Popular poker pro David “Bakes” Baker has called out Phil Galfond for taking on Brian Hastings as a coach on his Run It Once training site, describing Hastings as a “cheating scumbag”!
Hey @PhilGalfond I see you’ve added cheating scumbag @brianchastings to the Run It Once lineup. Can you get him to stop sending me embarrassing PMs on twoplustwo asking for a HU match? It’s not going to unstain his soul and it’s a little tacky imo
— Bakes (@DMBakes) April 6, 2022
“I see you’ve added cheating scumbag Brian Hastings to the Run It Once lineup”
“Hey @PhilGalfond I see you’ve added cheating scumbag @brianchastings to the Run It Once lineup. Can you get him to stop sending me embarrassing PMs on twoplustwo asking for a HU match? It’s not going to unstain his soul and it’s a little tacky imo.”
Hastings actually joined RIO 6 months ago, as an “Elite MTT” coach, but Bakes seems to have just cottoned on to the fact that his nemesis is now starred alongside the likes of Jason Koon and “Jungleman” Dan Cates in the RIO coaching line-up.
The reason for Baker’s anger goes back a few years to when Hastings cheated him and others by multi-accounting under the infamous NoelHayes account.
Hastings had apparently bought the account, which many assumed was the Irish businessman and poker fan, playing SCOOP (Spring Championship of Online Poker) and cash games under this guise.
“We played a few cash hands and were at a scoop FT,” Baker said when he found out back in 2015. “It’s not some large amount but he admitted guilt, paid out other people, and then threw it in my face that I wouldn’t get a cent.”
Hastings, seemingly always ready with an excuse or a distraction when pulled up about his cheating and rule-breaking, defended his behaviour.
“My intent was never to gain an edge from deception, just to be able to live and play in the USA, where I have a wonderful network of friends and family that I didn’t have when I tried to move to Canada.”
If that sounds reasonable enough, remember what a huge edge it is for top players to know their opponents’ styles and tendencies, but not be known in return.
You can check out a more detailed version of those cheating allegations here, but back in the here and now, Baker was dragging Isaac “Ike” Haxton into the drama.
You were a stars team pro who knew about a multi account that cheated me. Never got any restitution. Sit this one out maybe? https://t.co/08pI4kmDy5
— Bakes (@DMBakes) April 6, 2022
When quizzed about why Haxton or any other team pro would know about Hastings’ actions, Bakes revealed: “The cheater (@brianchastings) told Isaac and other high stakes players that he was on a well-known UK gamblers account. All of this was kept secret until I found out and outed him. Isaac here hid behind his “contract” to avoid answering tough questions.”
For those who are fairly new to the poker world, Hastings has long been accused of various “infractions of the rules” for want of a word that isn’t “cheating”.
He was one the player who sandbagged Viktor “Isildur1” Blom for more than $4million, Hastings benefiting from hand histories shared and analysed by Brian Townsend and Cole South, though Townsend was the only one of the trio punished by Full Tilt.
Poker, of course, has had it fair share of cheats, varmints, and ne’er-do-wells who somehow still have status in the game – calling players out for wrongdoing goes at least some way to alerting the rest of the community to those with bad intentions.
So far, neither Hastings nor Ike Haxton have responded to Baker’s tweets.
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