People News: Patrick Leonard shows integrity, loses SCOOP Leaderboard; Vlogger loses $136k illegally playing on a friend’s account and more…

In this column we deliver you the latest and most interesting news and gossip from our favourite poker people.

Patrick Leonard shows integrity, loses SCOOP Leaderboard

Patrick Leonard has proven once again that the integrity of the game is more important to him than winning. During this year’s SCOOP he won two titles and had countless cashes, so he ended up on top of the Overall leaderboard and the High leaderboard.

However, Leonard himself discovered that PokerStars might have given him too many points. He said he only wanted to win if actually deserved it, PokerStars checked the claim and confirmed that an error had indeed happened. This meant that Leonard dropped to third place on the overall leaderboard and 2nd on the High.

Leonard has been very outspoken against PokerStars in the past, but in this case he communicated via Twitter that he was very pleased with the way the industry leader responded. PokerStars granted him $45k to make up for the mistake.

@PokerStars get a lot of shit, but they were on this straight away, and didn’t need to do this. Big respect to them, I’ll be donating all to charity. I don’t deserve $ for how bad I am in badugi and 5 card draw believe me!!! I will make a @Joeingram1 type thread next week ✌️ pic.twitter.com/13aBiJe0Xn

— Patrick Leonard (@padspoker) April 29, 2021

Of course, had he known about the error before, he could have changed his strategy to still make the top spots of the leaderboards, but he did the right thing and the poker community is impressed by his integrity.

Fintan Hand wins massive SCOOP event on stream

Fintan “easywithaces” Hand won one of the biggest scores on a Twitch stream when he took down the $5,200 8-max PKO event for around $230k. Well, technically he didn’t actually finish on stream as a power cut occurred just when the final hand concluded. This meant that, due to the Twitch delay, viewers could not witness the victory live.

Fintan had just recently moved back to Malta, fully aware that power and internet cuts are fairly common on the island. After his stream died he made sure to call into the PokerStars Twitch stream, however, to explain what had happened.

Tice vs. Perkins – additional terms

The heads-up match between Bill Perkins and Landon Tice, that had been discussed and announced in February, has still not begun. This is mainly due to Perkins being a very busy businessman.

So, in order to get things moving they agreed on additional terms for the challenge. Should a minimum of 15k hands have not been played before the WSOP this year, Perkins has to pay Tice $100 – given that it’s his fault the hands aren’t played. In addition to that there will be a $200k side bet for the winner of the match. Keep in mind that Tice needs to net $720k in order to break even, as he pays nine big blinds to Perkins every 100 hands.

Vlogger loses $136k illegally playing on a friend’s account

Twitch streamer and poker vlogger Matt Vaughan did, what unfortunately has happened many times before. It is hard to believe that players are still making this mistake. Vaughan had played a tournament on the Ignition Network and won it while streaming. Great story, one might think. But no, Vaughn was not a resident of the permitted state and he had previously been banned on Ignition. By streaming this live on Twitch he broadcasted himself breaking the Terms & Conditions of the Ignition Network.

It didn’t take long for Ignition to seize his winnings and redistribute them to the other players in the tournament. This is once again a wakeup call for players to really make sure to follow the rules of the poker sites they are playing on. Multi-accounting, usage of VPNs from restricted areas, etc often stay offences and are clearly laid out in the conditions of every poker site.

Vaughan did not seem to accept this or understand that he did something very stupid. He recorded a YouTube video about this topic: