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Thread: Highstakes Poker Pro Alec Torelli accused of angle shooting amateur

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    Highstakes Poker Pro Alec Torelli accused of angle shooting amateur

    In an episode of PNIA, Alec Torelli appears and is accused to have angle shot an amateur (Daniel Wolf).

    I'm not sure if Doug Polk is the one to have called this out originally, but he has done a recent video on his thoughts:





    Alec Torelli also makes a video on his Youtube channel highlighting the incident and seems to downplay his mistake of hiding chips in the whole ordeal. It's highlighted in Doug Polk's video (15:45 mark in the video)....I can't seem to find it on Torelli's Youtube page, albeit I didn't take a lot of time looking.


    Here is the alleged response from the amateur player (I don't know the original source of this response, it was shared on a private FB group I'm apart of):

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      Sol: this is old news, it wasn't that bad
    Last edited by AhoosierA; 06-02-2017 at 10:00 AM. Reason: I don't know how to fucking embed a video :/

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    Silver AhoosierA's Avatar
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    Personally, I believe it looks like he was intentionally hiding his stack from other players. It also looks kind of strange that he IMMEDIATELY grabbed his big chips as soon as the guy announced all-in. Torelli seems like he wants the All-in to stand...without him being the one to say it has to stand, but ultimately it was HIS decision to force the chips to stand.

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    This hand happened about a year ago. There was a small rumbling about it at the time, but nothing much came of it. Then it aired on TV a few weeks ago, sparking a new and extensive discussion on 2+2. The Polk video followed, which prompted Wolf to come forward.

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    Wikipedia has now updated Alec Torelli's Wikipedia page to include this "scandal".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Torelli

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    King of Lost Wages LarryLaffer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AhoosierA View Post
    Wikipedia has now updated Alec Torelli's Wikipedia page to include this "scandal".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Torelli


    i thought he was much older. must be the leisure suit he was wearing.

    he looks strikingly like another kid i went to high school with who grinds stars down in Costa Rica. he was on a WSOP broadcast a few years back. Lipkin was the kids name.

     
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      Shizzmoney: Leisure Suit Torelli lol
    "Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next."

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    Quote Originally Posted by LarryLaffer View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by AhoosierA View Post
    Wikipedia has now updated Alec Torelli's Wikipedia page to include this "scandal".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Torelli

    he looks strikingly like another kid i went to high school with who grinds stars down in Costa Rica. he was on a WSOP broadcast a few years back. Lipkin was the kids name.
    Robert Lipkin? Somewhat similar.



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    Quote Originally Posted by LarryLaffer View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by AhoosierA View Post
    Wikipedia has now updated Alec Torelli's Wikipedia page to include this "scandal".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Torelli


    i thought he was much older. must be the leisure suit he was wearing.
    I too thought he was much older. Hell. I'm older than him at 31 and look much younger than he does.

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    King of Lost Wages LarryLaffer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AhoosierA View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by LarryLaffer View Post


    he looks strikingly like another kid i went to high school with who grinds stars down in Costa Rica. he was on a WSOP broadcast a few years back. Lipkin was the kids name.
    Robert Lipkin? Somewhat similar.



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    HAHA i played 1/3 NL with this kid in 2005 in this kid Ross' basement. He was huge on stars back in 05/06. Was childhood friends with him and our families knew each other well. Pre-school is where i met that kid.
    "Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next."

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    King of Lost Wages LarryLaffer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AhoosierA View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by LarryLaffer View Post



    i thought he was much older. must be the leisure suit he was wearing.
    I too thought he was much older. Hell. I'm older than him at 31 and look much younger than he does.

    believe me if you think you look young at 31, you should see what I look like. I'll be getting carded forever
    "Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next."

    George Steinbrenner

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    I do like his style though


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    "Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next."

    George Steinbrenner

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    http://www.miraclecovers.com

    "Donk down, that’s what you say to someone after they have lost 28K straight?" - Phil Hellmuth, online

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    Torelli I believe presented his side of the argument pretty well. However he did not give explanation/apology on why he went north or why he didn't notify the production crew on the new chips in play, which is likely because he did go north.

    Hopefully Doug Polk responds to this. Would be funny if it lead to another heads up grudge match. The hand where Torelli called Polk with JJ when Polk took an aggressive line + now accusing him of being scummy. I could see it happen. PNIA Polk vs Torelli. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!!!

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    King of Lost Wages LarryLaffer's Avatar
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    jfc that was terrible to watch.

