IrishPokerChampionship - Official statement

Theeglinton

STATEMENT FROM ORGANIZERS OF IPC 2009 2nd – 4th January 2008

We have seen some of your comments about the 2009 IPC. The only major disapointment of the weekend was the introduction of extra chips into the main event by person or persons unknown. This cast a pall over the tournament but the actions of the Director and the Tournament Organisers were considered by most participants to have rectified the bad situation.
Despite what the event organisers felt was adequate security - we believe it was breached between 09.30 and 12.00 on Saturday morning when somebody took chips from the cabinet. It is impossible to 100% know if the chips were taken during this time but the chip count records suggest this to be the case. The chip total at the end of Day One was almost precisely correct for 255 players but with each count on Day Two growing problems were exposed. After two consecutive counts showed a major discrepency, Donal MacAonghusa (Director) and Fintan Gavin (Organiser) decided to have a complete double-checked chip count at the next break. More chips had appeared and it was deemed time to stop the tournament, inform the players and change the colour of the large denomination chips for the Final Day's play.
Initial study of TV evidence and individual player chip counts was inconclusive. The evidence is not considered strong enough to take further action. The tournament was played out to a very successful conclusion.
The Tournament organisation decided to pay an extra 28 000 euros (the value of the extra Main Event chips). However, it was felt by the Organisers that adding this to the prizefund wasn't the best practical solution. Players who had played in the Main Event were invited to play in the 330 euro Charity Event at a cost of 100 euro (the charitable donation). Any money leftover from the 28 000 euro was then donated to the Simon Community Charity.
The security lapse which allowed this difficult situation to develop is deeply regretted by the Tournament Organisers but it is hoped that the subsequent actions were sufficient to ensure the good reputation of the tournament and the high regard in which it is held will continue on into the future. It is important to emphasise that the First Day final counts confirmed the entry of 255, that it was the Director who discovered the problem and brought it to the players' attention and that the Tournament Organiser donated 28 000 euro.

The integrity of the Tournament and the reputation of our sponsors have always been at the forefront of our thoughts and actions and this will continue to be so. We are taking measures to rigorously improve security so this will never happen again.

FINTAN GAVIN, DONAL MAC AONGHUSA
Organiser, Director

max_power

Made the best of a bad situation, fair play.

White Knight

Cheating is a terrible thing. I do hope that everything is being done to identify the people involved - both staff and players involved. I know I would not like to have to deal with either in a poker playing environment.

karlh

above and beyond the call of duty once the problem was discovered imo!

wp Fintan + Donal.

thedini

Whilst what was done with regards to the charity is admirable. I personally think that the above statement is a cop-out and indeed gives protection to the player that cheated and no protection to the players that were cheated. Kick the cheat out of the tournament for god's sake, he should be afforded no anonymity.

shoutman

thedini wrote: »

Whilst what was done with regards to the charity is admirable. I personally think that the above statement is a cop-out and indeed gives protection to the player that cheated and no protection to the players that were cheated. Kick the cheat out of the tournament for god's sake, he should be afforded no anonymity.

If you read the statement you would see that there was no evidence to do such a thing, it would be farcical if it turned into a witch hunt. Fair dues to the organisers for dealing with it in such a manner, its a lot of money to be handing over.

5starpool

If they had no proof it was a specific player then naming him would be terrible. Such is the irish poker scene anyways that a name will (and probably already is) get out and most people will know one way or another.

thedini

shoutman wrote: »

If you read the statement you would see that there was no evidence to do such a thing, it would be farcicle if it turned into a witch hunt. Fair dues to the organisers for dealing with it in such a manner, its a lot of money to be handing over.

Nobody was suggesting a witch hunt, I am sure they know who it was, as indeed do they players who were involved late on.

shoutman

Smart arse

Itsdacraic

The only thing I would fear is that without a player being punished it casts aspersions on all players who cashed and people will be wrongly labelled cheats. I know the organisers can't make the name of the player public without water tight evidence to back it up but it should probably be leaked to all tournie organisers and let filter through the community so that the poker community know who to look out for.

karlh

thedini wrote: »

Nobody was suggesting a witch hunt, I am sure they know who it was, as indeed do they players who were involved late on.

Nobody knew who the cheat was - hours and hours of footage were examined and not a sausage. Anything else is just circumstantial.

In hindsight, one sure way to find out would be a stop and search but i'm sure several players would have had a problem with that.

