Chris Moneymaker, who lit the fuse to the early 2000s poker boom, is the latest poker icon in the hot seat on PokerOrg’s The Interview. The full interview drops next week, but here’s a sneak peek.
ACR, the online poker site Chris represents as a Team Pro, made the headlines for the wrong reasons in February when two of its other pros, Nacho Barbero and Ebony Kenney, were accused of using RTA (real-time assistance) while playing in the site’s flagship Venom tournament. Both had images posted of them playing ACR with a GTO Wizard open at the same time.
Both were cleared (by ACR & GTO Wizard) of using RTA to help make optimal decisions in real time, but having software like GTO Wizard open while playing is against ACR’s terms of service.
So, what did Chris make of the whole situation? Here’s what he had to say in his own words...
Ebony Kenney and Nacho Barbero have both admitted to using GTO Wizard while playing on ACR Poker.______________________________________________________________
My kneejerk reaction was, ‘We need to fire them both. We need to get rid of them.' Like done. You know, you got caught cheating, and you're done...
But it's very difficult for me to argue about taking someone's livelihood away, so... I need to take a pause and be like, well, is that an appropriate reaction? What would happen if it was a normal player?
And I asked Phil [Nagy][CEO of Winning Poker Network][the parent company of ACR] that exact question. What happens when an account gets posted that shows a picture of RTA or something in the background? Well, basically, not to get too in-depth on how our security protocols work, but they'll go through, and they'll look at the account. And if the account hasn't used RTA, they'll get a warning. And after the warning is issued, if it's found to happen again, then they would get banned. So his position is that [they] should receive a warning, and if it happens again, then [they] should be banned.
Now, I'm under the impression that, as an ambassador, we should be held to a higher standard. Like, you know, we're not just players on the site; we represent the site. So I do believe that, yes, she [Ebony] should get a warning, but I also believe that she should either be suspended... I don't know what the disciplinary should be. Should she be fired? If she's fired, he [Barbero] is fired. I don't think you can get rid of one without the other. I think it has to be a joint thing.
Moneymaker: If I owned ACR Poker...
If I owned ACR, I would probably get rid of both of them if I'm being real with myself, but that's easy for me to say when it's not my decision to make.
Again, if they were found to have cheated at all, then I don't think there's any way you can do anything but fire them. If someone's cheating, I think they're going to be a lot more careful about their screen popping up charts and whatever. That's just my personal view. You're probably not cheating. You're probably just an idiot, which, honestly, I really don't want idiots working for me either. But that's another story.
So it's a tough, tough thing… Phil hates firing people… When he fires somebody, he gets really sick. It really hurts him. So, we always joke, it's really hard to get fired from ACR. Like, you really got to screw up. Phil just doesn't like letting people go. But they should be held to a higher standard, and they messed up.
This is an excerpt from the full interview with Chris Moneymaker, set for release next week. The legendary WSOP 2003 Main Event champion pulls no punches in a two-hour-plus interview with host and longtime poker journalist Craig Tapscott.
