The World Series of Poker is investigating the winner and runner-up in its $1,500 Millionaire Maker event that concluded on Wednesday in Las Vegas.
Going into heads-up play at Wednesday night’s final table of bracelet Event 53, James Carroll commandingly led Jesse Yaginuma with a 9-1 chip lead. Yaginuma completed the comeback to win the event, taking home $1.26 million. Carroll earned $1 million for second place.
A comeback of that kind isn’t out of the question, but the manner in which the chips exchanged hands raised questions. Many of the hands won by Yaginuma came in the form of raises or reraises that were continually not contested by Carroll. Viewers of the event’s livestream, including a number of professional poker players, began to speculate that Carroll was chip dumping to Yaginuma — intentionally losing hands to build up his opponent’s stack — so that the two could split some portion of the prize money. Unlike many other poker tournament series around the world where players can negotiate a deal between themselves, it is against the WSOP official rules to act in this manner.
WSOP official rules state: “Collusion is defined as any agreement between or among two (2) or more Participants to engage in illegal or unethical acts against other Participants. Collusion includes, but is not limited to, acts such as: chip dumping; soft play; sharing card information with another Participant; sending or receiving signals from or to another Participant; the use of electronic communication with the intent to facilitate collusion; and any other act that Host Properties deem inappropriate. 1. Chip dumping is defined as any agreement between or among two (2) or more Participants for one or more of the Participants to bet chips with the intent of increasing another Participant’s stack”
Fueling the speculation was an independent promotion run by online poker service ClubWPT Gold, which entailed that players could cash in previously awarded tickets for an additional $1 million if they won a qualifying WSOP event. Yaginuma held one of those tickets by virtue of a contest he previously won, while Carroll did not.
On Thursday morning, WSOP announced it was investigating the matter.
“Last night, we were made aware of a potential breach of the official WSOP Tournament Rules during heads up play in Event 53,” the organization said in a release on social media. “An investigation is underway. At this time, 1st and 2nd place have not been confirmed and neither the prize money nor the bracelet have been officially awarded.”
ClubWPT Gold has not yet announced any investigation of its own, though congratulated Yaginuma on social media. WSOP and ClubWPT Gold did not immediately return ESPN’s request for comment. Yaginuma denied the allegations of collusion in a post-win interview with Poker.org.
If the win is upheld, Yaginuma would be the second player to cash in on the ClubWPT Gold promotion after Michael Lavin won the $1,500 no-limit hold ’em Shootout earlier in June. It is also not determined at this time what would happen to the rest of the prize money if the players were to be disqualified.
