Liz Lieu "bought" her win at the LA PokerClassic.....any thoughts?

[Bolivia]

I am very much against and outraged about what happened at LA Poker Classic. I'm curious to find out what others feel about this. Below is the real story as relayed to me by the guy who sold the title. If this is old news I apologize, I don't read or post on here too often.

In the Limit holdem prelim event that Liz Lieu "won", it turns out she made a deal to take the title never actually earning her win. She was heads up and severely behind in chips when they chose to make a deal based roughly on chip count, saving $10k cash and the trophy to play for. Liz won a few pots to get within 2 to 3 but she was still behind, but apparently she wanted the trophy and title so bad that she offered her opponent (Jason Haldema) $7k additional for the win and trophy. Jason took the deal.

This imo is very wrong for a number of reasons. a.) it takes away from the spirit of the game, the win is not earned but bought for self serving & self promotional reasons b.) it causes issue with Player of the Year points because now they aren't correctly depictive of talent

I plan to speak with Matt Savage (head of TDA - tournament directors association) about this because I think it needs to be stopped. I like pokerstars policy where the players are forced to play for at least 10k and the title regardless (this is their policy in the larger sunday tourneys). I think the TDA should introduce a similar policy where a certain percentage and the title remain that MUST be played to win.

Any thoughts on this?

p.s. if you want to see liz's thoughts on this you can see it on her site at www.lizlieu.net. I think it's pretty interesting....keep in mind what is written above is EXACTLY what happened as it came from Jason and other witnesses at the final table.