When you pool millions of dollars with poker players seeking the spotlight, a poker scandal is bound to happen at some point. I know it's time for a poker scandal.
On Sunday, high-stakes cash game livestream personality Nik Airball tweeted that he discovered that someone he considered a “close friend” had cheated him out of $1 million in a “series of poker games.” It sounded like he wanted to wait to reveal more details, but soon after he added, “Anyway, I have neither patience nor tolerance,” and named Ye Shen, who goes by “Mars.” suspects.
Nik said he would provide more details later, but summarized the situation by saying that Mars, which runs high-stakes games in California, “brought a mechanical dealer and special cards that are transparent and have special contacts .”
Wesley Fei, who also frequently appears on Hustler Casino Live with Nik Airball (HCL has nothing to do with this situation, by the way), spoke to our friends at PokerNewS to provide his knowledge of the situation. He said Mars and his crew won about $3 million in the $25/$50 and $50/$100 games in about a year, largely through “cheating.”
Wesley told Poker news that Mars offered to bring his own deck to the game series in question and said that others should bring a dealer to the game. Mars brought five players to the game, which was combined with another popular game in Southern California. Mars won about $1.6 million, while his group collectively gained about twice as much.
“We asked Mars, 'Why did you ask to bring the deck?'” we told him Poker news. “After a game we found a cheat deck. The deck is a very good cheat deck that you can't find. But we went into a very dark room and used blue light, and then you could see the numbers on the back of the deck.”
Wesley said Mars denied cheating but actually admitted introducing the marked deck. In a text message, Mars told Wesley that he could bring some decks, and in a separate conversation admitted that the deck had a problem.
So the poker world is still waiting to hear more from Nik Airball and Mars, but at this point things aren't looking good for Mars unless Wesley and Nik are tag team liars.
Photo credit: Flickr.com / Upupa4me
