PS Pro. BeL0WaB0Ve Mad at WCOOP

#1 23rd September 2006, 2:17 AM

Copied and pasted off pocketfives. I have mixed feeling about this. I can see why Pokerstars makes them play but...just seems ethically wrong to some point and i can see why he is mad

The letter basically explains itself, but I emailed Lee Jones last night over some things that happened yesterday that left a sour taste in my mouth. I'll let you know what he has to say back.

BeL0W

That time of year has come, that every online poker player looks forward too. Many of us can’t sleep or lose sleep in the days approaching, much like a 7-year old child on Christmas Eve. That’s right, it’s the World Championships of Online Poker, held exclusively on your very own site, Poker Stars. What makes this event of tournaments so great is the awesome structure, which allows for plenty of post-flop play through out the tournament because of the deeper stacks and thirty-minute time levels. Today was event #6, the 200 No-Limit Holdem with rebuys, just the single biggest rebuy tournament of the year. This is my single favorite online poker tournament of the year, yes above the WCOOP Main Event, which will probably eclipse this prize pool four times over. I’m emailing you personally because of a series of events that occurred today on your site that have left a bitter taste in my mouth.

First I’d like to tell you a little about myself, before I go into what happened today. I’m 26 years old and have been playing poker for roughly 12 years, for the most part recreationally, but this January will mark the 2-year anniversary of me quitting my full-time job making over $50,000 annually and choosing to make this sick game we call poker my new full-time “job”. I just celebrated my 2-year anniversary in July of my 1st hand of online poker, and it would not be a stretch to say that over the last year, nobody online has played more Multi-table Tournaments over the net then myself. I’m just stating this so you know in advance that I’m not just some random donkey complaining about a bad beat that I took in a tournament. I’ve seen it all, and to be honest none of it really phases me.

I’m widely known throughout the online poker community, and have quite the following of “railbirds” online, especially on Pokerstars, where I pretty much started playing online poker. I’m widely regarded as one of the top rebuy specialists online, and rebuy tournaments are by far my favorite tournaments online as deep stack poker is my favorite kind of poker. I regularly play all of the daily rebuy tournaments pokerstars has to offer, from the $3 + .30 level all the way up to the $100 +9, along with the recently added Sunday $200 +15 rebuy tournament.

Now you have a little idea about my background, let me explain my disgust with your site after the series of events that occurred today during the WCOOP event #6. It all started shortly after the rebuy and add-on period had ended, and involved one of the “pros” that represent your site, Lee Nelson. About twenty minutes into the 3rd level, Lee was moved to my table, playing under the ID LeeNelsonP* and seated on my direct right. During the last few minutes of level 3, the following hand between Lee and I. Here is the hand history.

*********** # 94 **************
PokerStars Game #6368129603: Tournament #40000006, $200+$15 Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2006/09/21 - 16:29:52 (ET)
Table '40000006 189' 9-max Seat #5 is the button
Seat 1: DJenner VIII (9635 in chips)
Seat 2: J2thaHizzo (3425 in chips)
Seat 3: BMWSTACK (7475 in chips)
Seat 4: pokerMJ (2500 in chips)
Seat 5: LeeNelsonP* (11083 in chips)
Seat 6: BeL0WaB0Ve (14790 in chips)
Seat 7: hoffa (7610 in chips)
Seat 8: ruthan (17425 in chips)
Seat 9: WinterMan (5280 in chips)
BeL0WaB0Ve: posts small blind 25
hoffa: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to BeL0WaB0Ve [Ad Ah]
ruthan: folds
WinterMan: folds
DJenner VIII: folds
J2thaHizzo: folds
BMWSTACK: folds
pokerMJ: folds
LeeNelsonP*: raises 75 to 125
BeL0WaB0Ve: raises 475 to 600
hoffa: folds
LeeNelsonP*: calls 475
*** FLOP *** [8d Jc 5s]
BeL0WaB0Ve: bets 900
LeeNelsonP*: raises 1200 to 2100
BeL0WaB0Ve: raises 12090 to 14190 and is all-in
LeeNelsonP*: calls 8383 and is all-in
ShaunBusted [observer] said, "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
*** TURN *** [8d Jc 5s] 5♥
dest- [observer] said, "oh ****"
*** RIVER *** [8d Jc 5s 5h] J♦
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BeL0WaB0Ve: shows [Ad Ah] (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
LeeNelsonP*: shows [9s Js] (a full house, Jacks full of Fives)
LeeNelsonP* collected 22216 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 22216 | Rake 0
Board [8d Jc 5s 5h Jd]
Seat 1: DJenner VIII folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: J2thaHizzo folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: BMWSTACK folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: pokerMJ folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: LeeNelsonP* (button) showed [9s Js] and won (22216) with a full house, Jacks full of Fives
Seat 6: BeL0WaB0Ve (small blind) showed [Ad Ah] and lost with two pair, Aces and Jacks
Seat 7: hoffa (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: ruthan folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: WinterMan folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Now, I have cut out the action on the flop and will re-paste below how things went down from my perspective.

