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.

[SUfan5]

Discussed last week

[iMsoLucky0]

Meh, doesn't bother me.

Then again, not much does.

[shaniac]

I don't have a problem with this really.

When players make a deal at the end of the tournament, I believe the trophy is one of the things they are entitled to negotiate for.

When I chopped up the 300 rebuy at commerce, I was the clear chip leader, and in fact we never disputed where the trophy was going, but now that I think about it I didn't "win" the tournament either.

As for this sort of practice corrupting the spirit of the game, it's way less of a corruption than what the WPT does, outlawing dealmaking. Most tournaments are not won outright, yet the poker media presents each one as it if it were.

As for Cardplayer POTY points, who gives a [censored].

FWIW, I don't think Ben Affleck actually won the the CSPC a few years back either--that a deal was made which including giving Affleck the crown.

[Army Eye]

[ QUOTE ]
Earlier, a three-way deal had been made where Heidema was to get $45,013 to $37,453 for Lieu and $23,466 for Jack Boghossian. They agreed to play for $10,000 and the trophy, and Lieu announced she would donate 20 percent of her winnings to charity if she won the tournament. Now, to make sure that the promised money did go to charity mostly to multiple sclerosis, the remainder to Vietnam aid she offered to let Heidema take $7,000 of the $10,000 if she could have the win and trophy that went with it, or play on, and he took the deal.

[/ QUOTE ]

What a lame excuse! It's not like the charity will refuse her donoation if she didn't win the tournament. She is free to give any money at any time to whatever charity she wants.

Oh the title of that article was ' LIZ LIEU MAKES A TROPHY DEAL SO THAT CHARITY GETS MONEY'. What a load of crap

[rdkim1]

hey man, it is all about money !

[Bolivia]

"When players make a deal at the end of the tournament, I believe the trophy is one of the things they are entitled to negotiate for."

I don't agree here. If it were to be percieved like this then it makes poker all business and no sport. The sport of it is what's is so great about tournaments. I understand the business incentives that players have and agree with deal making to a certain degree, but why create a situation where people can fabricate wins through purchase and distort achievment. True we play for the money, do we really need to whore the entire experience of tourneys, isn't there a certain degree of competition that we need to maintain in it?

[fm191124]

poker is about money, the only people the deal involves are her and her opp. he made out happy, she made out happy, why do you care?

poker is not a sport, its not the olympics, AS LONG AS NO ONE CHEATED ANYONE, THERE IS NO INTEGRITY OF THE GAME IN POKER - its all about the money

would anyone honestly play poker if there was no money involved

[miami32]

I have spoker to Liz about this and I don't think it's fair for you to criticize her in such a way. The reason she went as far to do what she did is she promised to give a certain amount of her winnings to charity if she won the tournament, so taking the title and giving money to charity was more important to her then risking the chance of losing it. While some may not understand why she didn't just give some of her winnings away even if she took second you'd just have to ask her. I think she should be commended for giving money away to charity, people shouldn't be son concerned about a LA poker classic prelim event anyways. Also to be fair to Liz since all of you wish to take aim at her, she is a high limit player with a proven track record, I don't think she was lacking in confidence by any means. I'm 100% sure she feels she could have taken him.

[Beavis68]

she could have given the money anyway, this is terrible.