Veteran online pro Tristan Wade claims third place finisher in 2021 WSOP event was possibly disqualified for cheating -- but they won't say what happened

Tristan "Cr8ive" Wade has been around online poker for a long time. I had a bit of an issue with Tristan at the 2010 WSOP, but it had nothing to do with cheating, and has nothing to do with the situation today.

Anyway...

Tristan is still playing online, and entered one of the wsop.com bracelet events near the end of the 2021 World Series. This particular event was a $1k NL Holdem event, and did award a real bracelet. It got 774 entrants, and Tristan finished 8th, so he did make the final table.

While playing, he noticed some odd behavior between two players, who seemed to be colluding. One of them made the final table. Most suspiciously, these suspected colluders disconnected at the same time -- indicating they were in the same place, or were perhaps the same person. Tristan has been trying to get info about this situation from the WSOP for months, and has finally gone public about it.

https://twitter.com/TristanCre8ive/s...65358213480450

https://twitter.com/TristanCre8ive/s...65365347966981

https://twitter.com/TristanCre8ive/s...65372558012416

https://twitter.com/TristanCre8ive/s...65375905026049

https://twitter.com/TristanCre8ive/s...91007146319880



This is bizarre.

I fully believe Tristan's account of the situation. Indeed, if you look at The Hendon Mob page for this event, 3rd place is now listed as "Unknown Player", which likely means the $61k was confiscated, and the player disqualified. The player who finished 32nd was also listed as "Unknown", as was the 95th place finisher. The 3rd and 32nd finishers were from Germany (I'm sure not a coincidence), and the 95th place finisher was from Lithuania.

Also, if these guys were disqualified for cheating, shouldn't the $66k or so prize money go to the other finishers?

Now support is ghosting Tristan, and refusing to give him answers, which I'm sure is because they don't want to admit what happened.

It doesn't help that wsop.com still does not have a visible manager, since Bill Rini quit. I have theorized that the long-embattled Rini, who handlded criticism extremely poorly, scared the other employees that being the public facing manager would result in Twitter harassment, so therefore everyone just hides in the shadows. That's just my guess, but whatever the situation, it's horrendous for this site not to have a public-facing manager.

I am glad Tristan is going to gaming on this, and I await the result.

Anyway, for those wondering about my past issue with Tristan...

I was very deep in the WSOP Main Event in 2010, in Day 6. However, I was short stacked, and needed every chip I could get. Recall that the top prize for this event was $10 million, and there were only about 200 or so people left, out of the 7,319 entrants.

The felt was covered with ads, so it was sometimes hard to see the chips put out across the table. A player raised under the gun, another cold called, and it folded to my blind. I saw I had 84o. I didn't see that the second guy had cold called, so I flipped over the 84o to show that I was folding garbage. Tristan Wade, who was at the table but NOT IN THE HAND, called for a penalty, because I technically violated the "you can't expose cards while in a hand" rule. It was a complete bitch move, as neither of the participants in the hand were complaining, and everyone agreed that I did it simply because I didn't realize a second person was in the pot.

I was given a 20-minute penalty, and let Tristan know what I thought of him as I walked to go serve it. A lot of my valuable chips blinded off. Ultimately, I finished 88th in that event, so I did last several more hours.

I tweeted my anger about the situation, and a few days later, Tristan apologized. Strangely enough, Pokernews reported that Theo Tran served a penalty in the identical situation just a few minutes after I did, and was also furious (though this was at a different table, and wasn't called by Tristan).

I accepted Tristan's apology, but the memory still stings a bit, even 12 years later, given how much was at stake. Despite that shitty move, I do believe that Tristan Wade is overall a decent guy, and is honest. I'd also like to think that, now 12 years older, Tristan is more mature and wouldn't do the same thing to someone today.

None of this makes me believe him any less regarding this story, by the way. I believe his account 100%.

Let me see if I understand this correctly. There are players from an WSOP event that cashed and nobody knows who they are? The site won't give any details about it? They are probably obvious house bots and your response is to tell us about some petty thing that happened between you and the guy? Call me crazy but I think the fact that the whole site using fake accounts to cheat players at a WSOP event is the bigger story there.

Gaming isn't there to protect players as has been proven from the Postle situation and many others. Gaming commissions are there to protect the casinos ... you morons have still learned nothing about regulation lols