Ram Vaswani Speaks about the rumors of Phil Ivey

Well we have heard the side of the story from Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu has written about Phil's side in his blog and now Ram Vaswani has come out and talked about his side of the story.

Here is a breakdown of what went down according to Ram Vaswani:

- Ram says that when he spoke with Phil about the handicaps that would be used in the game Phil blatantly lied about where his skills were as a golfer... as he had obviously improved his game to a greater level. Vaswani feels that since he was provided with misleading information he should not have to pay a single dime of what Ivey ended up winning off of him. Ram felt that this was a game based on trust and friendship and he feels that he was cheated. Vaswani also says that Phil agreed that there relationship is definitely a friendship and that was discussed before they played the first hole.

- At the start of the match the players were discussing how much money each hole would be worth. Ram Vaswani says that he wanted to play for $10,000 a hole and Phil Ivey wanted to play for more. The sides eventually agreed upon $20,000 a hole in singles play and doubles play. Late in the round they ended up playing $25,000 a hole. You must be pretty confident in your abilities to end up playing for that kind of cash.

- The parties continued to play at these levels for the second day as well... but all the money was going to Ivey. Ram then noticed that his buddy Mark was getting real frustrated and Ram decided to take over Mark's bets and just play singles against Phil Ivey... ended up being for $50,000 a hole. Mark eventually walked off the golf course in disgust. Ram did go on to say that as gamblers they are always looking to raise the stakes and double up and that is what he was doing.

- Ram also discussed why he didn't stop playing after the first day of golf when he lost $200,000. Ram states that he felt he played real poorly and that the other guys must have been playing pretty good so he thought to himself that if I play good tomorrow and those guys have a bad day then I can get it all back. What he didn't realize and he soon found out was that he did indeed play poorly on day one but so did the other guys as they came out the second day and played brilliantly. That is when Ram knew something shady was happening to him. Ram felt extremely cheated by what was going on and he felt that after he and Phil had a conversation about the shots that were given and the money that was owed Ram felt that he wouldn't have to pay a dime.

- Phil Ivey did not want to here any of the cheating talk and wanted his money from Ram. The two did decide to set up a meeting where they would have arbitrators hear the situation and see what kind of a conclusion they could up with. The first meeting came when the poker players were in Monte Carlo. Phil Ivey showed up with Barry Greenstein and Martin De Knijff, who Ram felt were clearly on Ivey's side. The fourth person that was there for the arbitration was Richard Redmond who was a mutual friends and had played on the second day of the golf match. Vaswani says it didn't take long before they figured out that the handicaps were definitely off. From there , there was a discussion on finding out where the shots were missed and they would take that money off of the total amount owed to Ivey. Vaswani wanted no part of that because he felt if he was cheated at all he shouldn't owe a penny. There was a heated argument but because all the players were in Monte Carlo for a poker tournament the players would have to finish off there meeting at a different time because they had to go play some poker.

- Because Ram was still in the poker tournament and Phil was knocked out of the tournament they would have to meet up at a later date. They decided they would speak again in April at the Bellagio to figure out the outcome. We will hear what went down at this meeting shortly.

- All in all Ram Vaswani is sticking to his guns of not having to owe a penny because he does feel he was cheated and the game should be declared void.

Stay tuned to see what happens next in the golf poker drama.

Racial Slurs Found In a Couch

Living in Canada I like to think that we are a pretty accepting country with a diverse culture. I was shocked at the below article from the Toronto Star

When the new chocolate-coloured sofa set was delivered to her Brampton home, Doris Moore was stunned to see packing labels describing the shade as "Nigger-brown."



She and husband Douglas purchased a sofa, loveseat and chair in dark brown leather last week from Vanaik Furniture and Mattress store on Dundas St. E.

Moore, 30, who describes herself as an African-American born and raised in New York, said it was her 7-year-old daughter who pointed out the label just after delivery men from the Mississauga furniture store left.

"She's very curious and she started reading the labels," Moore explained. "She said, `Mommy, what is nig ... ger brown?' I went over and just couldn't believe my eyes."

She said yesterday each piece had a similar label affixed to the woven protective covering wrapped around the furniture.

"In this day and age, that's totally unacceptable," Moore said.

Douglas explained the origins of the word to daughter Olivia, telling how it was a bad name that blacks were called during the days of slavery in the United States.

