker News video-streamed interview with the much respected poker pro Annie Duke.

This can be accessed at the Poker News Website,

Duke has a long association with UltimateBet and has been involved in both operational and branding endorsement for the website. Apparently last fall she was disenchanted with the way things were going and was thinking about distancing herself from the enterprise. In January this year, the 'hole card' scandal broke and apparently the change of management that occurred convinced Duke to revise her position in a move that was "a big 180 for me."

The cause of this epiphany was apparently the transparency of the new management, headed by CEO Paul Leggett; the way in which it handled the crisis (paying out an unspecified but claimed "seven figures" to affected players); getting rid of the "bad apples" responsible for the scandal and a bigger say for Duke in the conduct of the business.

Judging by her comments in the interview Duke is now firmly on board and confident that the historical problems have been fully addressed, although management is still considering the pursuit of those responsible. This is apparently problematical due to legal considerations around identifying the culprits and under which jurisdiction to pursue them.

Duke follows the company line in claiming that company revenues were not affected by the crisis, which is surprising when one considers the magnitude of the cheating and the editorial coverage it received. The company strategy of recruiting big poker names to endorse the website is also apparent in her comments.

Listening to the interview, there are confusing references to both 'change of management' and 'change of ownership'. This gives little clarity on who owned Absolute/Ultimate Bet prior to its acquisition by Tokwiro Enterprises, a Kahnawake registered company owned by former Mohawk grand chief Joe Norton, or what Tokwiro paid for the companies and when.

The UltimateBet story is not about to fade away. In her interview Duke confirmed information circulating for some months in the industry that the mainstream television investigative program "60 Minutes" is about to air the scandals. Producers for the program contacted Duke whilst she was at the ongoing World Series of Poker, although she does not amplify what was discussed.

Subjectively speaking, we had the impression that this was a continuation of the damage control initiative which the "new management" has been so vigorously pursuing, suggesting that the impact of the cheating scandal may have been bigger than UB would like to acknowledge. The role of the major poker forums in driving the resolution of these scandals also appeared to be underplayed, whilst the proposition that bashing UB was not good for the industry is arguable.

That said, the potential for harm to the industry's credibility that an adverse "60 Minutes" take on the affair is likely to have is a legitimate concern. What a pity that the systems at UB/AP failed in the first place, bringing about this crisis.

Is Soft Playing in Tournaments Cheating?

Almost everyone will say that soft-playing in poker is downright cheating, at least at first take. But upon further delving into the definition of what it means to cheat at poker, there are still those who believe that the practice of soft-playing one's friends or family is perfectly acceptable in poker, since it takes place because of personal beliefs and emotions that are just as legitimate as the ethical values of players who would refuse to soft-play anyone. Is this hogwash?

One argument that supports the allowance of soft playing in poker is that poker's uniqueness as a gambling game in itself deems soft play allowable. Their stance is that since poker is a game of multiple betting rounds, and the position of strength and weakness varies with each round and turn of a new card or cards, players should be allowed "varying" strategy tactics and that soft play is nothing but a combined tactic that ultimately becomes individual strategy at the end, when one or more soft players at the table no longer participate in soft playing. With blackjack, craps and other casino games, they argue, you make one bet on one decisive outcome, either win or lose, while second, third and fourth bets are optional and not intrinsic to the first. Only in poker does the amount of money at risk to each player accumulate with the deal of each round, therefore, those people who are not overly bothered by soft play feel that two or even more players involved in a pot have the right to "blanket the hostilities" at a certain point. Since any pair, set or group of players can do this, they claim, and that soft playing is not open or "active" cheating, they take the stance that soft playing should even be tolerated.

I, as certainly an "active" cheater (to say the least!) wholeheartedly disagree.

When soft-playing players have an ongoing agreement not to bet into each other once the action becomes heads up or reaches a certain point, they are tearing the innate competitive threads of the game. Whatever the reason, this arrangement amounts to a private deal that is more than just an ethical violation of the game. It not only gives those making it the chance to curb losses at several key junctures of play but also negatively impacts those not involved in it. In tournament play, soft playing can make or break the final table, leaving one player who might have been eliminated in honest, non-collusion play with just enough chips to survive and eventually go on to win the tournament. What soft play is, no matter how you cut the cake, is collusion, and, in my opinion, no less form of collusion than outright collusion players signalling the values of their hole cards and whipsawing opponents at the table. The fact is that these actions give those who are soft-playing in tournaments the edge over those who are not.