*** FLOP *** [8d Jc 5s]
BeL0WaB0Ve: bets 900- I make this bet pretty quickly, which represents roughly 75% of the current pot.

LeeNelsonP*: raises 1200 to 2100- Lee takes a few seconds before making this raise.

BeL0WaB0Ve: raises 12090 to 14190 and is all-in- Now here I end up going into my time bank for about 25 seconds before moving all-in. I never considered folding, because I was very confident I was ahead, but was actually considering how I would play the turn if I just called his flop raise, as I wanted to make sure to get all my chips in the pot. Ultimately I decided to shove all-in.

LeeNelsonP*: calls 8383 and is all-in- Lee takes about 1.2 seconds to make this call of his 160+ BB stack and put his tournament life on the line as I had him covered at this point.

ShaunBusted [observer] said, "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

The hand continues as we know from above and I get the best turn card possible besides a 3rd ace, which left him drawing to 2 of the remaining jacks which ultimately hit on the river. Now I take a million bad beats a day, along with giving my fair share too, and I know that this is part of the ugly game we play. Most of the time I accept them for what they are and just move on to the next hand. I will admit though, this one hurt me. I simply typed in the chat box “brilliant”, folded my hand and took a walk outside to cool down. I still had chips, not a lot but definitely enough in relation to the blinds to try and work my way back into contention in this big tournament, so I had to try and pull myself together. I sat back into my seat a few minutes later and continued playing the tournament, not mentioning another word about the hand. A few minutes later our table broke, and all of the players went our separate ways. Mr. Nelson never once said anything about the hand afterwards; in fact I don’t remember him ever speaking during the short time that we were at the table together. I never caught any cards and busted sometime in level 6.

I was honestly very disappointed at this point to be out of the tournament, but I am a professional and had other tournaments that I had to continue playing. I really believed that this was the end of things. At some point during the afternoon, I came across a posting on the pocketfives website that I found very upsetting. Somebody posted that MR. Joe Hachem finished the tournament in 1,980th place, very early in the rebuy hour electing not to rebuy at all. It was then brought up that your “pros” were contracted to play in all of the WCOOP events you guys are running. Now, I can’t confirm this to be factual, but looking at the events, it appears that the majority of your pros are registered or have played in the majority of the events. It then occurred to me that hell, maybe Lee Nelson didn’t want to be here playing either and just decided to make a call that would either A. most likely be found in the rebuy hour or B. most likely be found in a one dollar tournament. I mean it was apparent that Mr. Hachem had little interest in playing this event, so maybe Mr. Nelson felt the same way. Now keep in mind these thoughts came to me with absolutely no knowledge of how Mr. Nelson played the rebuy hour, and how much he invested in this tournament. Quite honestly though, I feel if you guys are making your “pros” play in these events that they have no interest in playing or taking seriously, and they show up to dump off their chips only because they have to make their required “appearance”, that this is bull shit and hurts the integrity of the game. This was just the first sour taste that my mouth received.

So I continued to play my tournaments, keeping an eye on a few tables that I had some friends at. It was pretty deep in the tournament when the player Martine23, a friend of mine, informed me that he was still alive in the WCOOP event. I pulled up the table and there was Mr. Nelson sitting at his table also with a very nice stack. I observed in silence for a few minutes, when I noticed an observer type in “ hi Lee, GL to you.” To which Lee responded “ ty xxxxx.” I don’t remember the observer’s screen name but he responded back specifically to them. So I thought to myself, ok cool, Lee is talking to the observers, maybe I can get some insight to his thought process on the hand. I then myself said “Hi Lee,” and waited for him to respond back to me. I was actually looking forward to hopefully getting to ask him about the hand since I had taken the time to cool down and was no longer steaming over the incident. A few hands passed and there was no response from Lee. I then typed in the following chat, which I copied and saved from the actual chat log.

