Column: The Professor Returns to the Tables
Barry Carter discusses Howard Lederer's return to the poker tables this week and how the poker community should police itself.
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| Howard playing with Doyle this week |
This week there have been multiple sightings of Howard Lederer at the poker tables, which has understandably caused a stir in the poker community.
At one point I thought we would never see him return to poker, but after the Lederer Files (where he confirmed it would happen) it was a matter of when, not if.
It seems that following his recent interviews and PokerStars taking over he feels that the Full Tilt saga is behind him (apart from the small matter of the $42.5 million forfeitures against him).
Now that he has got his version of events off his chest, he feels he can move on, which includes playing poker.
Guilty or not, I think this is a big mistake. It is not difficult to see that the poker world is still incredibly angry and not prepared to welcome him back with open arms yet.
Apparently the Aria casino received a few death threats when he arrived there, and he had to play in private games with security on the front door. Surely this alerted him to the fact that his timing was off?
People are still waiting for their money and Howard still has the DOJ to deal with. He also claimed to be cash poor in the Lederer Files, yet here he was playing for very high stakes. If I were among the friends he played with this week, I would probably be advising him to hold off a little longer from his return to poker.
Short memories
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| Ali Tekintamgac was disqualified by Partouche |
As angry as the poker community is right now, there is a very good chance Howard will eventually manage to integrate himself back into the poker circuit as if nothing ever happened.
Although there has been a strong culture of naming and shaming on poker forums in recent years, poker players still have terrible memories when the same culprits turn up at live events.
It is remarkable how quickly the poker community ignores past history with wrongdoers. Players like Erick Lindgren, Chino Rheem, Brad Booth, Matt Marafioti and Ali Tekintamgac are still able to play live poker without much hassle. The casinos let them play and most of the time they get away without being reprimanded by other players.
The biggest example to date has to be Russ Hamilton, the man behind the UltimateBet Superuser scandal. Before Black Friday this was the biggest scandal in poker, and although the amounts of money involved were much smaller than with Full Tilt, the crime involved was much more morally repugnant.
Such a crime you would imagine would lead to banishment from poker, but no, Russ is regularly spotted playing poker in Vegas and Florida, with little hassle at the tables.
I think the Full Tilt saga was too big and hurt too many people for Howard to get away without confrontation from the poker community. But once the inevitable heated exchanges are out of the way, Howard sightings will stop shocking people.
We tend to look to each other for how we should behave in these situations, and the more he is seen in public, the more everyone will assume it is once again socially acceptable for him to be on the poker circuit.
Public shunning
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| Will the Professor and Jesus return? |
Should the poker community give people who have hurt the game a hard time at the tables? I think as long as it doesn't get violent or threatening, then yes.
I like the way in which poker players are naming and shaming wrongdoers, and public shunning is a good example to set to other potential poker villains to let them know that stealing, scamming and cheating is not acceptable.
Should the casinos ban wrong doers from playing there? That is a tougher question, one which has frustrated a lot of players this week because Howard seems to have been welcomed with open arms by casino staff. It is a sad fact, but if the casino banned everyone that has ever committed a crime, poker rooms would be a much emptier place.
You only have to look at the case of the Epic Poker League banning a former sex offender and the backlash it created to see how unpopular such policing would be. It was ironic that the first tournament organisation to set up an ethics committee to handle matters like this ultimately were at the centre of a number of unethical practices themselves.
I'd love to see casinos set a precedent where known poker cheaters are concerned; people who have been proven to have cheated, scammed or otherwise hurt the poker community. Unfortunately it would just be impossible for the casinos to police most of the time, especially with all the hearsay and conjecture on poker forums dictating public opinion. With the exceptions of video evidence of someone cheating at their tables, I simply think it would be too much to ask of casinos.
Like it or not, should Howard Lederer escape major ramifications from the DOJ and once everyone has their Full Tilt money back, he is likely to be a fixture on the poker circuit again, almost like nothing ever happened.
But don't worry people, we have all clearly learned a lot from Black Friday and Full Tilt, and slowly but surely the poker community is getting much better at making outcasts of the people that do it harm.
