Hoyazo the Poker Cheat Part Deuce

I bunch of people think I went way over the top with my last post. That is possible I guess, but I simply have zero tolerance for cheating at online poker. The integrity of online poker is very much in question lately, and stunts like this don’t help at all. I think that in order for you to believe that Hoy had no intention of cheating, then you need to believe his explanation of the events. His explanation and lack of understanding that he had done anything wrong bothered me just about as much as what he did. However, when I go back and read his “explanation” it appears to be completely fabricated. It is not believable at all. So to put this whole thing to bed, I am going to go through his explanation and point out how many ginormous leaps of faith you must take to actually believe his version of the events. So let’s start with the premise that he was approached by backers to do this.

“It all goes back a few months, when some people got together and decided I should play the Bodonkey and they would write a blog around my play, and we would all have a financial interest in the winnings, if any. So we did it.”

So “some people” got together and decided for Hoy what he would be doing with his Tuesday evenings for the next four months. See how he loses all responsibility here? He claims he is just a puppet to the ideas of others. He also says that they would have a shared financial interest or what is normally called a “backing” relationship. So some people got together and decided that wanted to back Hoy in some $10 MTTs. This is normal stuff I guess. I sold off 20% of my action for $2 last time I played the Riverchasers, lol. Give me a freaking break. Normally you back someone to play in a series or event that they are under bankrolled for. Are we supposed to believe that after multiple 4 figure MTT cashes this year that Hoy does not have the roll for a $10 MTT. This is absurd. There is no way hoy would accept backing for a $10 MTT, and there is no way “some people” would even approach him with such a silly idea. Now let’s take the specifics of the Bodonkey. It would take $198 to enter all 18 MTTs and on average there is more than a 100% overlay with the added T600. This means that through “average” play you should double your money in the bodonkey. It would take absolutely horrible play for 18 weeks to not at least break even. So to believe that Hoy needed backers you need to also believe that he thought he would play so horribly that he could not even break even with a massive overlay. Assuming 2 hours per event, Hoy will spend 36 hours in the Bodonkey, and through average play win $200. By accepting backers, he now has to split these winnings, and I guess potentially tens of thousands of dollars if he won the seat, with his backers, who took on zero risk of losing any money. Hoy has absolutely nothing to gain and everything to lose by accepting backers in the Bodonkey. I don’t think the backers will ever come forward because they simply do not exist. That actually makes me feel a bit better about the whole situation, once I realized that this is most likely Hoy is doing this all by himself.

“I would play all the tournaments (which I have) as ICrushBloggers, and they would watch me play and interview me over email and girly and then they would write the posts.”

OK, now that we realize a backing arrangement makes no sense, you get this interesting statement. While “ICrushBloggers” is a great name that I have no problem with at all, he is talking about not posting about the Bodonkey on his own blog (hiding his identity from others in the MTT). No explanation is given for this. I would like a real explanation as to why Hoy wanted his identity hidden in the Bodonkey. So his backers that are likely to make $60 each for 4 months work watching all the MTTs, interviewing Hoy, and posting on a fake blog. Seems like a ton of work for nothing. But wait a second. Hoy already has a blog where he discusses blogger MTTs. Would it not have been much, much easier to just post to his own blog. Then the backers don’t need to watch all the MTTs, he doesn’t need to be interviewed, and he does not need to screen what they write. I think it was here that it was clear to me that Hoy did this to gain unfair advantage on the other bloggers. It was much more work for Hoy to take on this arrangement then to simply do like everyone else and not hide there identity when playing the Bodonkey.

“In any event, the whole Bodonkey proposal was brought to me by this group purely as an investment, and I agreed because of the prospects for free money for me and what sounded like it might be fun.”

Now if you believe an investment is you doing all the work (playing in all the MTTs), and then splitting your earnings with people who had nothing at risk, you can believe this statement. Either that or you need to believe that Hoy is retarded and would agree to such an arrangement. He is a corporate lawyer who does negotiations. He must be horribly bad to take this deal, or more likely the whole thing was made up (there were no backers). To top it off, it sounded like fun to him to hide his identity, and gain unfair advantage against the others. Hoy thinks cheating is fun I guess.

