Guy Laliberte claims he was cheated on (old) Full Tilt

[Dan Druff]

Guy Laliberte, billionaire owner of Cirque du Soleil and creator/backer of the WSOP One Drop event, is finally speaking out about his staggering losses on Full Tilt.

Laliberte makes the following claims:

- Pros were colluding against him in the games.

- Pros had an unlimited virtual bankroll, because they could keep reloading with phantom Full Tilt money, while Laliberte could only play with money he had loaded online.


Laliberte's quotes (translated from French) were as follows:

I should have remembered that I am a dinosaur compared to this (the internet).

The story of Full Tilt is clear: I got scammed, squarely, by people I knew personally who used unlimited bank, paying no money.

It's easy to go all-in all the time, when it's not your own money, and they printed money to play against me, and they put two, three ... I was stupid.

The French article is here: http://www.journaldemontreal.com/201...tenir-le-mythe

He was aiming these statements at high-ranking Full Tilt Red Pros, rather than other pro players who played against him on the site.

Haralabob Voulgaris, who played in many of those games against Guy, said that he is simply a sore loser.

Guy basically was a huge loser the first week he started playing FTP, these guys weren’t playing with imaginary limitless money, they were playing for the most part with Guy’s money, and his opponents bankrolls kept on going up and up the more he played.
.
.
Guy never even really had any upswings when playing live or online, the gap between him and the players he was playing against was that big… he was drawing dead.

I believe this.

I also think it's possible that the pros basically dodged big confrontations with each other, and simply waited for big hands against Guy.

Furthermore, it is possible that Full Tilt Red Pros had an agreement that they would withdraw nearly unlimited company money to play against Guy, and perhaps split the profits, knowing the high likelihood that they would clobber him overall. I have no evidence of this, though.

Guy also offered no evidence that he was colluded against, and did not name any names.

Haralabob did concede that it was likely that Guy's contact at Full Tilt -- the one who helped him deposit large amount of money there -- alerted his friends that Guy would likely be coming to the tables soon, so they were waiting and ready to play against him.

[TheXFactor]

I wonder if this has anything to do with Patrik Antonius?
Guy Laliberte will not play poker with him under any circumstances.

Besides Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius, what other online FTP pro's made the most money off Guy?

I think it was over $40 million that Guy Laliberte lost over a two year period.

It's just bad luck.

[Dan Druff]

I have actually thought about the Guy Laliberte games. While I am not the NL cash player that some of his opponents were, I likely could have made good money in those games by being careful against the other pros and mainly focusing upon beating Guy. (I'm not talking about collusion, but rather just avoiding confrontations with dangerous players, as two big stacks often do at a tournament.)

However, I would have been terrified by the bankroll implications, as a bad run of cards could have completely wiped out my bankroll, and I would have had a very hard time assuming that risk, even if it were +EV.

I probably would have solicited others (not players in the game, btw) to share the risk with me.

Pretty sweet deal to get $40 million infused into the game by a billionaire, though.

I remember on Interpoker in 2004 and 2005, there were several huge fish in the 150-300 pound limit game, and in the best months, pretty much every pro on there was making 100k/month. Those were the days.

Funny story from those days, btw. I befriended an older woman who played on the site, who lived in the LA area. She was like 55 years old, and had been part of the mid-limit LA poker scene for quite some time. I was talking to her on AIM, and I said how it was too bad there wasn't a way to get an alert when one of those huge fish would sit. She said that she frequently watched the games (she didn't play as high as I did), and offered to call me whenever a fish sat. She wasn't asking for money or anything else in return. She just did it to be nice (or maybe because she had some kind of interest in me).

Sure enough, for about 2 weeks, she was reliably calling me and informing me about fish in the games.

Unfortunately, one of my real-life friends who also played on the site (and was known by everyone to be a close friend of mine) got into an argument with her online. I think she put a bad beat on him, and he made a comment in the chat box. Then she made a nasty comment back to him, and an insult war began. He called her an "old hag" and generally stuck to age-related insults. I was very upset when I heard about this, and indeed, she stopped talking to me after that. Guilt by association. She never talked to me again, and left the site.

[Steve-O]

Listening to your show now. You have a little bit of the story wrong.

What took place in these games was prearranged equity chopping (Mike Matusow spilled the beans on this a few years back). So the pros had made arrangements to equity chop all-ins vs. one another. So basically they could play a bit wild and not worry about the variance since if Guy folded they were just equity chopping

[Dan Druff]

Listening to your show now. You have a little bit of the story wrong.

