EPL...and Chino Rheem

This blog is going to be more of an editorial...than a Blog...I'm not going to touch on my poker playing ...as there hasn't been much to talk about...lol

I want to touch on the EPL (Epic Poker League)...and there inaugural event that went down a few weeks ago...and the "Warning" given to the eventual winner Chino Rheem for "Conduct Unbecoming"...or whatever you want to call it.

Annie Duke and Matt Savage came up with this great league that would bring all the poker players in a "League Format" sort of like Golf and Bowling...etc. They wanted to turn poker into a sport and all the players into celebrities. They wanted to show that poker players are not "Shady" people who live to shoot angles and cheat people out of their hard earned money. They wanted to build "Character" out of poker players and show the world we are all good people who love our sport/game...etc.

I don't claim to know all the specifics ...so don't flame me for not knowing...and I am going to try not to be critical of Chino or the EPL...but how this whole fiasco just makes us all...all serious poker players...look bad:

Overview:
The EPL comes out with this great league...they give "cards" out to members as you can only play if you are selected as a poker pro...they have their 1st $20k Main Event...and the guy who somehow made his name into a verb...getting "Chino'ed"...wins the thing for a cool $1 million. This is the same Chino Rheem that got slammed when he made the November Nine for having warrants out for his arrest...etc

After Chino's win...several players who got "Chino'ed" (Verb for: Borrowing money from poker players and not paying them back in a timely manner)...which included last years 3rd place finisher in the WSOP Main Event Joe "Subiime" Cheong...began complaining publicly. The bored poker media who lately have had nothing exciting going on...suddenly had a hot story...and they ran with it. Then Ben Lamb comes out...then Durrr....etc. Really guys???...whats $40k to these guys? ...That's like about $1k to the rest of us.

Soon...after...the EPL decided to put Chino on "Probation" for borrowing money and not paying it back fast enough. It went against their "Player Conduct" rules or something.

Talk about starting the league under a cloud of shady-ness...WOW!!! The 1st person who wins the very 1st EPL main event gets put on probation for "Conduct Unbecoming"...and we are suppose to be trying to turn poker into a legitimate sport/game that big name sponsors will come and invest advertising dollars into...Really???? This is what I mean by all they are doing is hurting poker with this kind of non-sense as poker players understand the dynamics of the situation...but everyday "Joe's" will not.

Lets look at some analogies right quick...gambling in golf...could you see John Daly borrowing $50k or so from Tiger Woods...or he losses $50k playing/gambling on 9 holes...and then he wins the TPC for millions...OH WAIT...the PGA announces that they are putting him on probation for "personal debts"...that he hasn't welshed on...he just has not payed them back "Fast enough for the PGA"...Really????

This is just bad karma to start this league with and personally...I don't think Chino did anything wrong. Its not like he said he wasn't going to pay??? I mean ...if you loan a guy $40k because you will get a piece of the grinder in the WSOP Main Event...then that's on you. You made the decision to ship out that loan...nobody else...and for the likes of Ben lamb/Subiime/Durrr to go crying to the EPL and the poker media...wow...thats bizarre...sorry guys...that's just how I see it.

Now lets move onto the topic of the rest of the EPL and the big names that listed on the rooster there...and we have to talk about FTP and the fiasco that the site has turned into. This poker site is going to go down in the poker history as the biggest "FAIL" ...and the players that are associated with it are going to be stained as well. I mean come on...Dutch Boyd got lynched in the poker community for Pokerspot and its demise years ago...now we have Annie Duke/Matt Savage with all the shady shysters on the rooster that were FTP. Lets run though them right quick...

Low and behold...at the top of the list is Annie's brother Howard "The Professor" Lederer...Jesus Ferguson...Andy Bloch...Juanda...etc....everyone else that "owned" even a slight piece of the company...they know who they are...they all owe Millions upon Millions of dollars...to thousands upon thousands of players...and that's a fact...not a perception.

And Chino Rheem gets put on probation after winning the 1st event...and all these people are allowed in with not even a slap on the wrist???

I don't know guys...I would love to see this league take off and be the biggest thing going in the poker world...but by the actions of how they treated Chino with the shadiness surrounding his win (the 1st ever EPL main Event)...and the two-faced/hypocrisy of their actions...

...it just doesn't pass the "Sniff Test"...but GL ...I am rooting for the league to make it

"I'm no martyr. I did it for the money. But it's not worth much if you can't face yourself in the mirror. Respect is the ultimate currency. I was stealing from a man who traded his away for a few dollars. And then he tried to wash away his guilt. Drown it in a lifetime of good deeds and a sea of respectability. It almost worked, too. But inevitably, the further you run from your sins, the more exhausted you are when they catch up to you. And they do. Certain. It will not fail"
-Clive Owen as Dalton Russell in "Inside Man"