Alleged cheating in the $10,000 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Championship

Connor ''blanconegro'' Drinan and several other players defeated by Valeriu Coca have claimed on the 2+2 forums that their opponent was acting very weird and suspicious during their matches in the $10,000 Heads Up No Limit Hold'em Championship at the World Series of Poker. Drinan and his friend Pratyush ''Shane Gamble'' Buddiga have both stated that they felt something was off during the match and that they suspect cheating. Coca is known cheater, having been banned from most of the casinos in the Czech Repbulic for marking cards. Check out Drinan's story below!

After tweeting that he felt ''super-used'' (referring to the UltimateBet superuser scandal) and that the match was the weirdest 1,5 hour of poker in his life, Drinan shared his story on the 2+2 forums:

''Hey 2+2, it's Connor. We (the players that were beaten by this Valeriu Coca guy in the $10k HU) were trying to keep things quiet until we gave the WSOP adequate time to investigate the situation and come up with a solution, but since there are a lot of rumors circulating and a lot of people know bits and pieces already, I might as well clear things up.

Pratyush Buddiga was the first to lose to him. He is my good friend but seemed pretty tilted so I didn't ask details until I found out he was my next opponent. I asked for reads and whatnot and he basically told me he was really slow and passive in the beginning and then picked up the pace as the match went on as far as speed of play and aggression. He thought he was stalling in the beginning to give himself a better shot to win at a higher blind level. He said he would stall by rechecking his cards at a bunch of different angles when it was clear he made up his mind to fold already. 

He did the same thing in my match. For the first 10 hands or so, he folded to most of my button opens and either limped or folded the button (doing the same obnoxious card checking tactics). I was thinking "man this guy is going to be a breeze." From that point on I won very few pots the rest of the match. Every time I had a good starting hand he folded. If I had a bad one he raised or re-raised. If I whiffed a flop he attacked my c-bets. If I whiffed and went for a delayed cbet, he blasted turn into me every time. If I hit and bet, he folded. Hit and checked, he checked ect ect ect. 

It was probably the most frustrating match of my life and I've played a ton of HU. He grinded me down to 80k at bb4k from 240k starting. At this point I was playing super passive as his aggression was out of control. I made my first button raise in a while which was a shove with 33 and he snapped me with k5o for 20bb. I held and won my only significant pot of the match but he went back to work grinding me down to 60k and then won a flip to end the match. 

I remember him folding 4 times total preflop once blinds got big. 1) He walked me when I had AA. 2) he folded to my min when I had AJs. 3) I capped my cards and waited for him to look at his cards first for the first time in the match as I was starting to get really skeptical. He acted surprised and flustered and walked me before I uncovered my hand. 4) After checking my hole cards (J9o i think) I looked behind me to see if there was a chance he had a friend on the rail who could see my cards but there was no way. He seemed very weirded out that I did that and again walked me. 

I stormed out of the rio as tilted as I've ever been after busting a tournament and immediately messaged prat saying I felt like something major was off with the match. It didn't make sense that a guy grinding 300 euro mtts in eastern europe who has never played WSOP before would come here for the $10k HU and be such a beast. I ranted to Prat all the things that were weird, both mannerisms and plays he made vs me. Prat said he felt the exact same about his match but didn't say anything at first because he figured he was just being a sore loser and got owned. I then messaged the other 2 players he beat, Matt Marafioti and Aaron Mermelstein and they both had similar "yeah i felt totally owned, couldn't win a pot, thing he was doing with his cards was really weird, ect" type responses. 

I called my other good friend Byron Kaverman and warned him about everything as they were scheduled to play in the round of 16 the next morning. We figured we should also tell Jack Effel so they could be on the lookout. Byron said he knew Jack well so he would talk to him. I went to bed questioning myself and wondering if I was just being a sore loser.

I then woke up this morning to a message on facebook from a czech friend of mine that read "Hey man just woke up and found out u were in HU with a guy who made a lot of money in cash games in Prague. He has ban in czech poker casinos for cheating. Guy was marking cards. We can talk in person little bit later when Im on sngs in Rio and u can forward it to floors players etc so they can do smtng about it I guess"

I instantly passed this along to Byron and he said that Jack was on it and they were monitoring him via cameras and also switching up the decks frequently. 

I spoke with Byron after his match and he said he was 100% sure the guy was trying to cheat and was watching the cards very closely as the dealer dealt off the deck but that he did a pretty good job covering his cards and the decks were being switched up so it was hard for Coca to work his magic. Unfortunately he couldn't fade an 80/20 and the guy advanced. His next opponent, Keith Lehr, was also warned about Coca. At this point, Coca probably knew that he had been exposed based on the attention his matches were receiving from the floor, the way Byron and Keith were protecting their hands so well, ect ect. He finally lost to Keith in 5th place. 

Our speculation is that he was using some sort of invisible ink in combination with special sunglasses. We haven't heard much from WSOP since the match, but what little I have heard I would rather keep to myself for now and allow WSOP time to finish the investigation and make their own statement.''

Pratyush ''Shane Gamble'' Buddiga has also commented in the thread:

''This is Pratyush and I can confirm everything Connor said. I wasn't sure if I had just been owned by somebody who had a sick game plan coming in or not but as the stories started coalescing, it became pretty clear something fishy was going on. 

To be honest, if Connor and I weren't such good friends it's pretty likely he would've gotten away with it, with each of us (Matt, Aaron, Connor, Byron, and me) wondering to ourselves just exactly what the heck happened.

Also wanted to add that in addition to all the weird card re-checking and reshuffling (which we did assume was when he was marking them), later on in the match he would often swivel his head in either direction for no apparent reason while the action was on him. Pure speculation is this had something to do with his sunglasses and trying to look at my cards but I'm not really sure. It was very strange at the time and in retrospect, very suspicious. 

The WSOP seems to have taken it very seriously and we're just waiting to see what happens now. Can post more after that.''