Josh Arieh Identified as Mystery WCOOP 'nitbuster'

[Cal again, with more entertaining tales from poker---]

While the far greater issue of exactly what will happen with the first prize of the still-under-investigation PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker, or WCOOP, remains to be decided, at lost one small mystery was resolved this week. As for the larger story, the million-plus prize won by the 'TheV0id', which is believed to be Mark Teltscher playing under his sister's name, has been frozen pending other account investigations.

As for the smaller mystery, that ensued when the relatively unknown 'nitbuster' was accidentally referred to as "Josh" by Daniel Negreanu during the online webcast commmentary accompanying the WCOOP Main Event final table. While nitbuster went on to finish sixth, the major poker forums quickly lit up with speculation as to the account's real identity. Speculation centered on Arieh.

Arieh confirmed that it was his account in an interview with PokerNews' Steve Horton just a few days later. "I am nitbuster," said Arieh, then detailed how he was allowed to change his name -- not once, but twice -- after an extended run-in with another online player occurring on his old 'ATL Angela' account.

I suppose if you are a Poker Star, downloading and creating a new account is ok under special circumstances.