In 2017, I had the chip lead at the $10k WSOP Limit Holdem event.
A guy was moved to the table named Martin Kabrhel, a youngish Czech guy, who was very talkative.
However, it didn't take long to get really annoyed with him. He tanked every decision, and slowed the normally quick limit holdem game to a crawl. His table talk was a combination of annoying and arrogant. He delayed the entire tournament when freaking out about the cold temperature of Rio's Amazon Room, demanding management "fix it", despite everyone telling him that this had been unsuccessfully requested for years. At one point, he was shouting across the room that he'd pay $500 for someone to buy him a hoodie. When I inquired if he was serious (I was going to get a friend in Vegas to do it, who needed the money), he ignored me, and got his girlfriend to buy him one instead. So it was all for show.
Even worse, I was running really bad as soon as he showed up, and lost every hand -- some of them to him. I busted well before the money.
I hadn't thought much about Martin Kabrhel since then, other than occasionally seeing his name in tournament updates. Apparently he's buddies with somewhat shady King's Casino owner Leon Tsoukernik.
However, I woke up to see this tweet from Andrew Robl, regarding Kabrhel in the $250k WSOP High Roller:
https://twitter.com/Andrew_Robl/status/1670535954594172930
This kicked off a lot of discussion regarding Kabrhel, with various people telling stories of either suspecting him of card marking in the past, prior absurdly slow/annoying behavior at the table, or both.
Then there were moments like these, shown from the final table broadcast today:
https://twitter.com/HHHUGINHO/status/1670642598564843520
https://twitter.com/BrettRichey/status/1670568562069753856
Some are insisting that Kabrhel is just intentionally being annoying, and not cheating. Those people are saying he wouldn't dare mark cards on a highly watched stream of a WSOP final table.
Dan Smith definitely wants Kabrhel banned from the WSOP:
https://twitter.com/PokerGO/status/1670634779673497600
Some are defending Kabrhel, saying that in absence of cheating proof, the WSOP has no business banning him, even if he's annoying and obnoxious.
Opinons?