Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
Pretty big news was released this past week by both GGPoker and Pokerstars, but it's not getting a lot of notice.

GGPoker has launched a "Poker Integrity Council" consisting of five pro poker players, who will help decide whether to permaban known cheaters from GG, and perhaps unaffiliated live events. GG has established partnerships with the WSOP, WPT, and several other poker tours in this effort. These live events will not be required to abide by the council's decision, but will be informed by it, and might indeed ban the players recommended by the council.

This could be huge, as this council's decision could result in the ban of certain known cheaters from all major live tournaments going forward.





The Poker Integrity Council consists of 5 people:

  • Jason Koon (GGPoker)
  • Fedor Holz (GGPoker)
  • Andrew "LuckyChewy" Lichtenberger (LearnWPT)
  • Seth Davies (Run It Once)
  • Nick Petrangelo (Upswing Poker)


Note that two of these guys are GG pros, whereas the other three represent training sites.

Hmmm.... a council of people looking to fight fraud and scams in poker. If only someone existed who has already been doing that for the past 15 years, and who would site dedicated to that!

Actually, the situation is currently "being reviewed", and perhaps PFA will be part of the process, as well. I did not ask for this, but others brought it to the attention of those involved, and the matter is being considered. I won't hold my breath, but it would be great to be involved in something like this.

It is not clear if the first banned players will be the "big three" in controversy in 2022 -- Ali Imsirovic, Jake Schindler, and Bryn Kenney. It's also not clear if alleged accomplices, such as David "CSM" Miscicowski, would see any kind of ban in the future.



In related news, Pokerstars has decided to extend all online bans to their live events. Before they had a soft policy regarding this, where only some players banned from the site were disallowed from playing the Pokerstars-owned EPT. Now Pokerstars has taken a more hard line policy, banning all people from the EPT (and any other Pokerstars live events) who are currently banned from Pokerstars.



This is a slippery slope, obviously. How far back should bad behavior be considered ban-worthy? For example, Justin Bonomo is an admitted cheater from 2006. Should he be banned, despite his clean record in the 16 years since? What about people like the aforementioned Chino Rheem, who haven't cheated in poker but have screwed many players by knowingly taking loans he can't repay? What about situations where there are unproven allegations of cheating? Is it possible someone will get unfairly shut out of live poker tournaments?

Regardless of all this, I think such bans can be effectively used if they stick to clear and obvious cheating situations. Basically go after any very credible cheating allegations, give the accused a chance to respond, and make an intelligent decision as to what to do. Nobody has a right to play poker. Any venue can ban anyone for any reason. I agree it's time they start using that more often to get some of the cheaters out of the game, and the fear of this also might disincentivize future cheating attempts.
Now if Im reading that right that logo appears to include Kings Casino where if my memory serves me correct the owner was involved in some very shady shit themselves involving Poker.. Seems a little disingenous to include a casino whos owner is a shady cheating scammer.