WSOP investigating potential collusion in Millionaire Maker event - ESPN

The World Series of Poker is investigating the winner and runner-up in its $1,500 Millionaire Maker event that concluded on Wednesday in Las Vegas.

Going into heads-up play at Wednesday night's final table of bracelet Event 53, James Carroll commandingly led Jesse Yaginuma with a 9-1 chip lead. Yaginuma completed the comeback to win the event, taking home $1.26 million. Carroll earned $1 million for second place.

A comeback of that kind isn't out of the question, but the manner in which the chips exchanged hands raised questions. Many of the hands won by Yaginuma came in the form of raises or reraises that were continually not contested by Carroll. Viewers of the event's livestream, including a number of professional poker players, began to speculate that Carroll was chip dumping to Yaginuma — intentionally losing hands to build up his opponent's stack — so that the two could split some portion of the prize money. Unlike many other poker tournament series around the world where players can negotiate a deal between themselves, it is against the WSOP official rules to act in this manner.

WSOP official rules state: «Collusion is defined as any agreement between or among two (2) or more Participants to engage in illegal or unethical acts against other Participants. Collusion includes, but is not limited to, acts such as: chip dumping; soft play; sharing card information with another Participant; sending or receiving signals from or to another Participant; the use of electronic communication with the intent to facilitate collusion; and any other act that Host Properties deem inappropriate. 1. Chip dumping is defined as any agreement between or among two (2) or more Participants for one or more of the Participants to bet chips