Your blogger takes no responsibility for the truth of this one --- all the facts aren't out yet, and it's one of those stories that the principal party involved is in no hurry to verify. Or to deny, strangely enough.
We'll just go into National Enquirer mode: "Inquiring Minds Want to Know."
The tale at hand surrounds young poker star Gavin Griffin, who, when he won the $3,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event at the 2004 WSOP, became the youngest-ever winner of a WSOP bracelet to that date. The $270,000+ first prize was kinda nice, too. Fame followed fortune; among other things, Griffin dated Jennifer Leigh (a.k.a. "Jennicide") for some time, and basically lived the life of a hot, young studmuffin.
It turns out that hot, young studmuffins still have a weakness, and it shouldn't take you geniuses reading this too long to figure out what it is. Which brings us to a post that appeared on April 10th over at NeverwinPoker, a second-tier poker-discussion forum with a reputation for unrestricted content:
"How I Scammed Gavin Griffin Out of $6,500"
The events actually seem to have occurred during 2005, and are only now --- IF true --- seeing the light of day. The post, made by the now-19-year-old male player from Columbus, Ohio who allegedly perpetrated the scam, details how a chance encounter with Griffin was parlayed into a scam totalling $6,500. But of course, there's more to it than that.
Our scammer (certainly in the first order of online punks), was playing under a female persona, with an apparantly attractive avatar. If the story is true, the scammer then flirted with Griffin, made up some good lies, and eventually received Griffin's private contact information, in addition to a $1,000 "Hello!" cash transfer.
Ever known a crook who wouldn't stop until the well was dry? Well, that's what reportedly happened here. More lies and stories followed, along with a handful of photos (to flesh out the fake persona) taken from a local modeling agency. In return, more money came from the Griffin side. And if our scamming liar's accounts are true, Griffin sent along song photos of his own at one of these later dates.
X-rated photos, according to the story. Heh.
No, we didn't check the photos out ourselves, because like anything else, they can be doctored. But you can find links to the photos and to the scammer's identity over in the trail of posts at NeverwinPoker, should you have that desire. We won't post the scammer's identification here for other reasons, particularly that Griffin himself probably has lots of legal recourses against this tool, no matter whether the allegations themselves are true or not. In any event, this little excerpt adequately captures the scammer/poster's personality:
"I told the motherf****r I needed $1500, and he obliged, transferring it to me over Stars again. That makes the total $4500 and pictures of his penis as of May 11."
Nice. Tool, indeed.
Needless to say, the post took off like wildfire, with some 35 pages of posted replies at this smaller site in just a few days. Included in there was a single post from someone claiming to be "GavinGriffin," but again, one never knows. According to this maybe-Gavin:
"You guys can believe what you want about me, I don't care. But Jenny would like it to be clarified that she did not, in fact, steal any money from me while we were dating. This is the only post regarding this subject that I will be making on any site."
This is a reference to another rumor-laden story regarding Jennifer Leigh, now the ex-girlfriend of Griffin, a frequent poster at this site. But whether it's actually Griffin stating this has yet to be determined; it could be someone having a different type of joke at Griffin's expense.
What we do know is that there is no public statement as yet from Griffin, on the matter of this supposed scam. There's an under-construction site at www.gavingriffin.net that may or may not be for real; we don't know if this is really planned for Griffin's use or if someone else is pulling another form of joke. After all, its only line of text says, "Coming soon."
Ain't going there.
Seriously, if the story is true, than Griffin's got a whole lot of embarrasment on his plate, all for being a little bit too naive about the nature of the Internet. And frankly, for a top-level poker player, he should know better. Nor can Griffin just ignore all the hoopla and hope no one believes the tale: the longer he goes without explicitly denying the story, than the more likely it is to be seen as true. Things could be worse. Maybe that poker condoms site we mentioned a month back might need a celebrity spokesman.
But it's as likely as not that Griffin will speak publicly on the matter at some time in the future, if for no other reason than to clarify his next course of action on the matter, and I mean action in a very legal sense. I preface this with the standard IANAL ("I Am Not A Lawyer") disclaimer, but there's definitely either (a) some wire-fraud/misrepresentation if the story is true, or (b) some slander if the story isn't. Might have (b) in any event, but that'll be seen at a later date.
As for why this blog doesn't list the name of the scammer/poster, it's for many of the same reasons: So much stuff can be faked, it's best to leave it up to the experts to find out exactly who did what; it's also why we can safely assume that it's not just an elaborate ploy on the part of NeverwinPoker to grab some publicity. But assuming that the original poster was making a true and real post, then Griffin isn't the only one in this liasion who's made a serious mistake. Here's how the very-proud scammer concluded his tale:
"Flame away boys, I'm not ashamed. I made $6500 in one month, and all I had to do was social engineer some f***. Much easier than grinding 15/30. Out."
Incredulous. Makes me wonder if any Ohio prisons have inmates named Bubba who have a fondness for soft-assed online poker players. We could see another form of social engineering right soon.
And so we leave this tale for now, though it'll probably blip back onto our radar at some future point. For parting commentary, we wonder what an icon such as Doyle Brunson thinks whenever one of these young scamming punk stories makes the news. He's probably seen it all --- check that, almost all --- already, but it's the quality-of-person aspect that likely gives him pause. Brunson, after all, has always been strongly identified as a man of his word. Here's a sample of Brunson's wisdom on the topic:
"In truth, a professional gambler is among the most honorable of men. I've known a man to walk through four miles of blizzard after his car stalled just to pay a debt on time. I've seen gamblers go hungry to honor a bet even though no pressure was placed on them.
"I shy away from legal contracts. If I can't trust a man's word, than I don't want to do business with him."
--- Doyle Brunson, Poker Wisdom of a Champion
Thanks, Doyle, you give us faith. And remind us that though two players may be in adjacent seats, there may still be miles between them.
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