    Tortellini such a dbag.

    /thread
    "Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next."

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    Jump forward to 6:15 for Polk's response.


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    Okay, here are my opinions on this one....

    First off, it's time to do some homework before watching Torelli's video.

    Go to the original PokerNight Twitch stream of this episode: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/58450160

    It's 6 hours. Don't worry, you will only need to skip around and watch a few minutes.

    At about the 2:38:25 mark, everyone has just come back from dinner. You can clearly see that Alec has a single silver ($5k) chip. It isn't out front, and isn't visible to ALL of the table, but isn't completely hidden. Players to his right can definitely see it.

    At 3:01:40, you can see that Alec has now slid that single silver chip more out of view. Why? Could be several explanations, some innocent, some not-so-innocent. But read on...

    Dan Wolf joins the game in a silly outfit slightly before the 3:06:00 mark, and plays his first hand shortly after that. At 3:06:23, you can see Alec's stack from Dan's angle. There's no way to see the $5k silver chip!

    Still, at this point you can say that it was just a stupid mistake by Alec, and this was just a bad circumstance for Dan, who sat down in a position where he could not see Alec's extra $5k chip.

    The key thing happens at 4:23:45 -- Alec makes a horrible tilt-river-call with 63 on a 23JTQ versus Jennifer Tilly's AA. About a minute later, at 4:25:14, Torelli reaches into his jacket to pull out more chips.

    It is important to understand that Torelli was the biggest loser in the game at that point, just made a bad call on TV, and was likely steaming.

    While we don't get to see him actually take something out of his jacket (the camera cuts away), if you skip 4 minutes ahead to 4:29:36, you can clearly see two silver chips stacked upon one another. If you can't see it clearly, blow up the video to full screen, and you will. If you watch those 4 minutes in between, Alec did not win any large pots which would have contained a silver chip, so he definitely added it from his jacket.

    You can also see that both silver chips are still hidden behind his others, and are out of view to all people to his left, including Dan Wolf.

    Torelli's chip count is never updated on the screen to reflect the extra $5k chip.

    The controversial hand with Wolf happens about 45 minutes later, at 5:15:00.

    Bottom line: Alec Torelli secretly "went north" (rebought over the table maximum) without telling anyone. It's also worth noting that Poker Night in America rules state that any rebuys must be disclosed to them, even if not over the maximum.

    -----

    Now back to Torelli's defense video.

    He spends much of the time bashing Polk and his motivations, repeatedly pointing out that Polk selectively edited the footage when presenting his video.

    Okay, fine, I'll give him that. Polk probably did selectively edit in order to make Torelli look worse, but that really doesn't change the situation. Torelli still had his big chips hidden from Wolf's view (as can be clearly seen in the video at the points I referred to above), and Wolf went all-in with a false belief regarding Torelli's actual chip count. Polk's editing did not change that fact.

    Furthermore, Torelli oddly spends time claiming that Wolf is actually a pro and not an amateur, but that's not really important here. Many losing players call themselves "pros" in order to feel good about themselves. I don't know if Wolf is a net winner or loser in poker, but this isn't really important. The bottom line is that Wolf isn't yet a veteran of the game, and is still a bit green. You can tell this from watching the footage of Wolf at the table.

    Alec spends some time in the video during the first 10 minutes, repeatedly asserting that he "didn't know what to do" when this supposedly honest mistake occurred, and he simply wanted to be fair to everyone in the game, including one person who had already put in $500 and folded.

    But hold on!

    Go to 15:25 of Torelli's own defense video, where he's playing the clip of himself explaining the situation to the floorman. Torelli grabs his orange chips (the ones obscuring the silvers), and tells the floorman, "I had just won these, and put them here", explaining that winning those orange chips caused him to accidentally block the silvers. This is a LIE!

    How do I know it's a lie? Go back to the Twitch video I referenced. Look at 5:09:20, which is another hand Torelli played against Wolf, 6 minutes earlier. You will see that he only bets a single orange chip, Wolf folds, and he puts it back on his stack. This is approximately the same stack of orange chips which had been there the entire time! Go look at his orange chips an hour earlier in the video, such as when he lost that hand against Tilly at 4:23:45. Same orange chip stack obscuring the silver!

    Torelli makes the point from around the 17 minute mark that Wolf never asked for him to play for $10k less, and in fact kept asking two friends of his at the table what should be done, and that the friends seemed to be confused as to what was right. This seems to be true, but then Torelli jumps to the conclusion that Wolf never asked for the $10k to be out of play, so therefore he never thought that was the right solution until after he lost the hand.

