BRELANCIAGA

Poker is glorious only because of the pain. You cannot wish for glory without the huge punts, bad beats, and downswings.

Martin Kabrhel should 100% be banned. But not for the reason that most think... I've had a lot of people asking me about the MK situation in the last few days, and I have given it considerable thought. First, the Floors during this WSOP did a great job, examined the decks and found no cheating, so I see it as one of two scenarios… Martin is possibly cheating in a way that security isn’t able to notice yet or he is intentionally trying to make it look like he is cheating to gain an edge. Regardless of which it is, I think he should be banned from playing the WSOP and other High Roller Tournaments. As @Andrew_Robl and others have stated, he has been accused of cheating in the past, which could be grounds to be barred already. He is using this past version of himself to make players in a $250,000 buy-in scared to bluff him because he "might" be cheating (he very loudly and suspiciously suggested that there were sticky substances on the cards during the $250K FT a few days ago). He stands up and makes a show of looking at players cards when he's faced with almost any decision - he knows that he's been accused of marking cards in the past and wants players to be thinking about that - a huge angle shoot. But let’s assume for the sake of This thread that Martin isn’t cheating… To have a strategy of making players think you are cheating is bad for the game on multiple levels. He gains an unfair edge and pushes the line of mental warfare too far. The floor does everything it can to protect players from angle shooters and to me what Martin is doing is the ultimate angle… To INTENTIONALLY give the illusion you are cheating in any event, especially the highest of stakes should not be tolerated. Additionally, his antics at the table make for a terrible playing environment and very likely discourage recreational and professional players from wanting to play any event that he is in. He was openly and consistently abusing Alex Kulev and critiquing his play during our $250K final table a few days ago. Even if he's not cheating, he should still be subject to consistent, severe penalties and a potential ban as he is in clear violation of TDA rules - "persistent delay of game, abusive conduct and excessive chatter" ON ALMOST EVERY HAND. Poker Hall of Famer and PokerGo President Mori Eskandani had this to say: “I don’t know if Martin was cheating or not, but one thing is for certain, he created an atmosphere that was extremely distracting and unfair to the other players. Not sure where the poker industry should draw the line.” One thing is for sure: Kahbrel's constant abuse, tanking and angle shooting is horrible for poker and he needs to be stopped. We as a community need to do more to get this behavior out of our game.