What took place in these games was prearranged equity chopping (Mike Matusow spilled the beans on this a few years back). So the pros had made arrangements to equity chop all-ins vs. one another. So basically they could play a bit wild and not worry about the variance since if Guy folded they were just equity chopping

If this is true, that's actually pretty bad. Why didn't Laliberte mention this in the article, when this is far more damning than claims they were playing with "unlimited bankroll"?

[Shizzmoney]

Haralabob Voulgaris, who played in many of those games against Guy, said that he is simply a sore loser.

Guy basically was a huge loser the first week he started playing FTP, these guys weren’t playing with imaginary limitless money, they were playing for the most part with Guy’s money, and his opponents bankrolls kept on going up and up the more he played.
.
.
Guy never even really had any upswings when playing live or online, the gap between him and the players he was playing against was that big… he was drawing dead.

I believe this.

I also think it's possible that the pros basically dodged big confrontations with each other, and simply waited for big hands against Guy.

Furthermore, it is possible that Full Tilt Red Pros had an agreement that they would withdraw nearly unlimited company money to play against Guy, and perhaps split the profits, knowing the high likelihood that they would clobber him overall. I have no evidence of this, though.

Guy also offered no evidence that he was colluded against, and did not name any names.

Haralabob did concede that it was likely that Guy's contact at Full Tilt -- the one who helped him deposit large amount of money there -- alerted his friends that Guy would likely be coming to the tables soon, so they were waiting and ready to play against him.

It also makes the most sense.

However, unless they were cheating on the back end, too........this is really on Guy. Sometimes the best bets you make are the ones you don't make.

Also, LOL at the "unlimited money" jab; this guy has more money than most will ever seen in a lifetime and even he knows how much the poker welfare inflated these "pros" reputations and bankrolls.

[vookenmeister]

If they were splitting all in equity on the back end that this is collusion and cheating. I don't know what actually happened or what the climate was really like back then but today that is cheating. It is no different than having a bunch of friends sit a table together and raise and squeeze other players out of the pot. Again I don't know what happened but that is collusion. Not nearly like sharing cards but it's collusion.

Sure. It's on Guy somewhat to recognize and quit the game but is more on the others to provide a fair environment. The Andy beal setup of pooling money and having one player at a time play is not collusion. This if it was the case was collusion. Playing as Todd describes and avoiding the other pros is not collusion.

Again I don't know what happened but if what is referenced here about Matusow's description is accurate then that is collusion. Guy has a point.

[Steve-O]

Listening to your show now. You have a little bit of the story wrong.

What took place in these games was prearranged equity chopping (Mike Matusow spilled the beans on this a few years back). So the pros had made arrangements to equity chop all-ins vs. one another. So basically they could play a bit wild and not worry about the variance since if Guy folded they were just equity chopping

If this is true, that's actually pretty bad. Why didn't Laliberte mention this in the article, when this is far more damning than claims they were playing with "unlimited bankroll"?

I don't think Guy was able to articulate what happened the way he wanted to, or perhaps he doesn't fully understand what they were allegedly doing.

Pokerfuse described Guy's accusation as "instantly reloading their accounts as they squeezed him with frequent bets/raises from all sides of the virtual table(s)." but a more likely reason they were squeezing him was the players were equity chopping.
http://pokerfuse.com/news/live-and-o...players-09-05/

Start at about 1:21 for Matusow comments on Guy and FTP (you'll also get Negreanu talking about Men the Master if you go back a few more minutes)

http://quadjacks.com/daniel-negreanu...day-july-29th/

[Hockey Guy]

If this is true, that's actually pretty bad. Why didn't Laliberte mention this in the article, when this is far more damning than claims they were playing with "unlimited bankroll"?

I don't think Guy was able to articulate what happened the way he wanted to, or perhaps he doesn't fully understand what they were allegedly doing.

Pokerfuse described Guy's accusation as "instantly reloading their accounts as they squeezed him with frequent bets/raises from all sides of the virtual table(s)." but a more likely reason they were squeezing him was the players were equity chopping.
http://pokerfuse.com/news/live-and-o...players-09-05/

Start at about 1:21 for Matusow comments on Guy and FTP (you'll also get Negreanu talking about Men the Master if you go back a few more minutes)

http://quadjacks.com/daniel-negreanu...day-july-29th/

Of course Guy was getting cheated. I don't understand the mocking of his comments here but especially on 2+2.

You can say none of the lower tier "red pros" did anything wrong in the fall of FTP but nobody can tell me these people are ethical. Even a guy like Daniel Negreanu, who I believe to have more ethics than the norm, has said & done some shit that I absolutely vehemently disagree with & have had back & forths with him on his forum back in the day.

