Yesterday, we witnessed a very concerning situation. What happened was that GGPoker’s security team discovered a breach of rules between two players, who were subsequently permanently banned from the site.
One of the banned players entered the final table of GGMillion$ as a chip leader with 69 big blinds, but was sitting out during the whole length of the final table play. The breach of rules was detected a few days before the start of the final table, and he was banned to protect game integrity.
Popular poker player Jeff Gross, a commentator for the event, stated that the account Hinaru was being used by someone other than the person registered to the account. Further investigation confirmed the suspicion, and it was determined that ghosting (when somebody else is telling the player what to do, or playing instead of him) was the precise violation.
Jeff Gross said that this was the first time he saw a chip leader bliding out of the final table, and surely not many of us have seen anything similar. Hindaru blinded out in fifth place for $115,752, but that money was not added to his account; it was redistributed to all the players who had been cheated by him.
GGPoker wrote, “Every player must compete on their own account—no exceptions.”
How Did Sitting Out Affect the Final Table play?
First of all, he obviously took somebody’s place at the final table and most likely received the pay jump (we don’t know precisely how the money was redistributed). There was also a potential that he eliminated somebody who would have taken his place at the final table as well.
It was also an advantageous spot for Adrian Mateos and Aleks Ponakovs, who were in a position to steal (or just take, to be more precise) Hinaru’s big blinds more freely and more consistently than anybody else at the table. This again hurt the chances of other players and made the whole tournament irregular.
Two players on the right of Hinaru were also at a disadvantage as they had to play against tougher opponents more out of position than they would if there was a player between them (it’s not the same to open from CO and BTN compared to CO and HJ).
The whole thing also impacted the ICM, and probably affected the entire play as the players were confused and maybe not sure if the guy was going to come back (there is a chance somebody would take less risk and ladder up). They also didn’t know how money would be redistributed or if there was any violation going on at all.
If you want to read about more crazy stuff happening in the poker world, you can check how Phil Ivey Flipped a Coin to Sell $50,000 Kobe Bryant Shoes!
