A high-stakes poker player has posted in the 2+2 forum to share his experience and warn other people about a coaching scam right after an impersonator of famous poker pro Ben ‘Sauce123' Sulsky took him for a fake coaching session in exchange for an undisclosed payment sum in the form of Bitcoin cryptocurrency.
Username ‘Sirrybob', an ‘old hand' on the poker-centered 2+2 forum system, said in his thread entitled ‘High stakes coaching scam', "Don't want to get too much into details because would rather not think about this much more, but thought it's important to warn people here.
There is a scammer impersonating Ben Sulsky (possibly other well-known guys)."
He then goes on to explain how the scam went, with the impostor using the Skype name BenSulsky lurking around in ‘various large Skype groups' and ‘basically sitting there waiting for the opportunity to scam', and when he contacted him that he's interested for the coaching session, "He answered in a very helpful/informative manner, spoke like Ben, everything he said made a lot of sense."
Sirrybob, who wishes to remain anonymous for various reasons, explained what transpired next. "We scheduled a 3hour group coaching session, for which he wanted money in advance. The second I sent the money (via bitcoin), the guy disappeared. People will probably say this is obvious (confirm identity before sending money) but... there are some pretty high level scammers out there. This guy was extremely convincing, I play highstakes poker and I never suspected."
Ben Sulsky is a poker pro who goes by the online nickname ‘Sauce123' on PokerStars. He is considered to be one of the best online poker players in the world, mainly specializing in heads-up play. On the RunitOnce coaching site, he is an ‘Elite Pro' and has accumulated millions of dollars both in live and online setups even though the site's "news and rumors" forum section has not yet picked up this most recent issue of the coaching scam.
Of course, SirryBob's embarrassing, but truly ‘can happen to some people' kind of tale, was met with varying mixes of 2+2 incredulity, sympathy and joke memes, and RalphWaldoEmerson's post about the incident was certainly on point which stated, "Some have suggested the poker community should use a better forum to communicate/deal with money stuff (such as one where 2fa is mandatory) but the bottom line is that individuals need to do their due diligence in every situation and this won't happen."
The story has reached the real Ben Sulsky, and he himself replied on the 2+2 forum:
"Wow, honored to be a part of teh memes :that
The OP was given my skype name following the scam and he explained to me what happened. Obviously it's ****ing brutal this happened to him and it sucks my name was all mixed up in this. I don't know what to say other than to insist on seeing the coach face to face before paying and being completely sure you're getting what you pay for before sending.
My thanks to the SirryBob for coming forward with this and helping others keep themselves safe from these types of scams."
Below are some of the memes shared by others on this particular forum thread:
Source:
https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/high-stakes-coaching-scam-1699210/
