20 Dec 2024 We hear tales all the time of incredible feats and achievements, but when it comes to poker, there are some which are more surprising than others. Here are 4 amazing poker stories that you probably didn't know. #1: 8 Year Old Kid Wins Poker Tournament In 2010, 8-year-old Ashish Nanak from India made headlines across the web when he reportedly won half a million dollars after playing in an online poker tournament. According to the boy's mother, she was working at a hotel as a cleaner trying to support her family on her meager salary and whatever other jobs she could find to supplement their income. Ashish would accompany her to work and she would keep him occupied with cartoons on a computer that was meant for the staff. She soon noticed that Ashish was a natural on the computer and would browse and play games by himself. At the age of 6, the young man was exploring online poker sites and actually winning small amounts of money. Since the poker site paid out in dollars, the family could make modest improvements to the quality of their lives. Ashish found the most support in his uncle. He set up a PayPal account and poker account for the young player. Whether the uncle set up the account specifically for his young ward or whether he already had the account going and finally found a convenient way to reveal his hidden poker gaming, we will never know. He allegedly participated in online poker tournaments using his uncle's player account and was doing so when he won the half a million dollars. The poker room involved reportedly refused to pay out the tournament winnings due to Ashish being under the legal age to participate in online poker tournaments. The Nanak family had disputed the claims saying that the poker room was aware of the real age of the boy and that employees even referred to him as the little poker wizard. After his massive win, the poker room, which had remained anonymous, blocked his player account and became embroiled in a legal battle and the decision of the courts had remained unconfirmed. #2: Footballer Gets Fined for Playing Poker One of the first things that comes to mind when thinking about professional football players is the enormous sums of money they make. However, unlike the rest of us, they aren't always free to spend the money wherever and however they choose. Not every team is as welcoming to their players taking up poker as Barcelona was with Neymar and Real Madrid was with Ronaldo. In 2016, Max Kruse, forward of the German Wolfsburg football club, learned this the hard way after he was fined €25,000 by the club for playing poker. It was a proverbial insult to injury because the football star actually left all of his €75,000 winnings in a taxi and had not been able to retrieve them. The football player grabbed a cab back to his hotel after striking fortunate at the tables during the WSOP Europe in Berlin and won a total of €75,000 likely from cash games. He arrived at his destination safely but he forgot about the bag of cash in the back of the cab. By the time he realized what had happened, the taxi and the money were long gone and Max Kruse decided to call the police. It seemed like a reasonable decision at the time but it ended up adding another €25,000 to his loss, making it a nice round €100,000. The player was unable to get much help from the police but by reporting the event, he made it a public problem. When Wolfsburg's sporting executive Klaus Alofs found out about the situation, he was not pleased. This type of activity, according to Alofs, was a blatant breach of Kruse's contract. Football players are public figures and their actions reflect on the entire club and the sport in general, thus they are held to greater standards than the general public. #3: Winner of Unexpected Poker Lottery On February 1st, 2016, French online player «LarryQueen34» logged in for a game and got the shock of his life when he discovered his bankroll was an extra €1,546,522.16 higher than he expected. Winamax notified him that he was the lucky winner of a bonus lottery. Sadly for the French player, the lovely dream did not last long and quickly turned into a nightmare. He discovered that he could not log back into his account after Winamax had frozen it a week later. The poker room responded saying that the seven-figure bonus was actually an error on their part. It transpires that the money had been credited as a result of a member of the Winamax team clumsily typing in a part of the player's unique ID number 1546634 instead of the vastly inferior sum of €1.82, which the player had actually won. Since the transfer, the player had lost €3,000 of his fortune on the site in seven days as well as withdrawing €9,000 in cash. When Winamax detected the issue, his account was frozen. Officials at Winamax offered him a more than reasonable €3,000 loss write-off in exchange for him returning the €9,000 he had withdrawn. As a gesture of apology on their part, they even offered to credit his account with a further €1,000. The player, however, was not willing to give up the money as he dismissed the fact that this was a human mistake and was prepared to take them to court. No word had come out if he had taken the offer or not. #4: Bad Beat Jackpot Controversy As you probably know, many poker rooms have bad beat jackpots that players can claim after losing with a very strong hand to an even stronger hand. In Hold'em, this usually means losing with a hand that's quads or better, although rules may vary. On July 7, 2017, the bad beat jackpot at Red Rock Casino, one of the bigger off-strip casinos to offer a jackpot, had inched up to $120,000. On that fateful day, 83-year-old Avi Shamir made a straight flush only to have the ultimate dream of being bested by a higher straight flush by Leonard Shredder. According to the bad beat jackpot rules, Shamir stood to win the biggest share, $48,000, while Shredder would be getting $30,000. Another $3,600 would be distributed among the other players seated in the game who were dealt into the hand and $38,400 would be chopped up between more than 80 people who were playing in eligible games. They were shocked when they heard that they would be receiving no money after the casino reviewed the footage of the hand and saw the losing player, Avi Shamir, had turned over his hand before the showdown was announced. Casino rules stipulate that if players talk about their cards during the hand, the management has the right to refuse to pay out the jackpot. This rule is generally regarded to protect against forms of collusion that can influence action, whether intended or not, and breaking of this rule is usually subject to some sort of penalty or perhaps a warning in the case of cash games. This is consistent with tournament directors association rule number 68 which states exposing cards with action pending may result in a penalty but not a dead hand, which applies to tournament poker. The hand would still be live and the player could still win the pot but there would be some kind of repercussion involved. However, everyone involved felt that the rule was misplaced here as both players held straight flushes so no matter what, it's extremely unlikely either of them wasn't going to get to showdown no matter what. Needless to say, the player who stood to win a jackpot share on that day were none too pleased with management's decision. Players responded by asking the Nevada Gaming Control Board to review the situation. The case got to its epilogue before the Nevada Gaming Control Board which took the player's side in this matter and Shamir eventually received his bad beat jackpot, albeit with a several months delay. There is no information as to what happened with the rest of the jackpot that was supposed to go to the winning player and other players present at the table at the time. Poker is full of incredible stories, but your journey doesn’t have to be left to chance. Learn from the best and turn your game into a success story with our expert coaches. Whether you want to refine your strategy, improve your results, or make more money at the tables, we’ve got you covered. Visit our Poker Coaches section today and take the next step toward poker mastery! This article was written by Dennis «Dennis_Stets» based on a video from the Poker Bounty channel.