RichieLawlor

will someone just open up a bogus account and tell us who it was please

flushje

karlh wrote: »

In hindsight, one sure way to find out would be a stop and search but i'm sure several players would have had a problem with that.

Im sure only guilty parties would have a problem?

derek2222_ie

RichieLawlor wrote: »

will someone just open up a bogus account and tell us who it was please

They already did, it got deleted very quickly

ntlbell

Fairly disappointed to hear about this, I think Fintan dealt with as best he could given the circumstances stopping the tourney at that point would have just opened up all sorts of problems.

Fair play Fintan

and shame shame on who ever it was.

BigCityBanker

karlh wrote: »

above and beyond the call of duty once the problem was discovered imo!

wp Fintan + Donal.

i agree with Karl. wp to Fintan and Donal, they handled the situation very well.

bohsman

flushje wrote: »

Im sure only guilty parties would have a problem?

No, Id have had a problem with that, as would most others Im sure.

thedini

karlh wrote: »

Nobody knew who the cheat was - hours and hours of footage were examined and not a sausage. Anything else is just circumstantial.

In hindsight, one sure way to find out would be a stop and search but i'm sure several players would have had a problem with that.

I accept the fact that there may be no footage but say x's chips were x at break ,x+1 at next break without winning a pot etc. Surely in consultation with all remaining players as 2 what happened to the pots between breaks when discrepancies were noticed the culprit could have definitively been outed.

flushje

bohsman wrote: »

No, Id have had a problem with that, as would most others Im sure.

Okay, I would'nt personally, Interesting too see others would.

ntlbell

The recession hits poker...

ntlbell

flushje wrote: »

Okay, I would'nt personally, Interesting too see others would.

Anyone in their right mind would.

kpnuts

If a person or persons added chips to his/their stack(s), AT TELEVISED FEATURE TABLE, it should be possible for anyone with a basic grasp of primary-school mathematics to work out, from watching unedited footage, by how much each chips stack should have increased/decreased during each session. And since chip counts were recorded by Donal's team at every break, I can't understand how there isn't incontrovertible evidence against a person or persons.

Paul Spillane

The Tournament organisation decided to pay an extra 28 000 euros (the value of the extra Main Event chips). However, it was felt by the Organisers that adding this to the prizefund wasn't the best practical solution. Players who had played in the Main Event were invited to play in the 330 euro Charity Event at a cost of 100 euro (the charitable donation). Any money leftover from the 28 000 euro was then donated to the Simon Community Charity.

Incredibly generous & excellent idea imho, if any good can have come from this situation hopefully it will be one less person (s) on the street.

BigCityBanker

{Deleted post snipped}

Rory, whilst I understand your annoyance you need to look at this with far more clarity than you have and reaslise that Fintan and Donal have played a real good game here.

In the lack of clear evidence they could not possibly throw this guy from the tournament - from a legal pespective they would be in a seriously tricky situation and the finacial cost of such a move without clear evidence could stretch to far greater sums here. Deprived of earnings, libell, defamation of character etc etc etc - he would have off the lads for sport.

There are major business implications to consider here and justice can not be administered in a brazen 'get out ya cheatin fcker' way. It needs to be handled sensibly and they did so.

thechamp87

Paul Spillane wrote: »

Incredibly generous & excellent idea imho, if any good can have come from this situation hopefully it will be one less person (s) on the street.

I agree that this was the best possible way to rectify it. The main reason behind this was that adding back to the prizepool would in some way benefit the cheater, as it was thought he was still in the main event.

I was there until the end of the tournament and heard all of the rumours and accusations that were being flown around. While it does look like a certain player's actions were often odd, unless you see him take chips out of his pocket and place them on the table there is not much you can do. Obviously it is disheartening to hear that somebody could get away with it, but due to legal reasons, Fintan and Donal must tread carefully.

I was impressed by their quick actions and the manner in which they handled it at the time so fair play imo. Hopefully over the coming days more conclusive evidence comes to light, and more importantly I hope the main suspect is at my table in the Irish Open as I'd imagine I could have him on tilt within the first orbit.

Adam

nicnicnic

cant add anything to what i said in the other thread

I think the situation was handled commendably. The physical chip management security system was obviously breached. But there was audits in place to identify the breach and the organisers acted swiftly and decisively once the problem was identified. I was very impressed whit how it was handled.

People will argue that there shouldn't of been a problem in the first place but if someone is intent on breaking down security, it will happen. As northern banks improved there security after they were relieved of 40 million, the system in place here will also be improved in future.

