Hace unos días salieron a la luz una serie de grabaciones donde se escuchaba a Russ Hamilton , ganador del Evento Principal de la WSOP 1994 y dueño de la sala online Ultimate Bet, admitir que veía las cartas de sus rivales y que les había quitado fuertes sumas de dinero. De hecho, se presume que fueron unos 50 millones de dólares.

En dichas grabaciones fueron mencionados los jugadores más representativos de la sala: Phil Hellmuth Jr. y Annie Duke Phil hizo su descargo hace varios días ya donde admitió que se había equivocado en confiar en la gente de UB, pero que jamás había visto las cartas de sus rivales ni hecho trampa. Ahora fue el turno de Annie, quien ayer escribió lo siguiente en su facebook:

Listening to the leaked audio that describes an elaborate attempt by some of UltimateBet.com’s founders, including Russ Hamilton and Greg Pierson, to cover up cheating reminds me once again how much I regret having been associated with the people that were involved in this conspiracy. The release of this audio has spurred accusations and I want to make it clear that I have never used a tool on a delay or otherwise that gave me or anyone else access to hole cards for use during real money play nor was I aware that such a tool existed until the scandal broke. 

 Knowing what I know today, I would have never encouraged anyone to play on the UltimateBet.com site under that management. I’m horrified at the lengths to which these people went to try to cover up their actions, and I am very sorry that I ever agreed to work with them. I remain very upset that people were cheated and that, partly because of the actions of the people on this tape, it took far too long to pay back the $23 million that was owed to the victims, and that hand history information was never fully provided to the public.

 However, the audio recordings and the data dump from Travis Makar and others also make it completely clear who the perpetrators of the UltimateBet.com cheating were, and that I was not involved in their scheme in any way. For those who have not taken the time to listen to the full audio, at one point Russ Hamilton mischaracterizes my legitimate role as a commentator as he tries to concoct a cover story for his scheme. I can only assume that he is referring to the several times that I commentated on tournaments in which a delayed broadcast was provided to the public, as this was the only delay that I was ever aware of. 

 In the audio Dan Friedberg says, “I think for the public, it just has to be former consultant to the company, ah, took advantage of a server flaw by hacking into the client…” (This can be heard at 47:01 on the audio). Then Russ Hamilton adds, “And what you could also say is that the tool was originally set for a 15 minute delay and he [Makar] hacked it to a, uh, yeah, to a real time…” (47:29 on the audio). Then Russ continues, ‘Annie Duke used it on a 15 minute delay quite a few times.’ (47:41 on the audio). It is clear that they are trying to concoct a story to cover up what they did by suggesting that a third party hacked a legitimate delayed broadcast tool to create a cheating tool. 

 The facts are that during commentary, what I saw as the hands were being played wasexactly what every other spectator of the table was able to see. I and other co-commentators were providing commentary as we watched live play, and the broadcast of our comments was delayed as is standard practice to avoid affecting play. The screen that I saw was captured and streamed onto the internet along with my commentary so anyone who tuned into the broadcast saw exactly the same screen that I saw. The broadcast delay was designed to protect the integrity of the game by making sure that the hands my co-commentators and I were commenting on would be finished BEFORE our commentary was broadcast on the Internet. The existence of the delay was made public during the broadcasts. And we were never shown any non-public hole card information, during or after hands. Delayed commentary on tournaments was and still is standard practice for semi-live broadcasts of events, including the World Series of Poker Main Event.  

 At a separate point on the tape Dan Friedberg and Russ Hamilton discuss Houston Curtis’ account on UltimateBet.com. (This can be heard beginning at 59:55 on the audio). Dan says ‘we don’t want to come and ever mention that name [h_curtis], obviously’ and Russ adds (at 1:00:11):   ‘you can’t, ‘cause a lot of people know him, that’s his name, Hellmuth knows him, Annie knows him, and they know the name on the screen.’ 

 Russ is saying they can’t include Houston’s name on any cheating accounts list provided to the public, because I know Houston. Russ knew that if I heard that cheating had been detected on that account that I would have immediately called Houston to ask him what had happened.  Russ also knew that Houston would have then told me that the only other person who had access to the login for this account was Russ himself and that would have opened Russ up to suspicion.  This highlights the fact that I was unaware of Russ’s involvement in the cheating and that they were actively trying to hide it from me.

 These tapes make it clear that the perpetrators went to great lengths to lie, concoct multiple stories and conspire to cover-up their cheating. They tried to minimize their exposure in part by pawning off responsibility to Absolute Poker, the new owners. Absolute Poker did eventually, through an arduous audit process, working closely with the KGC, refund more than $23 million to players who were affected by the cheating. I stand by my decision at the time the scandal broke to try to work with Absolute to help facilitate that process.

Básicamente, Annie dice lo mismo que Phil, que ella nunca hizo trampa y que de haberlo sabido, no hubiera promocionado el sitio. Sin embargo, admitió que usó el «god mode» durante un torneo de $500, el cual garantizaba $1.000.000 en premios. Annie fue la comentadora de dicho evento y, curiosamente, su novio, Joe Reitman , ganó el torneo embolsando $266.000. ¿Demasiada casualidad, no?

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