Since someone asked me about Girah...

I generally know what happened, but I really haven't been been following the exact details of the case, so I can't speak to who's misleading who, etc.  For those of you who don't know, some guy hyped himself up as the next big poker super-star by chip dumping (so it looked like he made almost $2mil in a short period of time) and posting under various accounts on 2+2 to have him sound even more awesome.  He even got signed as a pro on a poker site.  He then went ahead and scammed some people out of money by cheating at heads-up games.  Here's an old man's BIG-PICTURE perspective on the situation:

1.  Your reputation and honor are worth more than money (or a cheap thrill/laugh).  All right, maybe for most people only up to a certain point, like 7-9+ figures, but we are not talking about that kind of money here.  You would have to be some kind of whore to be to sell yourself for 6 figures, but that's just me.  I think this should be self-explanatory to most decent people.  Anyway, they did this for 5.  What is below whore?  Girah and Dog-Is-Head are both going to be looked on like Russ Hamilton and Ray Bitar (you still have a chance Ray!) - social outcasts of the poker world for the rest of their lives.  I mean you can't ever show up to another WSOP, or set foot in a major poker room every again without being mocked.  Maybe they just didn't like poker that much.  But even outside of poker, how can you look at yourself in the mirror every morning?

2.  In many arenas, you make more from your image than actually playing that sport.  Many sports stars make more from endorsements and other opportunities outside of their sport than actually playing their sport.  Like Tiger Woods.  Oh yeah - he tainted his image and look at him now.  But whether he was at his peak or trough, he's made waaay more from endorsements.  You don't even have to be that good at what you do - look at Dale Jr. or Anna Kournikova.  So it's just mind-boggling that you get yourself to a place of prominence (as crooked as Girah's methods were) and you decide the best thing to do is to try and cheat people out of a dozen buy-ins.  Because people would never suspect anything - not high stakes poker players, who are trained to look for patterns of unusual play.  For a full-time grinder like I used to be, an endorsement deal could be easily worth 6 figures a year (free rake, tourney sponsorships, etc) for possibly the rest of my life.  Maybe if things work out, you get a sweet deal like Benyamine's where you get get paid $500K a year to eat beignets all day.  The dude just pissed away possibly several million dollars over his lifetime to cheat for some buy-ins.  Wat?!?  O mudo prostituta.

3.  The Spiderman Syndrome:  With great power comes great responisbility.  Poker has an image problem to begin with, and having a high profile douchebag add to yet another unsavory story of poker just tilts me.  Because you know the next time any kind of poker legislation comes up, Girah is going to come up, along with the AP cheating scandal and a host of other stories.  As it is, the most recognized player by the masses is probably Hellmuth.  As awesome as Ivey is at poker, he has a sick degenerate craps and props problem.  Jungleman is tainted with this whole affair.  Can someone please step and be an ambassador and role model for the game?  It's such an awesome game, but many of our most vocal or well known representatives are all douchebags or people who have no self-control. It's kind of like those dudes who work their whole lives to gain a place of prominence in the community (governors, senators, etc) and then they decide the best way to use that power is to call up some hooker or send X-rated photos of yourself to people.  Nice.

If any of you guys ever get that big in poker, my advice to you is, "Don't be a moron.  But if you can't help being a moron, at the very least don't be a whore."