To illustrate the point, imagine that you're in a seven-card stud game, and you're the low-card bring-in on third street. Two soft-playing partners, A and B, enter the pot on either side of a fourth player who completes the bet. You call, player A raises, and you, Player B and the fourth player all call. Fourth street brings overcards for everyone, and gives you a split pair to go with your three-card flush. Player A bets and the fourth player folds, leaving just you and the soft-playing partners A and B. Now Player B raises. Your pair is smaller than their fourth-street cards, and since you don't like the odds you're getting for your draw, you fold. The moment you do, Players A and B proceed to check on fifth, sixth, and seventh streets. It's pretty obvious just how advantageous this arrangement is for them. By fourth street, they had locked up eight bets, half of it strange money, plus the antes. But the problem isn't only the pact to eliminate risk on betting rounds five, six and seven; it is the looming prospect of it that appears on round four, which offers incentive for two players who are soft-playing to bet a third player off his hand. By doing so, they are acting as a collusion team, converting the already invested chips of the uninvolved player into dead money. Clearly, this puts players who don't have soft-playing partners at the table at a distinct disadvantage against those who do.

Soft playing at poker is nothing short of cheating.

Tennis Betting Bust Over $7 Bets! / My Biggest Cheating Move Ever!

I've blogged a few times about the recent tennis scandals and as far as the Nikolay Davydenko scandal might be linked to professional Russian poker cheating teams, including the one that one-time Olympic gold-winning gymnast Vera Shimanskaya was hooked up and busted with in Spain. But this? This is a little too much. A couple of low-level Italian tennis players getting fined and suspended over friendly $7 bets they may have been making as a fraternal joke among their fellow players. Give me a break! No one is getting involved in throwing tennis matches over $7, at least not in this solar system. Anyway, here's a news article about it:

ROME (AP) -- The ATP suspended Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali on Saturday for making bets - some as little as $7 - on tennis matches involving other players.

The Italian tennis federation denounced the penalties by the governing body as an "injustice," and the players said they have been made scapegoats.

Starace, ranked 31st, was suspended for six weeks and fined $30,000, the Italian federation said. Bracciali, ranked 258th, was banned for three months and fined $20,000. Both suspensions take effect Jan. 1.

The federation said Starace made five bets for a total of $130 two years ago, and Bracciali made about 50 bets of $7 each from 2004-05.

"Injustice is done," the statement said. "These penalties are absolutely, excessively severe compared to the magnitude of the violations carried out by the two players."

The federation said the two were not aware of the ATP's betting regulations, and they stopped placing bets as soon as they learned it was against the rules.

"It's disgusting," Starace said. "The ATP doesn't know where to turn. It's all a joke."

Bracciali said the two had been "sacrificed."

"That's why they came after us," he said. "We are not champions and we don't count in the upper echelons."

Another Italian, Alessio Di Mauro, became the first player sanctioned under the ATP's new anti-corruption rules when he received a nine-month ban in November, also for betting on matches.

ATP officials could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Concerns about match-fixing have risen since August, when an online betting company reported unusual betting patterns during a match between fourth-ranked Nikolay Davydenko of Russia and Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina. The company, Betfair, voided all bets and the ATP has been investigating. Davydenko, who quit while trailing in the third set, denies wrongdoing.

Since then, several players have said they were approached with offers to fix matches for money.

MY BIGGEST CASINO CHEATING MOVE EVER!

Yesterday, I told you that the second biggest move my cheating team ever attempted was to pastpost (make the bet after the number already won) a $1,000 chip straight-up on a winning number at roulette. Today I will actually take you with me as my team attempted its biggest move ever. It was also a roulette move, and believe it or not, it was way back in 1986, in the summer casino on the 7th floor of the Carlton Hotel in Caanes, France. At the time I was working with Joe Classon, Duke and Jerry, my original teammates. So come on inside the casino with us and get involved!