I honestly feel Donal and Fintan handled a horrible situation in an exemplary manner and deserve a lot or credit for this.

but i really hope some conclusive evidence is found to nail the ****er

MrPillowTalk

Fintan and Donal have handled this excellently.

As a player in the tournament I would love to see the suspect outed and kicked out of the tournament, but from a business perspective they would be completely opening their noses without conclusive proof.

Anyway well played lads.

thenutpeddler

Considering that this cheater basically stole over 20k, does this not equate to grand larceny and if so should the police not be involved. Were the police actually contacted btw? Could the police help in proving his guilt with use of existing evidence plus witness statements etc?

Hyzepher

thenutpeddler wrote: »

Considering that this cheater basically stole over 20k, does this not equate to grand larceny and if so should the police not be involved. Were the police actually contacted btw? Could the police help in proving his guilt with use of existing evidence plus witness statements etc?

Not a clever thing - expect a ban.

Ste05

He's been infracted and also banned from Poker for a week.

Lplate

The thought of someone cheating in this manner makes me shiver.
The biggest shame is that this issue has overshadowed what was a wonderfully set up tournament. My early exit notwithstanding, followed by a series of rapes on the cash table (to say I did not run well would be a gross understatement:(), I still enjoyed the weekend.
The atmosphere was fantastic, something that several people commented on.
Fintan, Donal and their team should be proud both of a well structured, brilliantly run festival and in the way they handled an awful situation.

The Clamper

VERY difficult situation here for the organisors

without difinitive concrete evidence or absolute proof of cheating, then there is just no way that the organisor can even hint at a name

perhaps they suspect, maybe even feel they know, but cannot show hard evidence, so there is feck all they can do

so, they came up with a decent strategy to appease the rest of the players and make a charitable donation to a very worthy cause

sometimes you have to make the best of a bad situation

i would feel confident that (knowing Fintan and Donal) that they would rather have been able to ident this bugger and terminate his participation rather than fork out a wad of cash

no doubt the debate will carry on and someone will eventully sqalk and name the rotter

it must gall Fintan not to be able to name this swine, as a player himself he would know what this means to the other participants and how they feel

we all rely on the honour and integrity of the players and dealers at these events and genuinely never expect or consider that some deceitful drone will do something like this

as i said on a previous post, it only takes a minute's lack of security for some hell-boy to snatch a handful (27 x 5k chips) of chips and introduce them in a sly slick manner

maybe its just as well the guy wasnt identified while play was on, he might have been rounded on by the remaining players, rightfully sickened

lord knows its hard enough to win these things without some demon seedling squirming around in the event

well done on an otherwise great event, i had a ball there, and thankfully got bumped out prior to all this crappola

super gesture by Fintan, well played

count me in for next year please, i will wear very little so as to speed up the strip searches

Derek
ps, i am a firm believer in the wheel is always turning syndrome and that no good will come of the illicit winnings, no luck will be coming his way and that life has a funny way of sorting out these people

knowing the poker community as i do, there is little that gets away, i have no doubt that the culprit will eventually be exposed and never live it down, hopefully banned from every poker game on the planet

Crucifixion? line on the left, one cross each....monty python's life of brian

DingDong

Would it not have been right to give the guy who finished on the bubble some sort of prize money out of the added money?

Grafter

DingDong wrote: »

Would it not have been right to give the guy who finished on the bubble some sort of prize money out of the added money?

It's a difficult one. What about others who were busted by the alleged culprit when he should actually have had less chips than them?

The alleged culprit is an idiot unless he has shares in rfid companies, in which case he's a genius and got caught deliberately.

niallk

When will this be televised?
Should make for an entertaining watch.

big_iain

RFID may not work. Not in it's current standard.
well not for individual player stats.
The costs for one table alone would be huge.

You could set up a system by the door that made sure every chip stayed in the room and you would ask the players to leave playing area in breaks.

This would catch chips moving in and out of the door ways.

DeVore

What a mess for the organisers... I've put the boot into Fintan and PE before but to be fair to them, I think they have handled a bad situation as well as possible. Rather them then me.

We can't name names here because its blatant hearsay and without proof, its libelous.

For any of you brave people (RT seems to be expecially brave from behind his keyboard) you can go to www.blogger.com and write what you like there. You can even come here and link to your blog entry with the text "My View Of The IPC" as the text (and nothing else, dont want names in the link either). That way, you can take the risk and the legal costs. You go gurl.

