Embattled online poker phenom Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi continues to struggle with the consequences of his recent actions. As many of online poker players already know, Mizzi and Bluff Magazine Editor Chris Vaughn were recently put on the hot seat with PokerNews staffer John Caldwell regarding their infamous “account swap” at last month’s Full Tilt Poker $1 Million Guarantee. Vaughn cleared up many things regarding his actions, as well as coming clean on allegations that he had initially lied about having anyone take over his account during the tournament.
But what wasn’t clear was how online pro Sorel Mizzi was handling the situation himself. During the interview, Sorel Mizzi, 21-year old professional poker player, expressed a clear disgust for what his actions have caused in the industry, and how the genuineness of the game has been affected by it. “Well, first of all I’d like to come out with an apology, because I know that what I did was wrong. The more I think about it, the more I believe what I did was wrong and it’s something that I want the poker community to know that I would never do again,” said Mizzi. His brief apology concerning the incident comes at a time where his reputation as one of the best online poker players in the world has really come into question.
His brief apology concerning the incident comes at a time where his reputation as one of the best online poker players in the world has really come into question. As more and more people have caught wind of the story over the past few days, it is very apparent that the battle lines of poker’s moral divide have once again been drawn. On one side, you have the online players who feel the situation is being blown out of proportion and that multi-accounting is an acceptable online practice. On the other side are the online players who feel cheated, betrayed, and let down by the very players they look up to. In fact, a lot of the more popular poker forums and blogs on the web has made this topic one of the most read headlines on their respective sites. The discussion about it has been heated, and it’s obvious that the whole ordeal will most likely result in just another standstill — and with no clear-cut winner coming out of it any time soon.
Like JJProdigy and Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo before him, it will be tough to gauge just how much his peers will accept Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi back into the community after his multi-accounting admission. The two before him were stuck in very similar circumstances, and while JJ has all but fallen off the planet since being caught, Justin Bonomo has been rebuilding nicely since his scandal, going deep and final tabling numerous live events on the WPT and WSOP circuits.
The young Mizzi admits that he simply just “made a mistake and is trying to put it all behind him and move forward.” Where he goes from here is unknown, but what is known is that his error in judgment cost him more than just his pride and dignity. The entire debacle also cost him any realistic chance of winning the 2007 Online Poker Player of the Year award — something many people believed he was a favorite to win until he and Chris Vaughn were discovered by Full Tilt’s security team. This writer can only hope that history doesn’t repeat itself yet again…
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