Roy "The Oracle" Winston Loses His Cool

king is smoking a cigar - telling it the way it is in the world of poker

A few days ago, Roy "The Oracle" Winston made a post on his Cardplayer.com blog titled "Change of Plans".

In the posting, Winston talked about playing in the first FTOPS event. He recounts the third hand of the tournament, in which he was heads-up against the big blind and flopped a straight. Unfortunately for Winston, the big blind flopped a flush and Winston was knocked out of the tournament shortly after.

Winston then went on to say this:

"I know everyone says it only seems like you get the
really sick bad beats and coolers online and it's only because you see
more hands, but still, on the third hand dealt to me flopping the nut
straight against the queen high flush seems a little suspect."

This particular choice of words caused a bit of an uproar online. Was Roy Winston, a "red" Full Tilt pro, actually insinuating that Full Tilt was rigged?

A thread popped up on 2+2 in the News, Views and Gossip section discussing the article and Roy Winston. The thread was mostly hostile towards Winston and his comments, and he took offense.

The next day, Winston fired back, writing a new blog posting titled "Time for the Anonymous to Put Up or Shut Up".

He first mentions that he happened across the 2+2 thread that was discussing his article. He goes on to "clarify" his original comments, saying that his "blogs are written tongue in cheek with lots of fun poked in every direction", and that he actually doesn't think that Full Tilt is rigged - he was just "bummed". He then lashes out at some of the posters on the 2+2 board, saying that they need to "grow up" and "have some guts" and sign their real names to their posts. He goes on to challenge those that called him an "easy" player to a game at the Commerce. He closes the posting with this line:

"I'm pretty sure those of you with the tough words on
2+2 will still be hiding behind your anonymous identities and way too
afraid to play."

The full posting can be found here.

A few free pieces of advice to any prominent poker player - first, don't even joke about sites being rigged in this day and age. We're still recovering from the Ultimatebet and Absolute Poker "superuser" scandals, and people are sensitive to these types of "jokes" for a reason.

Second, developing a thick skin is crucial if you are going to be making public blog posts on a site such as Cardplayer.com. Calling "anonymous" posters out and challenging them to games at the Commerce - probably not such a good idea.

I "read the whole blog" and "took it in context" and didn't think that Winston was joking when he made his original comments, but that's just my opinion. I'm not bashing Winston and I don't want to play him at the Commerce - I'm just saying, choose your words more carefully next time.

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