Irish law is not like American law, we DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO SELF EXPRESSION the way they do. In america the author takes the legal risk, in Ireland the publisher does. Additionally, who is to say you are right? The phrase innocent until proven guilty isnt just a cliche you know, so I'm not prepared to offer a semi-anonymous platform for damaging hearsay. If you can prove it , ring the guards, if you can't shut it.

If PE take an action against someone then we can report that here too (and who it is against), because its factually accurate. You're mate sitting at the next table who swears he saw someones stack grow does not count as factual accuracy.

As I said, if any of this offends your sensibilities... www.blogger.com ... go nuts.

This is off topic but I felt it should be said. This is not for discussion, if you have a question, PM me. Don't continue this discussion here, if you really wish to pursue the topic post on either Feedback or Legal Discussion. Seriously, this is NOT the thread so don't go there.

Thanks.
DeV.

KevIRL

Some people just dont get it, still trying to be smart asses and naming names on this thread even after Devore's message

1 week ban for Grafter

Tribezz

When finding out that someone had cheated during the main event, To say that Donal and Fintan handled things well, I think is completely understaing the situation!

The way the situation was handled by them was exceptional! They took the best and correct course of action and were as transparent as possible at all times.

The generosity by Fintan to add 28k of his own money is extraordinarily, kind hearted. Certainly well "above and beyond"!!

Lazare

Locking this thread would prolly be a good idea. I hadn't even heard of an incident at the IPC until tonight, and after reading just 10 posts, I've a concrete idea who the villain was (rightly or wrongly).

Burn this thread imo.

RoundTower

DeVore wrote: »

(RT seems to be expecially brave from behind his keyboard)

yeah the anonymity really goes to my head, no one will ever figure out who I am in real life.

biscuits1981

must say fair play to the 2 lads on how they sorted it out what would others do,but the one question i have maybe i am green here but what about other tourneys around the country will this person b able to do it again[not sure if he is irish]but i think it has taken out the trust factor for other tourneys and i dont know who it is and dont want to but i am sure other tourneys orgainsers have an idea will they allow him to enter........

samuelj

i take it the culprit cashed

pppspecial

I would now ask the mods to close these threads on the ipc obviously leaving the welldone thread open as this story has run its course. its only fair to everyone concerned right now and if there is a case to be persued we dont want to hider that in anyway.
anyone who is to start anything again on this subject off cheating on the ipc 2009 should get a good long ban imo.

swat1902

niallk wrote: »

When will this be televised?
Should make for an entertaining watch.

Your are a ****head Williamson

ntlbell

pppspecial wrote: »

I would now ask the mods to close these threads on the ipc obviously leaving the welldone thread open as this story has run its course. its only fair to everyone concerned right now and if there is a case to be persued we dont want to hider that in anyway.
anyone who is to start anything again on this subject off cheating on the ipc 2009 should get a good long ban imo.

If there's no mention of the cheater I don't see what stop people discussing is going to do?

seems a bit pointless if people want to talk about it without causing any libel to boards leave them to it.

green123

dev said we could link to a blog.
this blog has an interesting name in the comments section

smod edit (sceptre):
Actually, what he said was:

DeVore wrote: »

For any of you brave people [...] you can go to www.blogger.com and write what you like there. You can even come here and link to your blog entry with the text "My View Of The IPC" as the text (and nothing else, dont want names in the link either). That way, you can take the risk and the legal costs. You go gurl.

Please note the difference between that and just linking to a comment in someone else's blog, which is what you did. I didn't edit out the link for fun I'm afraid.

green123

green123 wrote: »

dev said we could link to a blog.
this blog has an interesting name in the comments section

smod edit (sceptre):
Actually, what he said was:

Please note the difference between that and just linking to a comment in someone else's blog, which is what you did. I didn't edit out the link for fun I'm afraid.

no sceptre, i did not link to a comment in a blog.
i put link to a blog and said there was a name in the comments section.

KevIRL

green123 wrote: »

no sceptre, i did not link to a comment in a blog.
i put link to a blog and said there was a name in the comments section.

And from reading the comments by the blog owner its apparent they arent clear about what has been going on.

DeV was suggesting that people could post their own blog and link to it and hence take the legal risk. What you did was simply taking advantage of a situation.

5starpool

Also, why put that in 3 threads? Are you that desperate for the world to know?

green123

yes
i believe people should know.
do you want to keep it quiet ?