GGPoker have been praised for their anti-cheating measures after refunding $1.1million following their disqualification of Francesco “forzaitalia” Garofalo from one of their biggest online events…
The shock news was met with delight by English pro Patrick Leonard, who woke up to an unexpected six-figure bankroll boost…
Wow just woke up to this. I think my biggest security refund previously was at most $2k.
It’s a beautiful day to have a beautiful day I guess! pic.twitter.com/knZW5ADOMW
— Patrick Leonard 🫡 (@padspoker) November 4, 2024
“Massive massive props to GG for doing this refund,” tweeted Leonard. “I assume they refunded $1.1m to everybody bumping everybody up 1 position. Hilariously guy who bubbled went to bed 2 hours before the bubble, he ended up mincashing after all!”
The story broke when the following tweet hit the internet…
So apparently GG banned winner of a $25k GGMillion$ SHR Championship and everyone laddered a FULL PAY JUMP. Don't know the reason. Never heard that name before so my guess would be multiaccounting?
Is this the largest single ban and refund in history of online poker?😱 pic.twitter.com/cQnt7LU0ii— MTT Database Review (@MTT_Data_Review) November 4, 2024
It has been reported elsewhere that “Alexei “Avr0ra” Borovkov and Alexander “AlexZa3” Zubov also received payouts, of $1,999 and $8,208, respectively, after the tournament”.
According to Borovkov, fellow players Barak Wisbrod and David Yan were also compensated to the tune of $7,000 and $43,000 respectively. Two other final tablists have apparently confirmed the refunds.
The Background Story
As we reported in September, Garofalo was the surprise winner of the $25k buy-in GGPoker WSOP Online SHR.
He finished ahead of a stellar field including Daniel Negreanu, Bryn Kenney, Daniel Dvoress, Michael Addamo and a slew of others, including strong Brazilian players and several elite Russians.
Garofalo defeated Chris Brewer heads-up for the win to scoop the title and $1,122,201.84 top prize but his joy didn’t last long though as GGPoker launched an investigation into his play.
Although the site hasn’t disclosed exactly who or what the issue was, the refunds issued make it clear that Garofalo was the bad guy and Leonard’s tweet reveals that whatever happened, it was for “the most severe breaches of our Security and Ecology Agreement”.
A quick look at that reveals quite a few possibilities, the most likely of which are:
– Use of Real-Time Assistance (RTA)
– Multi Accounting
– Ghosting
Real-Time Assistance (RTA)
RTA has become one of the biggest issues in poker now that solvers have become so good. When there are $millions at stake as in the bracelet SHR in question, any help is literally worth its weight in gold.
GGPoker’s T&Cs state: “Prohibited software includes, but is not limited to, GTO solvers, range calculators, and ICM analyzers,” and also prohibits reference material derived from running sims on such software.
RTA has been headline news for a few years now, with the infamous Ali Imsirovic/Jake Schindler affair, the Fedor Kruse “dream machine” case, and the more recent PokerCode time-delay controversy.
The current Garofalo incident may not be RTA, as GGPoker have several breaches of the rules that can result in funds being confiscated and given to those affected.
Multi Accounting
Multi-accounting is the second of the strict no-no’s and was the reason for the biggest-known one-off DQ and confiscations, back in 2018. That saw anonymous Dutch account “wann2play” disqualified 18-months after winning the 2018 WCOOP Main Event for a $1.35million scoop.
2018 WCOOP Main event winner "wann2play" account was frozen shortly after the tournament. Looks like his $1,352,267.97 was finally redistributed to the rest of the prize pool.
Looks like we have a new champion @EzequielWaigel 💪💪💪
— Max Silver (@max_silver) February 28, 2020
Numerous famous players have been accused and/or found guilty of multi-accounting over the years, including Justin Bonomo and Bryn Kenney.
Ghosting
Ghosting has also been a problem and again there was a huge DQ in the WCOOP, as far back as 2007, when Natalie ‘TheV0id’ Teltscher won the Main Event for $1,228,330.50
Sister of English pro Mark Teltscher, Natalie never saw a cent of her winnings after ‘internal investigations demonstrated beyond doubt that she had not played on the account,’ according to PokerStars.
A lawsuit against PokerStars was later dropped after an admission of guilt by Natalie and the first-ever $1million+ score in the series was redistributed among the other prizewinners.
It may never be known which of these reasons, or perhaps some other, Garofalo has been disqualified for, as GGPoker in line with other leading online poker rooms don’t generally divulge potentially litigious details.
In this case, it may be part of the reason why Chris Brewer saw his runner-up cash bumped by a whopping $250k, but unfortunately won’t receive the gold bracelet.
I got the difference between 2nd to 1st. But I don’t get the bracelet, quite happy either way
— Chris Brewer (@Chris_D_Brewer) November 4, 2024
Fighting the Good Fight
The good news, apart from the money, is that yet another cheat has been removed from at least one site as the battle continues to keep the game as clean as possible.
As well as confiscation of funds, GGPoker implement a variety of censures for bad behaviour, including: Warning, reward removal, suspension, account closure, permanent ban, removal/restriction of access to PokerCraft, and game removal.
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