Boy, that escalated quickly. Canadian poker veteran Mike Leah went from hero to heel in a heartbeat on social media this week.

Mike Leah Poker
Mike Leah Poker Wife Pictures
Mike Leah Poker Drama
Mike Leah Poker

Best iphone slot machine app 2018. Mike Leah has been a top professional poker player for close to a decade now. He continues his winning ways and still has plenty of motivation to win big at poker. In this interview, we cover topics ranging from Mike's latest wins to his 2017 poker goals, and ask him about his new PPI Poker sponsorship deal.

This past summer, Mike Leah didn’t play a full schedule at the World Series of Poker for the first time since leaving a sales career to play poker professionally. It was for good reason.
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As it wipes empty shelves for different supplies, this lucky man, One Mr. Mike Leah, has continued to win large in different casino poker games. For many years now, he has earned himself a 5-star Michelin quality in the world of poker. He has managed to win $8 million from playing cards.

One minute, the masses were congratulating Leah for taking down the World Poker Tour Fallsview Main Event. Why not? He was posting his fourth big win at Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Canada in the past five years. However, the next minute they were ripping him apart for the optics of the deal he appeared to make to seal the victory.

Of course, the heads up hand history was particularly ugly. It clearly showed fellow Canadian Ryan Yu Poker odds texas holdem calculator. entering heads up with a big lead, then dumping chips to Leah until he held an insurmountable lead of his own. Before anyone knew it, the tournament was over. Rampant collusion looked like the big winner.

Mike Leah Poker

However, what that hand history didn’t show was Leah buying a WPT title, which some brazen keyboard warriors over zealously suggested he did. It didn’t show any terms of the deal the two players obviously struck. Nor did the hand history mention that Fallsview and the WPT didn’t facilitate the chop, which is precisely what led to all this unfair criticism being heaped on Leah.

Leah’s side of the story

As I write this, Leah is in the process of posting a word document on explaining his side of the story and releasing details of the deal the two players came to heads up. (Editor’s note: Leah’s statement can now be found on his Facebook page). As he explained earlier, the gist of it is they did an Independent Chip Model (ICM) chop that Leah felt was too good to pass up. Yu was happy to lock up the cash and not have to take his chances heads up. Leah got a trophy and title that clearly meant a lot more to him than it did to Yu.

Leah went on to explain how getting heads up in a 500-plus player field is an accomplishment on its own. He also said it obviously would it have felt better to win heads up, but its not as if he really paid for the trophy and title.

But the truth is, none of that matters.

Just deal with it

Deals are often made at the final table of a tournament once they get shorthanded. Even more once they get heads up. The structures often get so shallow it just makes sense to split the money rather than flip coins for it.

The bottom line is it is up to the players involved how they split up money, titles and trophies. After all, its their money, title and trophy we’re talking about.

And while it’s really nobody else’s business how they chop it up, it just makes sense that it’s everybody’s business.

All that’s required to keep things above board is a little transparency. Poker tours, casinos, and poker rooms need to be open and honest about chops. They need to help players do them and publicize the fact that they happen. Once everyone on the outside has had a good look at the numbers, they can debate until they’re blue in the face who got the better end of things. Or if one player or another bought the title or trophy.

Gambling rehab centers near me. The legitimacy of any win can be argued after the fact. But that’s something that’s a little harder to do if the details are left in the dark.

Sure, big time tournaments and titles come with player of the year race implications and such. However, pushing the deals that settle these events underground does nothing to address that. At least if the deal is out in the open, those implications can be discussed and issues around them solved.

Under the table deals don’t make for great TV

Of course, chops don’t make for great TV, but neither do under the table deals where a chip dumps or blind flips ultimately settle things. In the end, the positives of an upfront, public and transparent deal at a final table far outweigh any negatives.

The optics of this Yu-Leah chip dump were admittedly awful. But that doesn’t mean either player did anything wrong. In fact, the only ones in the wrong are those on Twitter jumping to conclusions without all the facts.

Of course, the whole thing could have been avoided if Fallsview and the WPT simply facilitated the chop and released information about it publicly. Forcing the players to do these deals away from the public eye simply makes poker look shady. Something an industry with far too many truly shady incidents in its past hardly needs.

Lead image courtesy of WPT/Flickr

Mike Leah finds playing (and winning) poker in Canada a special treat. (Photo: WPT)

Mike Leah trimmed his poker schedule to major events and ones that hold meaning for him – especially tournaments in Canada. Leah found a formula for winning the $1,100 Fallsview Casino tournament for the third time in four years for $244,244 CAD.

The event runs leading up to the annual World Poker Tour Main Event and attracts some of the largest Canadian crowds of the year. “Any tournament in Canada means more to more to me,” Leah said. “For sure, we don’t get that many up here and it’s nice to play in my home country.”

Leah’s national pride and attachment to his previous wins, made the win almost a forgone conclusion in his mind. “I honestly thought of that on the drive down, I was focused and trying to envision it,” he said. He’s won $573,330 and topped total fields of 3,478 entrants from his wins in 2016 and 2014.

#Threepeat ?????? ?????? pic.twitter.com/dHGZal459A

Mike Leah Poker Wife Pictures

— Mike Leah (@GoLeafsGoEh) February 21, 2017

He busted the first flight and found himself in trouble in the early goings on Day 1B. “Two hours in I was down to 3,500 from a 10,000 starting stack. At that point I wasn’t feeling too confident about winning the tournament,” said Leah. “But things turned around and I really liked my chances after bagging up one of the biggest Day 1 stacks.”

“When a player wins a tournament it gives them an attachment – more confidence and motivation to defend the title,” he continued. “Those types of things add up in a tournament, so the fact that I’ve won this twice meant more to me than I can remember. In terms of focus and preparation – I set out to win.”

Mike Leah Poker Drama

“Momentum and confidence are huge for me,” he added. “I don’t think my game changed that much through the tournament but I had no other idea in my mind but to get to the end of it.”

Mike Leah Poker

“That’s what I try to focus on – only playing tournaments that I want to win,” Leah said. “So I’m motivated to play my best and not just going through the motions. My only goal in this tournament was to win.”