Conflict of Interest at the WSOP? Stacy Matuson works with Jack Effel, in a dealer academy that may be owned by Ceasers?

[LarryLaffer]

So i'm browsing the 4 and I come across the "9 High Like A Boss Thread" about the guy Will Kassouf and his table talk.

the usual 4 banter and trolling goes back and forth as everyone argues about wether or not this guy is good for the game.

then they bring up the hand that was aired (I think it was one of the first 2 episodes) in which he's in a hand with Stacy Matuson. after a bunch of table talk, mostly WK getting in her head, she folds queens and he shows her 9 high. well, Jack Effel came in and gave the guy a penalty for the table talk.

then about halfway into the thread, SM herself drops in and tries to clear a few things up, but in the process digs herself a hole.

here's where she comes in. http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=181



it's brought up that the she runs a Dealer School, actually a WSOP branded dealer school, and how it may be actually a conflict of interest. but then says she doesn't work for ceasrs but if you scroll down a bit, she starts to take flack as it's revealed via the dealer school website that it is in fact owned by ceasers.

Conflict of interest? I think so. She shouldn't even be allowed to play in any events at all.

Druff, what do you think, another ceasers fail?

edit: here's a couple of relevant posts from the thread.

where it's first brought up:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=176
where it's first pointed out that shes full of shit:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=185
her response:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=186
user "watevs" who first posed the question comes back with more:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=187
Bobo-Fett chimes in and destroys her
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=189

super edit:
a green mod comes in and tries to shut the conversation down:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=206

the conversation seems to keep going and even Bobo Fett comes back and responds to the obvious mod-cover-up-job (Bobo is a blue mod)
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=210

and then she gets accused of cheating, which she may have done. She mentioned that someone told her will kassoufs hand that he showed to the espn cameras and that factored into her decision to fold the queens in this post here:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=182
here's where it's brought up that what she did was totally cheating
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=226

finally after some silence she chimes in with her response to the cheating and how she knew Kassoufs cards
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=278


things not looking good for either of these clowns. i don't want this to be longer then the wall of text it already is, but her responses to the cheating allegations are almost as bad as her responses to the conflict of interest allegations.



wtf is going on with the WSOP

[LarryLaffer]

Adam Schwartz comes in and levels her:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...&postcount=302

[JoeD]

I read and tried to understand Matuson's explanation twice but have no idea what she is trying to say.

It would not be unheard of that their pictures ended up next to each other on the school's web site and they don't actually know each other at all.

If anything, the blame needs to go to Jack Effel, who simply could and should have recused himself and stepped away from the issue by having someone else take care of it.

[LarryLaffer]

I read and tried to understand Matuson's explanation twice but have no idea what she is trying to say.

It would not be unheard of that their pictures ended up next to each other on the school's web site and they don't actually know each other at all.

If anything, the blame needs to go to Jack Effel, who simply could and should have recused himself and stepped away from the issue by having someone else take care of it.

I think the issue is more that she lied. She clearly stated, and very rudely that the dealer school she runs isn't affiliated with Ceasers. but it is. that sort of in my eyes makes her a ceasers employee and therefore shouldn't even be eligible to play (just like dealers and floor people at any ceasers property cannot enter)

then the cheating accusations, what do you think about that? She basically says she cheated!

[Peter Binklage]

Great O Henry style justice if she used unfair access to Kassouf's straight flush to inform her fold in that qq hand.

[JoeD]

I guess it would depend upon how she found out about his hand, which is not entirely clear. It does appear to be cheating unless she gives further clarification. Folding those QQs was absurd, but what do I know.

[Dan Druff]

I can give some more perspective here, having recently (2013) been at a televised final table. My televised table was only on ESPN360.com, but same concept applies.

Regarding the "cheating" accusation, I can't agree at all.

One unfortunate reality of "audience" poker is that people in the crowd will be seeking to help their friends, and you can't hold the audience to the same tight standards as you can players at the table, aside from obvious things such as not being able to use special devices to view beyond what the human eye can see.

In the case of Kassouf's straight flush, he apparently exposed his cards enough to where certain audience members could see he what he had. At that point, provided that nobody shouts it out during the hand, it's fair game if one of the audience members who saw it reports back to their friend at the table. You may say it's unfair, you may say it's cheating, but it's simply unrealistic to believe that the audience won't do things like this. And as the old saying goes, once you hear something, you can't un-hear it.

This went on at my final table in 2013. The stream was 15 minutes behind. I started noticing that certain players at the table were going to the rail and talking to their friends who were looking at smart phones. I realized that they were finding out hands of opponents which were airing 15 minutes behind. Everyone was doing it. In fact, if you didn't do it, you were at a disadvantage, as people would know your past hole cards and you wouldn't know theirs. Personally, I think it's a shitty situation and wish they didn't have these streams. Or if they did, I'd prefer there would be a longer delay (maybe 2 hours?). But basically any time there's a short delay stream, someone can either consult the rail or call their friends watching at home while on break ("Hey, what did Mike have in that big hand where I folded the river 20 minutes ago?"), so even those without buddies in Vegas can pull this off.

This is just the reality of having an audience, a camera, and in some cases, an almost-live stream.

Unfortunately, finding out things like this becomes part of the game. It shouldn't be part of the game, but it is.

Now, the ruling is a different matter.

I don't blame Stacy for letting Jack Effel rule on her situation. It's not up to her to decide whether Jack is biased or not.

I agree that Jack had a conflict of interest here. If Stacy works under Jack (even if not directly), he should not be ruling on anything involving her. Preferably there would be a second floorman who doesn't know her who could be brought over to rule in any situations involving her.

Alternatively, they could just ban anyone with such connections to Caesars from playing in the WSOP bracelet events.

I also agree that Stacy is being strangely confrontational and dishonest in the thread. If she started out with transparency, but explaining that she couldn't control who ruled on her situation, there wouldn't be half the outrage that there is right now.

I also feel that the ruling was correct.

[LarryLaffer]

::bump::

since he'll be on the radio tonight will any of this be brought up?

[LarryLaffer]

if you watch this weeks footage, and don't believe there was a conflict of interest with WK and SM, then you're blind.

they're ganging up on this guy and he's not even doing anything wrong.

[JoeD]

For whatever it's worth, my cousin went deep in the ME and is still in it on Day 7, so many of my non-poker playing relatives and people at the office are tuning in to watch. Every one of them that I've heard from say that last night's two episodes were unwatchable. So if the goal is to appeal to the masses with coverage of the ME on ESPN, last night was not a good showing.

By the way, Jack Effel had it wrong when he was lecturing Kassouf about letting the other players play their hands without a lot of questions being thrown at them. The guy had already made his decision and moved all in. Kassouf was then trying to chat with the player to determine whether to call the all in with his 3s.