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WSOP 2022 Main Event Champ Dispute

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On August 29th WSOP 2022 Main Event Champion Espen Uhlen Jørstad made a post on Twitter about a dispute over equity from his Main Event first place prize of $10,000,000 with another community member named Alex Theologis aka Pwndidi. Alex is a high stakes tournament player, Run It Once training coach and bitbstaking coach.


You can read Espen post here: Espen Post

You can read community response here: Community Replies


The dispute is over a 3% equity swap in the Main Event which totals $300,000 of the $10,000,000 first place prize Espen won. It is very common in poker for players to swap equity in an event that both players play in. Most players will document this exchange by confirming through text message, email, video, audio or an official contract. In this instance, Alex says that there was a verbal agreement made but not documented or confirmed beyond that. Alex cannot remember when this took place and Espen says that he does not remember this verbal agreement to have taken place.

Through messages posted by Espen, Alex contacted Espen through Instagram DM to confirm the 3% swap on July 15th which would have been Day 9 of the Main Event.

Alex says that he approach Patrick Leonard, a mutual friend to both parties, and asked for his advice on how to handle the situation.

You can read Patrick response here: Pads Response


Alex and Espen agreed to meet up in Vegas to discuss the dispute and Espen explained to Alex that he has no record and no recollection of the swap.

Key points from Espen blog post:
- Before the main event we had only met twice, and we have never swapped in anything else.
- I have no recollection of swapping with him.
- I did not have it written down.
- He did not have it written down.
- We had nothing about it in our chat.
- For every other swap during WSOP I immediately wrote it down in my own document + confirmed in chats. I have to assume this is routine on his part too.
- Alex did not remember when or where we had this swap convo, or any other details about it.

After a final message was exchanged between the two in late July, the issue had seemed to be resolved before Espen was approached by a “drunk irish guy” who Espen felt threatened by during a poker event in Cyprus which motivated Espen to write his story about what took place and to end any rumors about what might have taken place.


I reached out to Alex to hear his side of the story (video of the conversation is embedded in this post) and Alex says that the dispute ended when he sent the message on July 29th. He says that he didn’t send anyone to confront Espen in Cyprus and he understands that if a swap took place, it should have been documented. He did say that he conducted verbal swaps with others in the Main Event - I reached out to one of the players who did confirm that a verbal swap took place and that they were staying together during the Main Event.

Alex maintains the position that the swap was agreed upon at some point in time during the Vegas summer but does not remember where or when it took place. Alex says that the last message he sent to Espen was very emotional as he believed he was entitled to $300,000 of the win that he was never going to see.

It is very common as an online poker player to communicate with the other regulars from around the world through messenger and run in to those same people during the events that take place around the world.


So what really took place here?

Options

  1. An exchange took place between Espen & Alex and Espen doesn’t remember.

  2. No exchange took place and Alex is imagining or making up what happened.

  3. An exchange took place between Alex & someone else who he believes to be Espen.

  4. An exchange took place between Espen & Alex and Espen is trying to keep $300,000.

  5. Alex sees this as a spot where he can make $300,000.


My primary takeaway is that you should always document the pieces you buy and sell through text, video, email, etc. because you can never be too careful in the poker/gambling/business world. This is why contracts are commonly used in most areas of business.

In this case, I think it’s pretty clear that no money is owed. The WSOP summer is long hours, high stress, big swings and you end up communicating with so many different people from around the world that you don’t often see. I’m not sure what exactly took place here on Alex side but nothing would surprise me - just another year in the poker world. People in the poker world love to play innocent but many of the people I’ve met are very cutthroat - they will smile in your face when you’re in front of them but if they have the chance to make money off you, through you, use you, level up, build their networks etc. they won’t hesitate to do it. I’ve had people do this to me in a number of different ways over the years while positioning themselves in my life as “friends” “acquaintances” “partners” etc.

Be careful who you trust…

What do you think about what took place??

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Authors
Joey Ingram