Rizen just wrote a great article on P5's...

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Varkoni is the biggest fraud...

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"Fraud?" He never pretended to be anything other than a novice.

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Varkonyi is a fraud if he pretended to be a novice. In the interviews at the WSOP he said he had taken 1 1/2 years off from work to play poker. Now like about 2/3 of the people in the software field lost their jobs at about that time. He has a BS and MBA from MIT, so he probably could have found another one at lower pay. He probably didn't want to admit he was trying to be a professional player, because he was playing relatively low limit, and because of his educational and professional background.

Varkonyi is probably not at the same level as a player as most WSOP champions, and probably not as strong as Hachem, Raymer, or Moneymaker. However, he is probably at a comparable level with Gold, Furlong, McEvoy, or Daugherty.

I literally sat next to him ITM at a $300 tournament. He seemed like a nice person and was interesting to talk to. He was modest and didn't act like he was someone important. He stacked his chips neatly and was into using proper poker terminology.

Gold seems like he is somewhat sleazy, and there are plenty of other poker players like that past and present. I don't know if I would call him a fraud. His job was an agent for B actors. As such, he overrepresented his clients' qualifications to the studios and misprepresented assingments to his clients. He also was manipulative of both parties to make the deal go through. You can see some of this in the way he represents himself and his style at the poker table.