I've been following the Girah scandal like everybody else. I've read tidbits of threads in the forums and DIH's blog posts including his farewell from poker. I'm sure there is more than meets the eye (I, like everybody else would love to hear more from Jungleman, although his involvement seems innocent....so far).

I think CR did the right thing in letting DIH go. This is a business and CR needs to maintain a certain image/brand going forward. I don't know DIH, never met him, never spoke with him, but I do know from his writings and videos he's an intelligent guy and understands poker at a high level. With that said I try to reserve judgement until all the facts are out but it's hard to ignore all the dirt out there and DIH's involvement w/ Girah. It looks even worse now that he's "retiring" from poker.

Isn't this what Girah was saying he was going to do to avoid his scam going public? It makes you wonder what kind of stuff DIH was really up to and what else he might have done in the past. Again this is all speculation, but I'm somebody that tends to think everybody is a good guy until they show otherwise, and this seems otherwise.

I guess we may never know now w/ DIH leaving the poker world.

What troubles me a lot more is the scam Girah tried to pull. It's the magnitude of the whole damn thing. This kid was supposed to be the next Durrrr, was supposed to be one of the guys at the forefront of the next poker boom (when US legislates and regulates it). He was hyped up so much that even I bought into the hype (as I'm sure many others have as well). I followed some of his stuff, including interviews and strategy articles and even mentioned how great this kid was to others. Sure his knowledge was solid (doesn't look like his application of this knowledge in actual play was solid though) although DIH and others could've lent a helping hand here.

Even though the real victims are the guys that got scammed out of money, I feel like I got duped, and I think that's why a lot of people are angry, well actually it's the scam but I think you know what I'm saying. For somebody that hyped, well known, and revered to pull off such a disgusting scam (w/ trusting friends!) just sent ripples throughout the poker world and we are all affected in some way and will be so going forward.

I'm one of the most trustworthy guys around and for some reason I feel like the whole poker world lost a lot of credibility from one poker player to another, including me. Who won't have a hint of suspicion the next time somebody asks for a transfer, asks to sweat, or anything that deals w/ trust. Everybody will remember this and wonder if they're being "Girah'ed". After all, this kid was the golden boy (along w/ a couple of others) for the future of online poker. DIH and Jungleman vouched for this kid! (to be fair I'm not sure if JM did, although DIH certainly did).

Besides the scam, this is what irks me. Poker has come a long way in 10 years, believe me, I was playing fulltime 10 years ago and have seen the evolution. It was gaining a lot of credibility as an occupation. The negative stigma of poker players being gamblers, cheaters, etc. was fading. Even though the UB scandal, FT mismanagement, and lesser scandals hurt, poker was on it's way of being very acceptable (even in the US). Now this happens and arguably this is on the same level as the biggest scandals/setbacks for poker and poker players.

Where UB and FT created suspicion for other poker sites, this creates suspicion for other poker players, and this is what is most damaging about this whole scandal.

I was intending on talking about the launch of my new website but this thing is so big I thought I'd throw my 2 cents on it. Anyway I've launched my own live poker training site w/ my good buddy and very good poker player Joe Tehan (along w/ a couple of other great coaches) at

http://www.stackemcoaching.com/.

For those interested, use promocode STACKEM07 to get a free 3 day trial.

I will remain w/ CR because I have a good working relationship with them and because CR is more online poker and video based content than Stackem (feel free to go check it out to see what it is). I'm still planning on making some online poker videos here, maybe playing on Merge or doing leakfinders. Anyway I'll talk about my new site in more detail next time (damn you Girah!).