Is it really so hard to believe after seeing the lengths that these degenerates will go to keep themselves in action, like, in the "red pros" case, willfully turning a blind eye to what's happening in the company, that they would resort to some morally/ethically questionable tactics to win money from a known fish? Not one of these pros getting distributions has offered to return any of that money(okay, I heard Ferguson did but I'm not sure that's been 100% confirmed) even after finding out that it was actually money stolen from the players. That tells you all you need to know.

By "lower tier red pros" I mean the ones that were not in a position to make decisions because they were not on the board. I firmly believe a lot of these owners declined being on the board so they could use the "plausible deniability" defense.

[badguy23]

I have actually thought about the Guy Laliberte games. While I am not the NL cash player that some of his opponents were, I likely could have made good money in those games by being careful against the other pros and mainly focusing upon beating Guy. (I'm not talking about collusion, but rather just avoiding confrontations with dangerous players, as two big stacks often do at a tournament.)

However, I would have been terrified by the bankroll implications, as a bad run of cards could have completely wiped out my bankroll, and I would have had a very hard time assuming that risk, even if it were +EV.

I probably would have solicited others (not players in the game, btw) to share the risk with me.

Pretty sweet deal to get $40 million infused into the game by a billionaire, though.

I remember on Interpoker in 2004 and 2005, there were several huge fish in the 150-300 pound limit game, and in the best months, pretty much every pro on there was making 100k/month. Those were the days.

Funny story from those days, btw. I befriended an older woman who played on the site, who lived in the LA area. She was like 55 years old, and had been part of the mid-limit LA poker scene for quite some time. I was talking to her on AIM, and I said how it was too bad there wasn't a way to get an alert when one of those huge fish would sit. She said that she frequently watched the games (she didn't play as high as I did), and offered to call me whenever a fish sat. She wasn't asking for money or anything else in return. She just did it to be nice (or maybe because she had some kind of interest in me).

Sure enough, for about 2 weeks, she was reliably calling me and informing me about fish in the games.

Unfortunately, one of my real-life friends who also played on the site (and was known by everyone to be a close friend of mine) got into an argument with her online. I think she put a bad beat on him, and he made a comment in the chat box. Then she made a nasty comment back to him, and an insult war began. He called her an "old hag" and generally stuck to age-related insults. I was very upset when I heard about this, and indeed, she stopped talking to me after that. Guilt by association. She never talked to me again, and left the site.

LOL Druff is that old bitch alive or dead now? Y do u think she was interested in you? How do u know she wasnt just being nice to get into your jew pockets? Who was your friend that fcked things up with Aunt B? Pics or stfu about having some wrinkled pussy hag calling u when some fish came to the table.

[Dan Druff]

I have actually thought about the Guy Laliberte games. While I am not the NL cash player that some of his opponents were, I likely could have made good money in those games by being careful against the other pros and mainly focusing upon beating Guy. (I'm not talking about collusion, but rather just avoiding confrontations with dangerous players, as two big stacks often do at a tournament.)

However, I would have been terrified by the bankroll implications, as a bad run of cards could have completely wiped out my bankroll, and I would have had a very hard time assuming that risk, even if it were +EV.

I probably would have solicited others (not players in the game, btw) to share the risk with me.

Pretty sweet deal to get $40 million infused into the game by a billionaire, though.

I remember on Interpoker in 2004 and 2005, there were several huge fish in the 150-300 pound limit game, and in the best months, pretty much every pro on there was making 100k/month. Those were the days.

Funny story from those days, btw. I befriended an older woman who played on the site, who lived in the LA area. She was like 55 years old, and had been part of the mid-limit LA poker scene for quite some time. I was talking to her on AIM, and I said how it was too bad there wasn't a way to get an alert when one of those huge fish would sit. She said that she frequently watched the games (she didn't play as high as I did), and offered to call me whenever a fish sat. She wasn't asking for money or anything else in return. She just did it to be nice (or maybe because she had some kind of interest in me).

Sure enough, for about 2 weeks, she was reliably calling me and informing me about fish in the games.

Unfortunately, one of my real-life friends who also played on the site (and was known by everyone to be a close friend of mine) got into an argument with her online. I think she put a bad beat on him, and he made a comment in the chat box. Then she made a nasty comment back to him, and an insult war began. He called her an "old hag" and generally stuck to age-related insults. I was very upset when I heard about this, and indeed, she stopped talking to me after that. Guilt by association. She never talked to me again, and left the site.

LOL Druff is that old bitch alive or dead now? Y do u think she was interested in you? How do u know she wasnt just being nice to get into your jew pockets? Who was your friend that fcked things up with Aunt B? Pics or stfu about having some wrinkled pussy hag calling u when some fish came to the table.

I don't have a pic of her.

I thought she was interested just from the vibe I was getting from her, which is pretty accurate from my years of life experience.