BeL0WaB0Ve [observer]: I never got a chance to ask you.... but what did u put me on when you called off 8500 more with J9s on J hi rainbow flop 10 hands after the rebuy hr stopped?
Dealer: Game #6372330677: mr. burns wins pot (8850)
Dealer: LeeNelsonP*, it's your turn. You have 15 seconds to act
Dealer: Kallles, it's your turn. You have 15 seconds to act
Dealer: LeeNelsonP*, it's your turn. You have 15 seconds to act
Dealer: LeeNelsonP*, it's your turn. You have 15 seconds to act
Dealer: Martine23 has a pair of Tens
Dealer: LeeNelsonP* has a pair of Jacks
Dealer: Game #6372341125: LeeNelsonP* wins pot (23850) with a pair of Jacks
BeL0WaB0Ve [observer]: no answer, huh?
Dealer: Game #6372365463: DrViken wins pot (8850)
Dealer: sorerichard, it's your turn. You have 15 seconds to act
Dealer: Game #6372374897: LeeNelsonP* wins pot (4350)
BeL0WaB0Ve [observer]: i guess ill just assume u guys r all contracted to play in all of the wsoop events, and u werent taking the game serious.
BeL0WaB0Ve [observer]: very nice representation of the site sir
As you can see, after asking him about the specific hand, I gave him a few moments to respond. I then tried to get him to acknowledge me again before typing in my true feelings about Mr. Nelson and your site. It really pissed me off that he acknowledged somebody else but never acknowledged me. I kept the table open for a long time and he never responded. This was the tip of the iceberg for me and motivated me to e-mail you personally.

I started playing online poker at pokerstars, and it is widely recognized as my home site. I spent the whole summer in Las Vegas for the WSOP, and spent a lot of time in the pokerstars suite. Your people were great. I had used W$ to buy into a few of the preliminary events there and when I showed up to wear my pokerstars gear Sharon Goldman and Host Patrick understood how I was uncomfortable wearing collared shirts at the poker table, and Sharon had a couple of hooded sweatshirts flown in from the FPP store for me instead. They didn’t stop there. The two of them put in a lot of effort, and got my pokerstars name embroider on the sweatshirts for me. I wore those sweatshirts the rest of the summer at every tournament I played. This is why I have always loved pokerstars.

The events of today have hurt my opinion of your site. I’m really interested to hear your take on the events that happened, and about your “pros” being contracted to play in the WCOOP because they represent your site.

BeL0WaB0Ve

#2 23rd September 2006, 2:19 AM

Befor someone tells me there is a typo on the title, i know and i cant edit it

#3 23rd September 2006, 2:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mischman

Befor someone tells me there is a typo on the title, i know and i cant edit it

Better?

Interesting story. I'll be curious to see what if anything Poker Stars has to say...

#4 23rd September 2006, 3:05 AM

I saw this earlier too, two points.

- People can play however they want. I don't really care whether the guy is 'endorsed by Stars' or not, he can do what he wants if he's paid the entry. Anything further is between Stars and the player they've 'contracted'.

- He's claiming the picture is far bigger than 'I took a bad beat and am mad, but if he'd won that hand do you really think he would have made such a long-winded 'I am outraged' post?

Basically it's a long whine about nothing, and I feel I wasted precious minutes of my life reading it.

#5 23rd September 2006, 3:19 AM

I was at LeeJones table, and the kid was a maniac. I decided to fold JJ preflop to a monster raise of his preflop (no reads at the time) and if I had known how he played I really would have punished him... had about 85k chips at the time and he had me covered.... ah well.

#6 23rd September 2006, 3:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dorkus Malorkus

Basically it's a long whine about nothing, and I feel I wasted precious minutes of my life reading it.

on that note, i wont start reading it.

I'll guess the contents :- guy gets a bad beat by a PS resident. The End.

#7 23rd September 2006, 3:26 AM

hey welly, thanks for all the advice. i know it really helped me keep focused and whatnot.

#8 23rd September 2006, 3:34 AM

no probs, glad you did well. Good patience

Hope you're going to play a few more!

#9 23rd September 2006, 4:01 AM

Why would he wear sweatshirts in Las Vegas in the summer?

#10 23rd September 2006, 3:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrSticker

Why would he wear sweatshirts in Las Vegas in the summer?

The Amazon Room was a bit chilly.

#11 23rd September 2006, 3:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dorkus Malorkus

I saw this earlier too, two points.

- He's claiming the picture is far bigger than 'I took a bad beat and am mad, but if he'd won that hand do you really think he would have made such a long-winded 'I am outraged' post?

Or if it had occurred against some random donkey. He's making a big deal out of it because it was "Lee Nelson" oooohhhh. Plus I love the fact that he sees Lee at a table later with his friend and gets pissed because Lee says hi to someone else but not this dope. Hello? Maybe that was a friend of Lee's and as BeLow pointed out earlier, he didn't really say hi to anyone else. Plus why would he want to discuss a hand that he misplayed earlier in the tourney when he is later in a tourney and still playing hands.

#12 23rd September 2006, 5:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dorkus Malorkus

...if he'd won that hand do you really think he would have made such a long-winded 'I am outraged' post?

Exactly...

