Drama at Full Tilt

It’s hard for a couple months to go by without a good online poker cheating scandal.  Fortunately, this time, it’s just players who are doing the cheating, not the poker room. 

Back in October, Chris Vaughn, a writer for Bluff Magazine, went on an insane run at the tables, winning the Full Tilt $1 Million guaranteed tournament and the PokerStars Sunday Millions tournament on back-to-back weekends.  This is a heck of an accomplishment for even the best pros, but for an amateur, this was unheard of. 

This week, Soren Kongsgaard, the runner-up in the Full Tilt tournament, was informed by Full Tilt Poker that he was “…among the victims of one player using more than one Full Tilt account in the tournament. Late into the tournament, a player who had already been eliminated took over the account of a player who was still in, which is against our tournament rules.” 

Kongsgaard was declared the winner and awarded first place money, about $76,000 more than he had originally won. 

While it has not been 100% confirmed, word around the internet is that Vaughn actually “sold” his account to a top player, allowing the player to step in for him to finish the tournament.  This new player then received some portion of the winnings.   

This player is guessed to be one of the best online poker players in the world, Sorel "Imper1um" Mizzi.  Vaughn has been banned from Full Tilt, and as Mizzi has not played there since shortly after the tournament in question (after a long history of success at the site), players have deduced that he, too, was banned for his involvement.

Mizzi posted on PocketFives.com that he will be discussing the situation in an interview with a “major media outlet,” hopefully as soon as this weekend.  Thus, it does appear that he was involved somehow, as otherwise he would have no reason to participate in an interview.