What I saw inside the Carlton Casino was dazzling, perhaps the real La palme d'or prize-winning film in Cannes that year. Never before—and I mean never—had I seen action like that! If the roulette tables in London had been flooded with big action, the downpour of chips over the dozen layouts inside the Carlton's casino was a veritable deluge. Seated around one of the English-style tables (same as American without the 00) were three Arab sheiks in their customary white robes and headdress. They were spreading large diamond-studded ten-thousand-franc chips straight up on the numbers. I had never been in a casino that accepted that much money on a straight-up bet. At the same table was a threesome of identically dressed Japanese men matching the sheiks bet for bet, blanketing the layout with their version of diamond-studded ten-thousand-franc chips. They all wore dark blue suits, badly tailored by Western standards, and the contrast to the sheiks in pure white made you believe they really were filming a French comedy.
My mind raced a mile a minute watching that phenomenal action. 10,000 francs was at the time the equivalent of $2,000, which meant that each of the Arab and Japanese straight-up winning bets was being paid off at seventy grand! The largest straight-up move we had ever done to that point earned us $7,000. This French Riviera casino would pay ten times that! The move I envisioned was feasible but extremely difficult. Like in London, each roulette table had an inspector sitting high above the table. He would have to be taken out by distraction in order for Duke to move underneath the marker. I figured that the table with the sheiks and Japanese offered the best opportunity for a move because our ten-thousand-franc bet would blend right in on the layout. The casino wouldn't want to appear unclassy in front of their super-rich clientele by squabbling over one "measly" winning chip that nobody had seen.
But the problem was that these diamond-studded ten-thousand-franc chips were larger than roulette chips. We could not put the move-chip underneath the claimer’s roulette chips as we’d been accustomed to doing. It would stick out and raise questions even if the move went in cleanly. The only solution was having Duke lay in a naked capper, just like Mumbles and Wheels did in the old days. Simply lay our oversized ten-thousand-franc chip underneath the winning oversized ten-thousand-franc chip or chips already on the number. The problem with the naked capper was that the total number of chips on the winning number would be increased by one. A seasoned dealer might notice that difference even if there had originally been as many as six or seven winning chips. If there had been less, the one-chip increase would be that much more noticeable. At what minimum number of chips on the winning number would we deem sufficient to try it?
There was yet another worry. Since Duke and I (Joe and Jerry weren’t needed to check-bet) would be the only players at the table not belonging to either clan, the Arabs and/or the Japanese might feel uncomfortable with our presence there. Assuming we managed to get the move in, would one of them rat on us? You never knew who your rats could be, as I’d learned in Lake Tahoe with the Veronica experience. Asians tended to almost never rat as that was part of their culture, but I knew nothing about Muslims. The stonings and hand-choppings I’d heard about were punishments meted out for crimes committed against Arabs, usually by Arabs. But were their morals as supreme concerning French casinos ripped off by Americans?
There are certain times when even the most sophisticated casino-cheating teams cannot rely on intricate sign languages to communicate inside a casino. Normally, when we entered a casino we had a basic game plan—two or three different moves with which to attack. Then once inside we "called our play" based on prevailing conditions. If we decided to change the original plan, the new play was communicated by flashing each other signs, much like a football team calling its original play in the huddle then changing it with an audible at the line of scrimmage. But when the situation presenting itself was too complex—rendering our quarterback indecisive—a time out was called to discuss it.
The multitudinous possibilities and their inherent complexities inside the Carlton casino forced us to take a time out. Joe signalled me to leave the casino. I took the elevator down to the lobby and walked outside onto the Croisette. Ten minutes later Jerry appeared, then Duke and finally Joe.
We all had individual impressions and ideas about what we'd witnessed inside the casino. After exchanging them excitedly, Joe made the decision.
"We go with the naked capper." He turned his attention specifically on Duke. "Even if there's only one winning chip on the number, you pop in ours underneath."
Duke exhaled the smoke from his cigarette. "What do I do if there’re no winning chips straight up on the number?...Do you want me to go on a split?"