Boo hoo...the guy lost to a bad beat, and obviously tilted from it, and searched for some reason to complain. So Lee Nelson didn't respond to him - BOO HOO - he's a pro, and he should be able to take a bad beat and move on. He claims that he's lost respect for PS because of this event - he doesn't even know for sure if these guys are under contract.

#13 23rd September 2006, 5:51 PM

I agree that he wouldnt of wrote the letter id he would of won the pot. I think he is mad because PS requires people like Hachem to play and then he monkeys his chips off in 3 hands.

#14 23rd September 2006, 5:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mischman

I think he is mad because PS requires people like Hachem to play and then he monkeys his chips off in 3 hands.

Yeah, but really, who cares? This is pokerstars' issue (their 'contracted pros' disrespecting their contract), and it has nothing to do with this guy. I would want a guy to call my push in that situation every time. Sure, he mentions once in the article that it 'ruins the integrity of the game', but the rest of the article all he complains about is his bad beat, and the fact that Nelson won't answer him...I dunno...this guy just bugs me.

#15 23rd September 2006, 5:59 PM

There's a definite likeliness the guy is a tilting whineypants, but I think he has somewhat of a point. It does kind of hurt the integrity if pros are in fact under contract to play these tournaments when they're not going to give it their best shot and play like donkeys because they don't really care.

It's hard for me to see any pro making that call unless they were contractually obligated to be in the tournament and really didn't care very much, barring some really strong read that the player who pushed all in is a maniac, which is probably unlikely. I don't know, it's just such an awful call, I couldn't imagine that the guy gave a damn.

#16 23rd September 2006, 6:06 PM

You know, I was thinking. Have you ever heard of a big-time star contracted pro winning an online event? I see them playing in some big ones on UB & FTP, but you never see them win. Do they just donk off so they can go feed the kids (Annie Duke) or get back to the live casino game (FTP pros) or do they really have a problem beating rank amateurs like they do in the WSOP ME?

#17 23rd September 2006, 6:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by combuboom

There's a definite likeliness the guy is a tilting whineypants, but I think he has somewhat of a point. It does kind of hurt the integrity if pros are in fact under contract to play these tournaments when they're not going to give it their best shot and play like donkeys because they don't really care.

It's hard for me to see any pro making that call unless they were contractually obligated to be in the tournament and really didn't care very much, barring some really strong read that the player who pushed all in is a maniac, which is probably unlikely. I don't know, it's just such an awful call, I couldn't imagine that the guy gave a damn.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrSticker

You know, I was thinking. Have you ever heard of a big-time star contracted pro winning an online event? I see them playing in some big ones on UB & FTP, but you never see them win. Do they just donk off so they can go feed the kids (Annie Duke) or get back to the live casino game (FTP pros) or do they really have a problem beating rank amateurs like they do in the WSOP ME?

Agreed, the only time i see a big real life pro do good in a online tourney was raymers 2nd in the $530, or $1050, cant remember what it was

#18 23rd September 2006, 7:18 PM

I think it just shows that some of these guys are more talented live than they are online and vice versa.

#19 24th September 2006, 7:23 AM

while i can kind of see his point (and while watching raymer's table for a minute in today's event, he said that he and the rest of 'team pokerstars' got free entry to all these events, so i can sort of confirm that) this does sound a lot like a typical 'bad beat' thread. The funny thing is, i think i have seen this 'below' guy at the tables, but i had to 'google' lee nelson to figure out who he was, and it was only the Hendon mob that i reccognized.

-n

#20 24th September 2006, 12:09 PM

I had AA and he beat me
Hes a pro poker player and didnt talk to me

So if Mr Joe Bloggs from No-where called him and won then didnt answer later on (surely later on means further into the tourney and therefore he would be concentrating more?) would he write such a long piece.

Name-dropping me thinks

#21 24th September 2006, 3:12 PM

Belowabve, johnnybax, rizen, bogodari, sheets, ozzy87, H@Llingool are several of the many PS pros.

#22 24th September 2006, 3:28 PM

The importance of being ernest.
Here we have a self claimed $1k a week winning poker player, not only that, he also tells of his 2 years of experience dealing with online poker.
Two years?, 24 months?, 100 weeks?, 730 days?
He must be right.

#23 24th September 2006, 6:20 PM

Sounds like a whiner to me but on the PS contract note: couldn't any pro just register and sit out? Besides like Nate said of Raymer: they are freerolling and how many of us will admit to not playing as well as we probably could when it cost us nothing to enter. You don't care if your beaten so why not donkey it up and see what happens? If you get lucky and then have a lot of chips maybe you can switch gears and play serious but if not who cares?
It's just the fact that a lot of people feel fortunate to play in these events and don't want a bunch of donkeys with them and can't beleive a pro would play like one.

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