Allen Kessler Causes Twitter Storm After Criticising Record of Jans “Graftekkel” Arends

07:52
16 Nov

Allen Kessler has caused a storm on Twitter after questioning the tournament record of high stakes crusher Jans “Graftekkel” Arends. The pair got into a spat over a comment Arends made because of Kessler’s complaining about a bad beat in a WSOPE event, calling his opponent a “loser Euro.”

---

Bad Beat or Not?

The hand was a bit of a non-entity. Kessler shoved an unknown stack in the unopened small blind with KTo and the big blind called off more than half his stack with Q8o, winning the hand when an eight came on the flop. Not really worth much of a complaint, as verified by people posting GTO sims showing it as a call for some stack sizes.

Nobody would have given the bad beat story much of a second thought but the “loser Euro” tag set Jans Arends off who posted a pointed reply to Kessler.

“Fifty something year old low stakes tourney reg with male pattern baldness living off of casino comps, but sure the guy calling Q8 is a loser”

Surprisingly, Arends was roundly attacked for his tone and yet there wasn’t a single mention of the remark about the other player being a “loser Euro.”

Kessler then posted Arends’ live tournament record, obviously having no idea who he is other than seeing he advertises as a high stakes coach.

Arends quickly posted the following tweet.

---

Online Results Not Respected?

Now, this is where the conversation took an unexpected turn. Jans Arends has millions of dollars in online MTT results but Kessler flatly refused to accept online results are meaningful.

“I don't use online results as a comparison. I don't trust any of it. Sorry if that's your crutch to fall back on.”

Someone even posted Arends’ PokerStars profit graph.

Kessler replied:

“Lol so the guy is an online crusher. No proof it's even him that plays or doesn't have assistance. Where's his "high stakes" live results?”

Amazingly, Kessler doubled down on his opinion saying online tournament players have no right to criticise live players, even with somebody pointing out that Arends is a top 10 player online.

The mocking then took on a life of its own.

Arends did his best to keep a civil tone after his initial post and offered Kessler the chance to crossbook at next year’s WSOP.

“Allen if you are serious btw, can I interest you in a crossbook for WSOP next summer? you can pick the terms / what you want to include etc”

“Ok so what about we xbook all mutually played no limit events? 25% wity 250k cap? or whatever amount you like. Would need to escrow with someone reputable”

This all got a little out of hand over one comment and snowballed into something it didn’t deserve to. Allen Kessler, for all the flak he takes on Twitter, is respected in the poker community even if his delivery of complaints could be a lot smoother. Maybe a mixed games with NL heads-up challenge should be the answer!