Tournament Cheating?

I have been debating whether or not to bring this up.... While we were at the USPC, there was quite a bit of buzz surrounding the success of Men Nguyen and his "posse".... First of all, let me go on record as to say that I have no idea as to the validity of the rumours. The rumours reference several instances where Men and his entourage have appeared to be illegally "dumping" chips to one another so that the person with the most likely chance of achieving victory gets assistance from other members on the team. Just this past week at the USPC, Men and his brother, UT finished 1st and 2nd in the $300+$30 event pocketing a combined $49K. I also saw them doing well in a couple other tourneys as well. I am pretty certain that I knocked UT out of the $500 event on Tuesday, the 26th of September.

Probably the event which has fueled the majority of the rumours took place in Mashantucket, Connecticut, at the Foxwoods Casino. Men was there with all of his compadres for a tournament. As is their norm, they arrived with coolers full of steak, fish, rice and beer. (I'm certain that Dave would have had something to say about that....!) They shared a large suite and they set it up with hot plates, steamers and other appliances. One of the team members destroyed dinner, their room filled with smoke and the hotel fire alarms went off. Workers from the hotel rushed inside and asked Men and his guys to leave while they dealt with the situation. The fire was put out, but rumors spread that tournament chips were found in the room. If that is true, that’s a terrible infraction of all major poker-tournament rules. As most of you are probably aware, tournament chips are NOT permitted to leave the table except with direct supervision of tournament staff. It would mean that players on Men’s team had been pulling chips from the tournament as their likelihood of getting knocked out became more and more of a certainty, and they then would give those chips to the group’s winning players, who could then supplement their chip stacks with the illegally obtained chips.

Men, of course, denies this completely. He insists that he was thrown out of the hotel due to the fire, not for cheating. (Foxwoods has confirmed this, but, as one player puts it, “Of course, they would; the last thing they want anybody to think is that their tournaments can be corrupted.")

Like I said, I don't know, but I would think that for as much discussion that was going on at the USPC about the possibilities of this type of cheating, that someone would do some serious investigation. With the amount of dollars that are in play at today's tournaments, all appearances of cheating should be investigated and dealt with appropriately. It should be easy enough to track who is part of the group and put survelliance on them for the entirety of their participation in the tournament. Cheating, and even the appearance of cheating, should absolutely NOT be tolerated... and if it is suspected, tournament officials should investigate and either remove the culprits or completely do away with the rumors. I hope they are rumors. But it's food for thought.

At many of the top tournaments today, when the final table is finished, there are in many instances MORE chips than there should be based on the advertised number of entrants. This has happened the last two years at the WSOP Main Event.... Oh well!

So, keep your eyes open!