The title of the article basically says it all, so here are my choices for the 15 craziest, zaniest, mind-boggling stories from the world of poker over the past year. So in no particular order here are #’s 6-10:

The Hollywood Home Game debacle

Earlier this year the poker world was given a glimpse behind the curtain of the great and powerful Oz that is the Hollywood poker scene. After a Ponzi scheme running hedge fund manager took part in the games and lost his victims money. His victims later filed lawsuits against the players in the game including Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, and other Hollywood A-Listers, most of whom settled out of court.

Bottom Line: If you’re going to sue someone, sue a celeb they would rather settle out of court!

Martin Staszko meta-games the entire poker world with bad shirts and a bad haircut

There is an old saying about never underestimating your opponent, but with a quiet, unassuming, 35 year-old Czech poker player by the name of Martin Staszko seated at your WSOP table you probably considered yourself lucky to have such a great tabled draw! Unfortunately, after you peeled back the outdated short-sleeve button-ups and got past the $8 haircut, you found yourself confronted with a serious poker shark!

Bottom Line: Never judge a book by its cover and 5,000 similar statements!

Full Tilt financials revealed

Chris Ferguson: $125 million. Howard Lederer: around $40 million. Ray Bitar: around $40 million. Rafe Furst: around $11 million. Unnamed Owner #1 (most likely Phil Ivey): $40 million. These are the dividend payments given to these players over the past few years from Full Tilt Poker according to the website Subject: Poker! Then there was the revelation that the company was lending out millions of dollars to players, most notably Ivey!

Ponzi scheme? Well, not really, but only the most ardent Full Tilt Poker apologist would say the company was run entirely on the square.

Bottom Line: Crime doesn’t pay, but apparently gross mismanagement of a million-dollar-a-day company does!

Jose “Girah” Macedo a complete fraud, jungleman12 and DogisHead suffer collateral damage

Wow, the 2+2 thread to follow in 2011 was definitely the zany exposure of the so called Portuguese Poker Prodigy, who turned out to be nothing more than a struggling low-limit poker player who conned his way into sponsorships and a reputation as a top-notch player.

When the fit hit the shan it splattered all over a couple of players who seemingly knew the truth all along but decided to go along with the ruse (the reasons for this are still unknown at this time) Daniel “jungleman12” Cates and Haseeb “DogisHead” Qureshi.

Bottom Line: The Portuguese cannot be trusted! [kidding of course]

Al Crux’s family drug ring

Remember 2004 final table participant Al Crux? The longtime poker pro whose WSOP interview included a heartfelt admission that his life as a poker pro came between him and his family? Well it seems that Al and at least one of his sons have bonded a bit since 2004, as both were arrested on drug trafficking charges this year!

Bottom Line: Al should have taught his kids to play poker a la Doyle Brunson!

READ PART 1 HERE

READ PART 3 HERE

Tags: Apologist, Bad Haircut, Bitar, Chris Ferguson, Dividend Payments, Full tilt Poker, Great And Powerful Oz, Hedge Fund Manager, Home Game, Howard Lederer, Leonardo Dicaprio, Phil Ivey, Poker Player, Poker World, Ponzi Scheme, Rafe Furst, Serious Poker, Square Bottom, T Pay, World Of Poker

This entry was posted on Friday, December 30th, 2011 at 6:53 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.