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In TCOOP event 08, $82 NL Hold’em (Turbo, Big Antes, Optional Re-Entry) with a guaranteed pricepool of $200K, a strange situation occured when coming down to the final two players. Sweden’s “LuckboxStami” and Russia’s “IvanHaldi” were the final players battling it out for the first place price of $48.042 and the TCOOP-bracelet. However, when the two were about to discuss a deal, IvanHaldi didn’t respond for over an hour before play was resumed.
When the players reached the final three, Danish artmaxx_dk and LuckboxStami were happy to look at the numbers, but it was IvanHaldi who didn’t respond. A couple of minutes after artmaxx_dk was eliminated, IvanHaldi’s discuss-box was checked and the PokerStars moderator MatthiaM arrived, giving the requested numbers. LuckboxStami agreed right away, but the Russian player didn’t respond.. at all. What made this extra strange was the fact that IvanHaldi was playing in another tournament, the Hot $44, actively at the same time.
Because of the big amount of money on the line, the moderator tried everything within his reach. At first he thought IvanHaldi might not speak English, so he got a translator to ask him in Russian if he was ready to make a deal. After this failed, PokerStars tried to reach IvanHaldi in a live chat, and when this too failed they even tried to give him a call on his telephone. All with the same result.
In the meanwhile LuckboxStami expressed his opinion, even referring to a previous bot-scandal in Pot Limit Omaha games. PokerStars ensured him they would investigate IvanHaldi’s account, and if something fishy was going on, they would find out.
After a good hour of trying, play resumed, playing for the full first place price of $48.042, and the Swede LuckboxStami was the one that came out as the strongest, taking home that prestiguous TCOOP-bracelet along with the bag of money. IvanHaldi’s account is frozen and the investigation continues until PokerStars “is comfortable with the activity” of this account.