David “Bakes” Baker Fires Shots at Phil Galfond Over Adding Brian Hastings to Run It Once Coaching Lineup

07:46
18 Apr

David Baker has posted an angry tweet directed at Phil Galfond over the signing of Brian Hastings as an Elite MTT coach. He called Hastings a “cheating scumbag” and asked Galfond to stop him from sending heads-up match requests on TwoPlusTwo.

Hey @PhilGalfond I see you’ve added cheating scumbag @brianchastings to the Run It Once lineup. Can you get him to stop sending me embarrassing PMs on twoplustwo asking for a HU match? It’s not going to unstain his soul and it’s a little tacky imo

— Bakes (@DMBakes) April 6, 2022

This must be quite embarrassing for the Run It Once team given Hastings’ history and the recent social media chatter over punishing cheaters more harshly.

It was Jason Koon who last month tweeted that there should be harsher punishments for anybody cheating at online poker. Now, Hastings sits alongside Koon on the Elite Run It Once roster.

“There need to be higher-stakes repercussions for people who are continually caught cheating at online poker; It is in the best interest of the entire poker community. In my opinion, the major live-tournament stops should share a blacklist of online poker's worst cheaters.”

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What Did Brian Hastings Do?

This is an old story that goes back many years. Everybody knows that multi-accounting is banned on every online poker platform but at the high stakes level it is unthinkably unethical.

The edges among the poker elite are microscopic to begin with, making any accurate reads incredibly important. If a well-known high stakes player is able to turn up with an account that nobody recognises then no reads will be in play for them, but they still have the advantage of what they know.

This is a huge advantage and explains why every time this behaviour has been found out at the top level there has been a massive scandal.,

In the case of Brian Hastings, there have been many accusations involving the infamous “NoelHayes” account. Bakes was one such alleged victim who thought he was playing against the Irish businessman.

Twitch streamer “Ceegee87” said:

“Multi accounted against lots of people who knew him personally including myself. Lost 5 figures vs him HU without knowing it was him.”

The big one, though, has to be Hastings’ participation in the rinsing of more than $4 million from Viktor “Isilidur1” Blom. Along with fellow elite players Brian Townsend, Cole South, Hastings pored over a 50k hand database and took Blom to the cleaners with accurate reads in a monster heads-up session.

Townsend lost his Red Pro status for only a single month and wasn’t allowed to play on Full Tilt Poker for the duration. Pretty pathetic really. Hastings and South simply went about their careers.

It’s not just Brian Hastings who copped it from Baker, however, Ike Haxton also got a written mouthful on the same day as the tweet above.

Haxton was firing shots at Annie Duke before Baker told him he should really sit that one out.

You were a stars team pro who knew about a multi account that cheated me. Never got any restitution. Sit this one out maybe? https://t.co/08pI4kmDy5

— Bakes (@DMBakes) April 6, 2022

Baker said that Ike Haxton knew about what had gone on while he was still a PokerStars Team Pro and didn’t say a thing.

“The cheater (@brianchastings) told Isaac and other high stakes players that he was on a well known UK gamblers account. All of this was kept secret until I found out and outed him. Isaac here hid behind his “contract” to avoid answering tough questions.”