    This is nonsense.

    Wolf clearly cannot be proposing for Torelli to take the $10k out of play, because that instantly reveals that his own hand is weak, and Torelli (who hasn't called his all-in yet) would snap-call him. It seems that Wolf was trying to pass the discussion to his friends so he doesn't give away the strength of his hand. I have also found myself in this position before, where I want to argue my point regarding the size of someone's bet, but I'm afraid that doing so will reveal the strength of my own hand. If another person at the table is stating it for me, that's much better.

    Torelli seems to make a Freudian slip at 20:28 of his own video, where he said, "Cause it's kinda my fault I hid them, I didn't hide them, but it's my fault you didn't see them in a way."

    At around 25:20 of Torelli's video, he admits that he is considering calling because he knows Wolf's hand must be weak due to his objections to Torelli's additional $10k he didn't realize was there. "This is sick. I'm discounting a lot of hands here because of how you acted..."

    Indeed, Torelli called, and won.

    At about 28:00, Torelli offered to "give a piece of myself in a future game if you want", as if that makes things any better. How is that any kind of concession? Keep in mind Torelli was getting crushed here prior to this hand, so it's not like that's free money. That's just a douchey thing to do. If you want to make a concession, offer to give him a FREE piece of yourself in a future game. He also says it's "at no ridiculous markup", but he didn't even state that at the time.

    ----

    My verdict: Torelli seems like a douche, and isn't being completely honest with us. It is unclear why he hid those silver chips. It clearly wasn't JUST about going north, as he already had the first one hidden before surreptitiously adding the second. At the very least, he snuck a $5k chip on the table, and therefore won $5k too much in that hand, as he shouldn't have been allowed to have that second $5k chip on the table. So he owes Wolf back $5k minimum if he wants to be ethical. He also never addresses going north during his 36 minute response video, and the silence on that subject is deafening.

    I do see that Torelli offered several times during that hand to "make a deal", and wasn't pressing to force those chips to be in play. At he same time, he didn't exactly object to them being in play, and never offered himself to have them taken out of play. I think Torelli liked his spot, but wanted others (such as the floorman and/or the other players) to take his side, so he wouldn't have to come off as the angle-shooting bad guy.

    I believe the correct solution during the hand would have been to remove the $10k from the hand which Wolf couldn't see were there, and then let it play out normally. As that didn't happen, and the hand played out, Wolf did have some equity with his AT vs. Torelli's AQ all-in. However, since $5k of that shouldn't have been there in the first place, that should have still been refunded completely. The remaining $5k should have been partially refunded based upon the equity Alec had. Alec's equity there was 70.37%, which equals $3518.50 of the $5k. The fair and correct refund there (after the fact) should have been $8518.50, rather than some bullshit offer for Wolf to buy a piece of him.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Just saw this:




    I think he's full of shit.

    Here he admits to accidentally going north by $675, but claims he told the crew. There is no proof of this, nor is there any proof any of the players were informed, nor does he explain why the chip count was never updated on the screen.

    There is also some speculation that he went north by more than $675, and that the graphic showing him having $15,675 prior to adding the $5k chip was incorrect.

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    Gold sah_24's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Just saw this:




    I think he's full of shit.

    Here he admits to accidentally going north by $675, but claims he told the crew. There is no proof of this, nor is there any proof any of the players were informed, nor does he explain why the chip count was never updated on the screen.

    There is also some speculation that he went north by more than $675, and that the graphic showing him having $15,675 prior to adding the $5k chip was incorrect.
    He is def full of shit. He clearly went north and the majority of the players in the game didn't know. Incredibly scummy angle to pull but not surprising with this guy

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    Quote Originally Posted by AhoosierA View Post
    Torelli I believe presented his side of the argument pretty well. However he did not give explanation/apology on why he went north or why he didn't notify the production crew on the new chips in play, which is likely because he did go north.

    Hopefully Doug Polk responds to this. Would be funny if it lead to another heads up grudge match. The hand where Torelli called Polk with JJ when Polk took an aggressive line + now accusing him of being scummy. I could see it happen. PNIA Polk vs Torelli. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!!!
    Have a feeling it would be more entertaining then the KateandherEight (inch Fingers) vs Mike Misogyny Detentale.. Would take Polk in that HU match

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