"It was tough, because she really didn't understand," Moore said. "She'd never heard that word before and didn't really understand the concept of it."

Moore, who has a younger son and daughter, said she's heard the word used many times, although it has never been directed in anger at her.

"But it's a very, very bad word that makes you feel degraded, like you're a nobody," she said.

Moore said she called the furniture store the following day and three other times since, and feels discouraged that no one has returned her calls.

When interviewed yesterday by the Star, Romesh Kumar, Vanaik's assistant manager, passed the buck to his supplier, Cosmos Furniture in Scarborough.

"Why should I take the blame?" he said. "I'm a trader, I don't manufacture. I sell from 20 companies, maybe 50 companies. How can I take care of all of them?"

He said that he would check similar stock and make sure other labels were removed.

"That's terrible, that's a racial ... something?" Kumar said. "This is entirely wrong, but it's not my fault. It's my job to sell good product to people."

He said the best he could do is to give Moore the telephone number of his supplier, so she could take it up with him.

The owner of Cosmos Furniture, Paul Kumar, no relation to Romesh, said he was upset to learn packing labels on products he sold carried a racial epithet.

"I import my products from overseas," he said. "I've never noticed anything like that. This is something new to me."

He passed the blame to a Chinese company, but apologized for the labels. He said he would contact the furniture maker in Guangzhou and demand they remove all similar labels.

Moore said she's not sure she wants the sofa set in her home.

"Every time I sit on it, I'll think of that," she said.

Phil Ivey Rumor Update

As I had previously mentioned in a post a little while ago about the golf match between Phil Ivey and Ram Vaswani things are starting to heat up pretty good between the two of them and there are a lot of poker message boards and blogs heating up with the news. As a little bit of a refresher Phil Ivey, Ram Vaswani and Clark Badmin were playing a high stakes golf match. Now Phil Ivey was definitely handing it to these two guys on the course, and they continued to lose hole after hole but the stakes were doubling every time. Before this match Phil Ivey had lost a match with these guys and he owed them around $300k, and yes he paid them all of it, the very next day.

Now comes this event.... When this match is all said and done Ivey is up $1.8 Million dollars off of these guys and then there was a heated exchange between the three of them, and how it ended up was Vaswani and Badmin claimed the match wasn't fair even though they continued to play double or nothing.

Phil Ivey paid these guys the full amount when he lost to them and now they won't pay him his earnings. They haven't even paid Ivey the amount of money that he paid them when he lost. This will definitely not be the last that you will hear on this story as I'm sure when these guys run into one another at the poker tables something is going to go down. As professional gamblers these guys should know better than anyone about the risks involved and if you get in to deep you should just cut your losses and get out. These guys obviously did not think the match was too unfair as they proceded to continue to play double or nothing. Were these hustlers over confident in their own abilities or just dumb. I'll take the latter.

Keep checkin out the PokerParty Blog for the latest rumors regarding this story and other poker gossip.

Poker Source Online

It’s been a few months coming, but Poker Source Online is finally rolling out the next installment of its Poker League. While there have only been a handful, the leagues have been a great source of bonding for the PSO community. There exists amongst the PSO members this strange juxtaposition of support and competitiveness; while everyone loves to hop in PSO’s chat room or post in the message forum to trash talk, they also are great at cheering each other on.

Things like the leagues are what make PSO what it is. Customers come for the free gifts, but stay for the community. And there is usually something new and different with each league. In the first league back in the winter of 2004, PSO started the tradition of adding guaranteed money to the prize pool each week in the form of PSO points. In addition to the prizes at the end of the league, everybody who finished higher than PSO’s big boss also received a prize.

From there, PSO held two leagues in the first half of 2005, pitting the United States versus Canada in a border war. Canada won the first one, but the U.S. regained supremacy in dominant fashion in the rematch. Hundreds of dollars worth of PSO points were awarded, as well as poker goodies.

In 2006, PSO upped the ante, giving away $10,000 in prizes in the spring, including a seat in a preliminary event at the World Series of Poker. In the fall, the World Series was already over, so that prize wasn’t going to work, but $10,000 in total were still up for grabs, as well as a seat in Absolute Poker’s $100K guaranteed tournament.

The PSO gang is at it again this spring, with thousands of dollars on the line each week. Oh, did anyone mention that it only costs $5.50 to play each week? Yeah, you’re not going to beat that. Visit http://www.pokersourceonline.com to sign up for the new league.