Joshua Beckley, the 2015 WSOP Main Event Runner-Up, was in the news yesterday as the 50th anniversary WSOP kicked off, but for all the wrong reasons – Chance Kornuth publicly outing Beckley over a $10,000 unpaid loan and warning fellow players off from buying Beckley’s action.
Chance Kornuth calls out Joshua Beckley on Twitter
I would advise against buying action or doing any business with him what so ever… also it’s likely a bad buy
— Chance Kornuth (@ChancesCards) May 31, 2019
Joshua Beckley hit the poker spotlight when he scooped a $4,470,896 payday as runner-up to Joe McKeehen and added another $439,560 when he came 4th in the PCA $25k High Roller the following January.
Despite these massive cashes, it seems that the 29-year old New Jersey pro is struggling to meet his debts – and Kornuth’s claims brought some more problems into the light for Beckley…
YouStake suspends Beckley’s account
YouStake, which had already sold out Beckley’s 2019 WSOP packages, suspended his listings until they could get to the bottom of the shock news…
In keeping with our practices and Policies to protect our users (both backers and players), We have canceled and refund listings for event other than the Big50 which was already registered and signed contract received. With that Said, we do believe that Josh will be back on site
— YouStake (@YouStake) May 31, 2019
…and various as yet unverified tweets stated his bankruptcy filing occurred six weeks ago in the Southern District of Florida.
Daniel Ashman got scammed as well by Beckley before
Kornuth’s name-and-shame tactics also brought out a previous incident, highlighted on PocketFives, in which highstakes online pro Daniel Ashman was scammed out of $6,000.
A Bitcoin for Neteller trade with Beckley saw the $6k disappear in to the ether, Beckley claiming that his Twitter and 2plus2 poker forum accounts had both been hacked.
Back to Kornuth’s missing $10k and it seems that the public shaming had reaped dividends, Beckley apparently telling the double WSOP bracelet winner that he’d be seeing his money.
Just spoke w @joshua1beckley. He says he still has intentions to pay me back. I made a very standard assumption that 99+/100 people would make here, was apparently WRONG. Other than this one instance I have NOT had any negative interactions with him https://t.co/yL86gXZd05
— Chance Kornuth (@ChancesCards) May 31, 2019
Joshua Beckley closes down his Twitter Account
Joshua Beckley has since closed down his Twitter account, unsurprising given the circumstances and the lack of any supporters speaking up for him amid the general clamour such a public outing brings.
The poker world has seen many of these situations, of course, most recently the embarrassing Randall Emmett/50Cent debacle in which the rapper was owed $1million from the amateur poker playing Hollywood producer.
Earlier this year it was Eli Elezra at the centre of a scamming storm, the famous highstakes pro outed as owing Abe Mosseri, Cole South and others $millions from loans.
