This week has been an interesting one on the newswires concerning poker around the world. Taking a look at some of the news surrounding Texas Holdem the last couple of weeks involves a glance or two at the police blotters. The variety of incidents range from the laughable to the morbid to the confusing.
Spitting on an opponent or a dealer is an impossible internet poker strategy but apparently it is one in live poker. In online poker you can certainly spit at the avatars and only run the risk of dirtying your monitor. In live poker, the repercussions are a little worse.
California no limit players found out first hand what those results were. Not that spitting is necessarily a good strategy, by any means, but definitely a strategy one player attempted with pretty bad results. Mesbah Khaffaji, a 52 year old recreational poker player, at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens spat food in a dealers face maybe in an attempt to change his luck. It didn’t work.
Khaffaji lost a big pot, and had been losing badly that night in a series of big pots, and could take it no longer. Throwing social mores out the window Khaffaji projectile spat his food at the dealer. To nobody’s surprise except for maybe the guy bad luck tear, Khaffaji,the police showed up shortly thereafter. The arresting officer said it wasn’t the first time it’s happened and suggested it wouldn’t be the last either because when people get heated after losing large sums of money and they can’t control their emotions.
Elsewhere, in more criminals and poker news, a couple of poker playing murderers have made headlines. Not too many people shed a tear when the brutish Craigslist serial murderer was found dead in his jail cell after killing himself. He chose the day of what would have been his first wedding anniversary. His fiancee broke up with him when it came to light he was killing people. The couple were Foxwoods regulars.
The likely Natalie Holloway murder Joran Van der Sloot apparently played poker the night of her murder and the next day. A Phildelphia man made news by recalling playing with Van der Sloot on those days. They got into a disagreement because Van der Sloot refused to speak English when making decision in two big hands with Matthew Biebel. Van der Sloot spoke in a tongue native to Aruba to friends at the table while deciding whether or not to call Biebel. Words were exchanged and the floor was called.
Interestingly, Biebel, at the time, didn’t think Van der Sloot could have murdered Holloway thinking that was too cold blooded for the kid to be able to calmly play poker that night. Van der Sloot, to Biebel, appeared to be spoiled punk but didn’t seem like a killer. After the arrest of Vand der Sloot in Chile, Biebel has rethought that night and realized putting a finger in Van Der Sloot’s face wasn’t such a good idea.
In other slight shocking criminal poker news a man in New Mexico has been granted his freedom to play poker professionally in an attempt to repay the victims he conned and to avoid jail time. Samuel McMaster got the very unusual plea agreement that allows him to earn money in order to make restitution payments to the people he conned out of money. The ex-stockbroker bilked his clients out of $444,00 and racked up 26 counts of securities fraud. In a shocker, he stole the money to pay for his gambling debts.
There are limits on this agreement as McMaster in the next six months will be required to make a monthly $7500 payment. If he whiffs twice on the payments he’ll be back in court and likely sentenced to 12 years in prison. As he lists his profession as a poker player the courts will allow him to travel and play poker in events around the country. The supposition is that his profession is like any other profession so he can try to make good on his debts by earning money.
While in one way that is a sign of respect of poker as a profession it’s a little myopic and will likely do more harm than good if McMaster fails. Not many players can put together six straight months of wins, especially with the pressure of a 13 years of jail time, and considering McMaster raked up 444k in gambling debts in the first place this story will likely end bad for poker players. Even if he is talented enough as a player to overcome the odds and win for six months straight, he probably has some serious gambling leaks in the pits or elsewhere that will make it hard for him to escape the casino with his full bankroll.