In a week where Jason Koon doubled his $800,000 buy in to the High Stakes Duel by getting the better of Phil Hellmuth, there’s been plenty of other poker stories that have caught the eye.
And this is where we catch up with them with our Friday roundup of the great, unusual or just downright weird poker stories of the past seven days or so.
Before we get cracking, remember, you can enjoy a wide range of poker games as well as sports betting and much more when you sign up at bet365 Poker as a new customer.
And if you do, then you will be glad to hear that you won’t have to deal with what happened on the Hustler Casino Live video feed this week.
Now Hustler Casino Live is no stranger to controversy just ask Robbi Jade Lew and Garrett Adelstein, but this week’s Max Pain Monday may have set a new apex, or nadir, in the world of online poker streaming, depending on your point of view.
At the centre of the controversy is Max Pain Monday regular Sashimi and the issue was that she wore a naked female bodysuit, that exposed her ‘breasts’ during Monday night’s stream.
Predictably, a video of the ‘incident’ appeared online relatively quickly, which drew a variety of different comments from those watching.
Some felt it was a hilarious prank, in keeping with the nature of Max Pain Monday, while others felt that there was another side to it and that it would not help the cause of women seeking to be taken seriously on the poker felt.
Initially, a number of people fell for the joke, believing Sashimi to be really flashing her nipples at the table, which explains some of the reactions we’ve aggregated below:
However, those that had followed Sashimi’s preparation for Max Pain Monday were given a little hint in a number of tweets that she posted ahead of the game that something unusual may happen.
And then just to confirm matters, she posted this video claiming to ask for help from Twitter followers…
So what is the story here? Or is there one?
If you thought the world had moved on from Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl ‘wardrobe malfunction’ then this story this week still proves that female mammary glands still hold an inordinate fascination across all layers of society.
But to put this new “Nipplegate” into context, you have to look at both the player and what Hustler Casino Live’s Max Pain Monday is about.
Unlike other streams, this event is one which supposed to celebrate the darker arts of poker. Slow rolling is encouraged, big pots are decided by running it once, not twice or more and players are encouraged to be more humorous/controversial in their play, style and behaviour at the table.
Furthermore, Sashimi herself is regular player in the Max Pain Monday games, so she is well aware of the more humorous and less serious environment in which these games are contested.
While there is little doubt that this was Sashimi’s idea of a joke, there were plenty of figures in the game that didn’t find it amusing.
Jami Lafay stated “Let’s remember that what men see as no big deal, women in poker may see slightly differently because of their struggle to play. Women feel they don’t get taken seriously. I’m sure they have a different perspective often.”
Additionally Hustler Casino Live were asked to “do better” by Sherry Pluskota, while Kyna England wondered why Sashimi would feel the need to pull this stunt and KL Cleeton claimed that Hustler Casino Live had become “a joke and just objectively awful.”
However, not all women were against the joke. Danielle Anderson defended the stunt claiming:
“One of the things that makes HCL special is the willingness to let people be characters. The good, bad, ugly & sometimes politically incorrect being shown in all its entertainment glory. Don’t start censoring now bc a few people on the internet are mad.”
It doesn’t take much to set off an argument or debate within the poker world and Sashimi’s actions may have been divisive, but is this really something unusual at the poker table?
On the one hand, women in poker claim that they do not want to be objectified, sexualised and subject to comments or worse about their appearance and there is no doubt that they have every right to that.
But at the same time, there are a number of women in poker who are unafraid to at least partially expose the assets that nature, or a good surgeon, has bestowed them with in the belief, mistaken or not, that it will give them some kind of edge against other (predominantly male) players.
Maybe that is what Sashimi was commenting on in her own unique way? Who knows?
Do we tell these ladies to cover up, to avoid the risk of Nipplegate 2? Surely that is unfair if we are saying that women have to be dressed in a certain way to play at the table when men are generally not given similar clothing restrictions.
Or maybe, the poker world can take what happened in the spirit that it was meant which was clearly to add an element of slightly risqué fun to Max Pain Monday.
Israeli poker star Corenkas came to the final table of the $10,300 WSOP Winter Circuit Super MILLION$ with the shortest stack of the nine remaining players.
However, after just under three hours of play, the Israeli star had turn things around and seen off his eight opponents to claim the $1,095,775 prize in the event.
At one point, Corenkas was down to just nine big blinds in the event, but produced some outstanding poker to outlast his other opponents and claim the top prize.
The final table result was as follows:
Join us again next Friday when we take a look at some of the big news stories of the week from the world of poker.
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