"Absolutely not," Joe said firmly. "We wait for the straight-up. As long as you're confident about getting in there under the piece, we go for the jugular."
"No problem," Duke said, stomping out the butt. "I need the guy on the chair taken out for a full second."
"You got it," Jerry said.
Now Joe turned his attention to me. "This is what it's all about," he said. "New challenges. How long have we been together now, ten years? You have a lot of experience; you're a monster claimer. You never chilled-up once on me. You never committed the cardinal sin of leaving a move on a layout unclaimed. I have enormous respect for you...as I do for both Duke and Jerry. You're a warrior, and your reward is the opportunity to claim the biggest move of all time." He paused a moment, then said triumphantly to us all, "Now let's go back in there and get these French motherfuckers!"
Jerry handed Duke the ten-thousand-franc chip he’d gotten off a blackjack table. Duke gave it an admiring glance, commented that it didn’t have the diamond studding like the Arabs’ and Japanese chips did, then shrugged and put it in his pocket. We filed one by one back to the lobby elevators.
I stood two roulette tables away from the target table and watched Duke on the bottom of the layout, wedged in between two Arab sheiks. That sheer sight was laughable. The fact that Duke was wearing an expensive Armani suit did not make him look any less ridiculous between the two sheiks. The presence of the Japanese only heightened the hilarity. I couldn't help but laugh softly to myself. Surprisingly, I was not the least bit nervous. In fact, I was perhaps the most relaxed I'd ever been when preparing myself to claim an important move. I was comfortable with the feeling that I had earned the right to claim this record-setting move. A lot of hard work, sweat and discipline had gone into my career as a pastposter—not to mention the sheer balls of stone. My feeling was that I didn't want anybody else claiming that move but me.
When number 30 came in on the third spin with four winning diamond-studded chips on the number, Jerry stepped right in front of the inspector on the high chair and said loudly, almost obnoxiously, "Monsieur...Monsieur...S'il vous plaît...Je ne parle pas le Français...Can you explain..."
That was all the greatest roulette mechanic in the history of the world needed. With nerves of steel and unshakable will that made me proud to be a part of this pastposting team, Duke shot out to the layout from between the two sheiks, lifted off and held the marker with his left hand while his right slid our big ten-thousand-franc chip underneath the four already there, replaced the marker, leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath, all before the two stunned sheiks witnessing the feat could praise Allah. The work Duke had done with his right hand—picking up four oversized chips and sliding a fifth underneath with his pinkie, then centering the marker, all in a single second—was truly incredible.
I appeared at the front of the layout between two of the Japanese, just as Jerry was leaving to follow Duke out the door. "Merci beaucoup," I said loudly but without hysterics. “It's about time I won a large bet in France!” There was no need to carry on too much with the claim; the value of my chip exceeded none of the others lying on the winning number.
What happened next was the biggest disappointment of my entire pastposting career. It was hard to believe, and when the French gaming inspector on the high chair told me almost nonchalantly in broken English that my bet couldn't be paid because I had violated a French gaming regulation by betting a blackjack chip on a roulette table, I thought he was either joking because I was an American, or that his English was incapable of expressing what he really wanted to say. When it hit me that he was serious, that in French casinos (where rules differed from Monte Carlo) you simply were not allowed to bet chips bought at blackjack tables straight up on roulette numbers, I went into a silent shock. I could not fathom this disappointment. The inspector explained that casino chips were permitted only on the outside even-money and 2 to 1 bets.
There was no steam, no stirring—nothing. The inspector didn't tell anyone else in the casino. The dealer went about his business of paying the Arab sheiks and the Japanese, each of whom had two winning chips on number 30. I watched numbly as the dealer pushed $140,000 in chips, first to the two sheiks at the bottom of the table where Duke had been, and then to two of the Japanese. Finally, I managed to raise my head and look across the pit behind the inspector to where Joe was standing. He was staring at me with a ghastly grimace. He had understood what happened, the minute reason why our giant move was not being paid. I held Joe's stunned gaze with my own frozen version for a full minute, before finally turning away and cashing out the useless ten-thousand-franc chip at the cashier.

Well, there it was. Only thing I didn't tell you yesterday is that this, the biggest move we ever attempted, didn't get paid.