“I was clear that I would not be devoting any more time to blogging than I already do, and that I would never even be posting about the Bodonkey here at my blog since all of the Bodog stuff was supposed to be written by them, and the ICB blog contributors were fine with that.”

So rather than simply mentioning the Bodonkey in his existing blog, he found it to be less work to have his backers interview him via email and girly chat, and then screen what they wrote, vs. just mentioning it briefly in his own blog. The fact is that the ICB posts were long and would have been more work than a brief mention in his own blog. He took a path that was actually much more work, and then spins it like it was less work.

“Bodog wants to link to my blog here instead of the ICB blog. Personally I think this does not make sense since I am not and have never been the writer of the ICB blog. But it's what they want to do, and with my idiot writers at ICB not able to control themselves from saying stupid things, the decision has basically been made for us all.”

Was anyone else confused by the poker blog link requirement like Hoy? I mean he is claiming that he does not understand why in a poker blogger MTT series, that you would link to the poker blog of the person playing in it. He thinks it’s perfectly fine to link to a blog that is not written by the person playing in the series, and is confused as to why bodog would want a link to his own blog. This whole thing is absurd. If he would have done like everyone else who were not confused by the linking requirements, and linked to his own blog, we would not be having this discussion.

“So I asked them earlier this week to please delete the blog, and that should be done by now.”

This statement basically proves to me the whole thing was a scam, and there are no backers. Earlier on, he claims that he had to delete some posts that he did not like on ICB. Now he claims he had to ask his backers to delete the blog, and he is waiting on them. Well if he is waiting on them then they must exist right? Not so fast. If he had the ability to delete posts, he certainly had the ability to delete the blog. Do you think he would really allow “monkeys” to write under his persona, with no ability to control what they did? Also, why would you delete the ICB blog anyway? The only reason to do so is to destroy the evidence. If the whole thing was fun and games, why not let the fun go on by keeping the blog alive. The fact is this was to destroy the evidence. A link to the ICB blog archive is below. If you read though it carefully, it is pretty obvious that the entire thing was written by the same person. A person who has a long-winded talkative style to his posts. A style that is no different than how Hoy writes. It is pretty clear that the whole thing was written by Hoy, and that this was much more work than simply posting in his blog about the Bodonkey. Why go to all this trouble?

ICheatBloggers Archive

“The free stuff we are getting as idiot bloggers is pretty amazing these days isn't it?”

Yeah, it was pretty amazing until certain bloggers stopped giving the host sites there due publicity, by angle shooting for the prizes. And yes Hoy you are an idiot.

In conclusion, I find Hoy’s entire explanation for the scam to be complete Bullshit. There were no backers, or monkeys writing posts. He came up with this whole thing on his own, and is now trying to hide behind fictional backers who will never be revealed because they do not exist. He either did this to gain advantage by hiding his identity, or did it to be a complete asshole and anonymously bash other poker bloggers, and was too stupid to think this might be considered cheating after the fact. His biggest mistake was qualifying for the TOC. He should have dropped out before that happened if this was fun and games. The second he qualified for the TOC, he had to know that what he did would be considered cheating. There was simply too much at stake to be angle shooting, playing games, and cheating bloggers like he did during the Bodonkey.

If Hoy did all this alone, I feel a bit better about the whole thing. He is one very bad apple in a large group. The idea of a coconspirators in the know, IM ing each other and laughing at the other bloggers makes me sick. The idea that a group of backers would not see anything wrong here makes me sick. Hoy doing this all alone is not quite as bad.

Lastly, I think this whole thing would have worked out better if somebody demanded that ICheatBloggers out himself while the series was running. Somebody should have said, to ICB during the Bodonkey, that if he is a known blogger and continues to hide his identity than he is a scumbag cheat, and will be ridiculed as such once his identity is revealed. I wish I would have done that. Unfortunately, I only had ICB at my table twice during the entire series. Both times were early on, and ICB was way down in the standings and not looking to qualify for a seat. I was pretty sure ICB was a known blogger (I thought Hoy myself). Then I skipped a bunch of the bodonkeys late after securing my seat, and that is when ICheatBloggers came back and got into the top 18. Hopefully this will be a lesson for all of us, into the seriousness of cheating at poker, and this type of BS will stop. If I am wrong about all this, I am assuming that the coconspirators will be revealed at some point. Prove me wrong by outing yourself.