The annual World Series of Poker in Las Vegas is the most prestigious poker tournament in the world, but that doesn’t make it immune from cheaters. Multiple poker pros have expressed their concerns over a possible instance of cheating over the weekend.
he claims a player called Ding Bao and another called Quan Zhou appeared to collude
Dutch poker pro Dirk “VeniVidi1993” Gerrits is experienced in the world of Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) cash games and high stakes. He was the first to raise the alarm after witnessing suspicious behavior in the $50k PLO WSOP event. Gerrits, who finished eighth in the event, shared details on X, in which he claims fellow-final table players Ding Bao and Quan Zhou appeared to collude on the first hand back after a break.
Gerrits explained: “Ding opened the cutoff and Zhou finds the “creative” 3 bet from the big blind and generates a fold from Ding.” Gerrits argued that “anyone who has spent over an hour of trying to get better at PLO will understand this is a losing play,” adding it also came from someone who was “playing relatively tight.”
Gerrits wasn’t the only concerned poker pro either. Rob Kuhn, an American player with more than $700k in live earnings, posted video footage of the incident:
Martin Dam, a Danish player with more than $2m in live earnings, also backed up the claims, going as far as to say it looked like “blatant collusion.” He also highlighted that Zhou and Ding are both from China.
Ding has more than $16m in live poker earnings, while Zhou has $12.5m.
