Suspected bot makes TCOOP final table, wins $36K

Pete - Tuesday, January 26, 2016, Written by- Tuesday, January 26, 2016, Online poker

Less than a week after PokerStars announced it would be implementing “extreme measures” to prevent cheating, a serious botting scandal has emerged from its high profile Turbo Championship of Online Poker (TCOOP) tournament festival.

The account in question, ‘IvanHaldi’ from Russia, made it to the final table of TCOOP Event #08 - an $82 buy-in Big Antes tournament - as the dominant chip leader and ended up finishing in second place which was good for $35,802.

But alarm bells had started ringing once the Russian made it to a heads-up duel with eventual champion from Finland, ‘LuckboxStami’, and play was stopped to discuss a potential deal.

Despite apparently agreeing to enter negotiations, once the PokerStars moderator published the chop numbers ‘IvanHaldi’ failed to respond for almost one hour despite simultaneously playing on in other tournaments on the site.

Under normal circumstances one could understand how a player could miss a conversation in chat whilst mass multi-tabling, but during deal negotiations at a massive final table worth tens of thousands to a player whose average buy-in level is $50?

PokerStars staff tried translating into Russian, contacting the player via private chat, and even dialling the phone number registered to the account. Still no response:

(click to enlarge)

But once play finally resumed ‘IvanHaldi’ began playing hands again – albeit only six hands in total – immediately as if nothing had happened. Equally strange was the manner in which ‘IvanHaldi’ eventually exited the tournament:

“On the final hand... IvanHaldi min-raised to 1.6M, LuckboxStami shoved for 14,888,180 with A♠8♠, and IvanHaldi called all-in for 3,591,820 with 9♦6♦. The board ran out J♠8♣3♠4♦6♣. LuckboxStami flopped a pair of eights which held up.”

As of yet, PokerStars is yet to publicise an official comment on the matter and it remains unclear as to whether the ‘IvanHaldi’ account has been frozen pending an investigation. But the account has been completely inactive since these proceedings unfolded late last week.